James says, "With my pencil, I wrote myself into being." He must do this. Telling the truth of his history and therefore his people is visceral and crucial to their existence. He owes it to himself and to all the others like him. In primis he owes it to young George who stole the pencil …
Category: social issues
Martyr
How to live and die with a bang? Life, so consistently inconsistent; un tameable and un frameable. Yet, the protagonist agonizes over the why and the how to live a worthy life and how to die a worthy death. Kaveh Akbar is naturally "cool" while boldly honest in addressing some of the biggest topics out …
Mobile inheritance
All That She Carried, by Tiya Miles, revolves around a cotton sack from the mid-1800s and its contents. The contents, save one, aren't even particularly exceptional: a tattered dress, a lock of hair, three handfuls of pecans. And love. The worn cotton sack was embroidered, in 1921, by the person who it belonged to at …
Sharing book titles
The Courage Of Hopelessness by Slavoj Zizek is a necessary read. Tackling our troubled times from the point of view of hopelessness.The author forcefully suggests that once we can all admit to this state, rather than ignore minimize or live in false hope that it will all right itself or go away, only then can …
Feeling bad can be good
Regret, sadness, embarrassment mixed with astonishment, joy, euphoria mixed with disappointment, jealousy, anger and a slew of nuanced emotions in between is probably where most of humanity sits in the 'feelings' department. Yet, this state is starkly opposite to a world that flogs the need to be 100% happy 24/7 and where being happy is …
Manu writes 