Tag: essays

#20 300 Arguments by Sarah Manguso

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So many dog-eared pages in this little book, so many bite-sized gems.

“The first beautiful songs you hear tend to stay beautiful because better than beauty, which is everywhere, is the memory of first discovering beauty.”

And.

“I don’t love writing; I love having a problem I believe I might someday write my way out of.”

And.

“I used to avoid people when I was afraid I loved them too much. Ten years, in one case. Then, after I had been married long enough that I was married even in my dreams, I became able to go to those people, to feel that desire, and to know that it would stay a feeling.”

And.

“Like a vase, a heart breaks once. After that, it just yields to its flaws.”

I loved this book so much I went out and bought Manguso’s Ongoingness: The End of A Diary.

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#12 Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

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“It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings.” -Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark.

A necessary read for engagement, action, perseverance, and, yes, hope in the current political state.

#9 We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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22738563We Should All Be Feminists is the book/essay that grew out of Adichie’s TEDx talk of the same name.

The premise? We should all be feminists. It’s really that simple. Adichie argues a case for feminism with personal stories, using her own experiences as a lens to examine gender inequalities and sexual politics. It’s a breezy 30-minute read.

Oh, and have you read Adichie’s Americanah? Go read it. It’s GREAT.