Listened to the audio for this. The narration was wonderful. The story itself is very dark, but I was pretty invested. Not my typical kind of book but I thought the characterization of the two main characters was very well done.

The first portion of this book is very reminiscent of The Microbe Hunters if you have by chance read that. Past that, this is a very engaging look at medical and pharmacological breakthroughs that have happened accidentally. I enjoyed it!

The tone and structure of this reminded me a lot of The Hate U Give. I’d recommend this highly if you were invested in that story. the book is inspired by a real, horrific event that has been repurposed to talk about the Islamophobia that is upsettingly still so prevalent in the US.

This is a really thought provoking, complex short book about the nature of war. How war affects civilians and how violence is internalized over a lifetime. The book begins in Holland at the very end of World War II. There are a lot of mediocre books written about WW2, I did not find this to be one of them.

It’s extremely well written, the plot seems simple but has more turns than one would expect.

I’d recommend it if you enjoy fiction with a philosophical bent.

For a collection of primary sources, this was extremely engaging. This collection of songs, testimony, and elegies recollect the fall of Mexico at the hands of Cortes. It's pretty upsetting to read but León-Portilla weaves a thread of hope into the end as he reflects on the resilience of the Nahuatl, that they lived to tell their tale.

I didn't love all the poems in this collection, but there were a few real gems. America and Argentina are terrific, and I see them reprinted fairly often. I loved this one, there were two great poems about November in this collection.

Catechism for November

In the movie theater one night, you whispered,
‘It is easier to watch than to live,’
and on the street outside, you thought,’
If this was a book, I would skip this part.’

Remember when you opened the fortune cookie in March?
It said, ‘Ideology is bad for you.’
Remember when you called Anabelle
'an encyclopedia of self-perpetuating pain?’

On Tuesday you said, ‘I’m a small wooden boat,
adrift in the space between storms,’
and on Wednesday you said, ‘I should go to the park more often.’

Then you killed the spider with the heel of your shoe,
and said, ‘I can’t take care of all sentient beings!’

But when the girl with pink hair brought her sniffles to class,
you found a Kleenex in your purse for her.

This is how it happens: one at a time,
the minutes come out of the box where they were hidden:
the witty ones with yellow feathers;
the thick gray ones with no horizon.

But once you swore, ‘I want to see it all, unsentimentally.’
Once you wrote in your green notebook,
‘Let me start in the middle, again.’

This is a pretty good short novel about a doomed relationship between a British doctor and a German dancer.

This is such a goofy, fun book.

Also, #goals:

“'I won't do it! I can't do it! I'll be hanged if I'll do it! How on earth can I dress up like that? Do you realize that most days I don't get out of my pyjamas till five in the after-noon, and then I just put on an old sweater?"

This was an interesting historical / sociological treatise on just how entrenched drinking is in American culture. I found it illuminating but it was very, very repetitive.

Not all of the poems hit but the ones that do really, really do.