If you're looking for a book that you can dip in and out of over the course of several days (or weeks if you're me) then I recommend you check out The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers. Organized by theme, this book features many writers of different genres. There are poets, essayists, lecturers, novelists, ministers, and teachers to name just a few. The common theme (besides their gender and race) is that they are advocates for equality of the races and sexes. I found that this book was an excellent conversation starter especially if you want to talk about tough topics like economic and social equality coupled with the history of the Americas. It's also an excellent way to discover writers that you may have never heard of as many of them are quite niche. As you might surmise, the topics covered in this collection are quite deep and therefore as a whole it's an emotionally and mentally exhausting enterprise. It's well worth the effort though. It's astonishing to me just how many of these women I had never heard of but when they were originally writing their voices were strong, no-holds-barred, and topical (most are relevant even today). The truths spoken are hard to accept because the topics are still so ingrained and fresh in the memory of our country. It's another reminder that we should continually be expanding our minds and looking beyond what we already 'know'. Embrace learning about new things! 9/10 and only lost that point because by 1/2 way through I was having to hype myself up to pick it back up again.

What I'm Currently Reading: Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything by E. Lockhart

Note: this is "no rating," not "zero stars."

This is actually quite a short essay collection, clocking in at 164 pages in my edition; those hundreds of additional pages are all made up of supplemental materials and literary criticism. I would consider myself someone who loves to read about writing - hence spending time on book sites - but I don't set out to spend more time reading about a text than reading the text itself. And the pomposity of academic criticism makes it difficult to get through, so in the end, I just read Du Bois's text and skimmed a couple of the other pieces.

But that total page count (374 in my edition) is more representative of how long this book will take you, because the writing is dense. They just don't write like this anymore. If Du Bois was alive today, the only way he could get this type of work published would be blogging. But this book was apparently a great success when published, despite not being nearly so easily digestible as we expect today. And it is still quite influential; I finally had to read it because I kept seeing it quoted around in other works. As it turns out, Du Bois's description of the psychological effects of belonging to a scorned minority group apply to quite a lot of people in addition to African-Americans.

There's a lot to recommend this book, from a historical perspective and for its insight into people in general and into race relations in the U.S. It's an interesting work to read more than 100 years after its publication, because on one page you'll think, "Wow, seriously? At least we solved thatproblem," and on the next, "Hmm, that hasn't really changed much at all."

I have a bias for narratives, so my favorite piece was the one short story, "Of the Coming of John." My least favorite pieces were the ones that chronicled the author's observations after spending a short amount of time in some rural place, or that expound at length at an issue that seems obvious today (arguing that black students should be able to attend either liberal arts colleges or trade schools depending on aptitude, vs. Booker T. Washington's campaign to build only trade schools). It's all educational, but some pieces are certainly more interesting than others. I do recommend it - despite being a classic it is still timely - but you'll need some patience. I'm sorry not to have read this in school, since the classroom seems like the ideal setting for it.

I love this book. Holy cow. I don't even think I can put it into words, so let me just quote you some junk instead:

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing, until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men."

"When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another."

"She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was."

"Please God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me. Maybe Ah'm is uh fool, Lawd, lak dey say, but Lawd, Ah been so lonesome, and Ah been waitin', Jesus. Ah done waited uh long time."