Books in conversation
Last night I opened Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl on the Kindle app. I read for far too long wondering what happened to her best friend who wasn’t really her best friend that she met at the improv class in Chicago. Did I dream her? Did I hallucinate an entire chapter? That I was in the middle of?
No.
It very slowly dawned on me that the tone was different and oh! this wasn’t that book at all. This was my nighttime book and I was confusing it for one of my daytime books.
In this case the delineation is based solely on the format. I have yet to find my perfect book light fit, so in bed, it’s kindle or kindle app on my phone. During the day I have more freedom and light so I can more easily read paper books. Here I have my owned books- hello reading in the bath, and then library books- precious borrowed gifts that must be protected at all costs.
Currently I am reading:
Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna (Libby skip the line)
I Shouldn’t be Telling You This by Chelsea Devantez (bought it, haven’t dropped it in the tub yet.)
Reading the Room by Paul Yamazaki (Local library copy)
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (bought it 500 years ago)
Austin Kleon reads multiple books at a time and often writes about the way they end up in conversation together so when I read Paul Yamazaki talking about displayed books being in conversation with each other fireworks went off in my brain in a very exciting explosive connecting party.
Rebel Girl and I Shouldn’t be Telling You This are not all that different, but enough that my momentary mixing up of the two surprised me. Maybe that is the point though. One is marketed as moving and funny, the other…is not. But they are both centered around young women making their way in the world, in a society that doesn’t value them for much beyond their bodies. They make shit happen and have strong women around them. I’m excited to see where the conversation goes from here.
I’d been dipping in and out of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind for a while when I picked up Reading the Room. In the forward I came across a simple note that the book is orally transcribed and how anyone who knows Mr. Yamazaki will recognize him in these pages. “There are places where you can even hear his laugh.” After typing this I had to double check that it wasn’t actually from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. That’s how much they are connected for me. But these, as opposed to the first two, appear nothing alike. Reading the Room amounts to 24 hours spent in the company of the head book buyer at City Lights in San Francisco. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is “informal talks on Zen meditation and practice.” Yes, you can probably see a connection, but would you if they didn’t exist here in this space together?
One more thing about Reading the Room, it may be one of the most important books I’ve read this year. More to come on that.