Title: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Author: Junot Díaz
Genre: Fiction

Three word review: Bad ass book.

What? You need more. Sucker. Alright. This is maybe the book of my generation and if not my generation then it’s the book of My People. It mixes languages, genres, styles, influences, fact and fiction, history and future, science and supernatural. It’s like us. It’s fantastic. Also like us.

Note: I wrote the above text last week immediately before entering family crisis mode. I planned to write more about how much I loved Oscar Wao but that’s going to have to suffice. Believe me when I tell you to buy and read this book now. Particularly if you are one of my people. 

Title: Tales of the City
Author: Armistead Maupin
Genre: Fiction

This is a very fluffy fun book that’s almost like an sociological study into the 70s. Granted, live in San Francisco in 1976 was probably very, very different than life in middle America in 1976 so it would a sociological survey either way. In any case some of the stuff from this era in American history has not survive because I found myself going “What the?” because I had no idea what the author was talking about. And these are cultural things like tv shows and artists and I consider myself up on American pop culture from all generations.

This is another book I read aloud to B. While I enjoyed it I didn’t enjoy it that much. She did though so now we’ve purchased the next two in the series to read. We’ll see if I enjoy those more.