#dinaw mengestu

[ekute-ile]

Book 33, 2022: 'How to Read The Air' by Dinaw Mengestu.

Jonas. America. Ethiopia. Relationship. Parents. Partner. The past. Family history.

Weltanschauung.

#bookpost #book #bookporn #ethiopia #dinaw mengestu

[fascinomae]

Dinaw Mengestu On Writing

Authors’ reflections on the craft of writing from my curated collection of literary quotes. Discover insights and inspiration for your writing at RolandoAndresRamos.com

View On WordPress

#amwriting #Inspiration #Quotes #Writer #Writerscommunity #WritersonWordpress #Writing #writingcommunity #writinginspiration #writingtips

[tasteoftheforbidden]

Believe that a good writing day can be one passed entirely in silence, with hours spent staring at a blank screen, or glaring at a single word or paragraph, knowing there is nothing you can add or change at that particular moment. Listening is writing's occasionally overlooked and undervalued companion, and when not clacking away at the keyboard, comes the chance to sit in sometimes awkward, sometimes painful silence with the characters and world you’ve struggled to create. Even if not a single word is written, you have shown up, you’ve affirmed the simple fact that you care and have the patience to endure.

~ Dinaw Mengestu

#writing #fanfiction #quotes

[badatwritingstuff]

#b@ws #magic eraser #the beautiful things that heaven bears #dinaw mengestu

[simon--ferocious]

There is something unsettling about spring in D.C., a cautionary tale of overindulgence and inflated expectations that seems embedded in the grass and in the trees. I thought I had long since learned to keep those expectations in check, but it happens anyway, doesn’t it? We forget who we are and where we came from, and in doing so, believe we are entitled to much more than we deserve.

Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

#the beautiful things that heaven bears #dinaw mengestu #2007 #quotes #literature #american lit #washington dc

[loveinquotesposts]

https://loveinquotes.com/no-one-will-ever-have-loved-each-other-more-than-we-did-%e2%80%95-dinaw-mengestu-all-our-names/

No one will ever have loved each other more than we did. ― Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names

#AllOurNames, #AllOurNamesQuotes, #DinawMengestu, #DinawMengestuDinawMengestuLoveQuotes, #DinawMengestuQuotes, #DinawMengestuLoveQuotes

#All Our Names #All Our Names quotes #Dinaw Mengestu #Dinaw Mengestu Dinaw-Mengestu-love quotes #Dinaw Mengestu quotes #Dinaw-Mengestu-love quotes #LoveQuotes

[les-toupies-h]

Dinaw Mengestu

#Dinaw Mengestu #écrivain éthiopien #Les belles choses que porte le ciel

[deadpanwalking]

do you have any book or poetry recs about the relationship between immigrant mothers and their kids? i've started night sky with exit wounds and i really like it so far.

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel and Petropolis by Anya Ulinich

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Typical American and Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire

#toni morrison's beloved isn't technically an immigrant story but every instinct i posses tells me otherwise so 🤷‍♂️ #i haven't read jimmy sanitago baca yet but a lot of people seem to like him #listen this is my favorite subgenre of immigration literature and i could probably incapacitate 3000 dashboards if i went on #also if you haven't yet DO read on earth we're briefly gorgeous! #i read much of the night and go south in the winter #anonymous #assbox

[loveisbraveandwild]

2020 reads

conversations with friends, sally rooney (¼)

dear edward, ann napolitano (1/24)

the possible world, liese o’halloran schwarz (2/12)

inside the battle of algiers, zohra drif (2/18)

rage becomes her: the power of women’s anger, soraya chemaly (2/24)

finding time: the economic of work-life conflict, heather boushey (3/2)

the other america: poverty in the united states, michael harrington (3/30)

guest house for young widows: among the women of isis, azadeh moaveni (4/8)

odyssey to the north, mario bencastro (4/12)

when they call you a terrorist: a black lives matter memoir, patrisse khan-cullers and asha bandele (4/16)*

the perks of being a wallflower, stephen chbosky (4/17)*

what doesn’t kill you makes you blacker, damon young (4/20)

the great gatsby, f. scott fitzgerald (4/21)*

my sister, the serial killer, oyinkan braithwaite (4/24)

i’m fine… and other lies, whitney cummings (4/25)

promise me, dad, joe biden (4/27)

i will always write back: how one letter changed two lives, caitlin alifirenka and martin ganda (4/29)

the opposite of loneliness, marina keegan (4/30)*

the giver, lois lowry (5/9)

little weirds, jenny slate (5/10)

all the bright places, jennifer niven (5/12)

little fires everywhere, celeste ng (5/14)

the cure for lonely, jessica thummel (5/16)

why i’m no longer talking to white people about race, reni eddo-lodge (5/19)

me, earl, and the dying girl, jesse andrews (5/23)

red, white, and royal blue, casey mcquiston (5/27)

on the come up, angie thomas (6/13)

the color purple, alice walker (6/16)

true grit, charles portis (6/18)*

speak, laurie halse anderson (6/18)

eleanor oliphant is completely fine, gail honeyman (6/24)

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo, taylor jenkins reid (6/29)

untamed, glennon doyle (7/1)

heartstopper, alice oseman (7/2)

know my name, chanel miller (7/5)

the beautiful things that heaven bears, dinaw mengestu (7/7)

the year of magical thinking, joan didion (7/8)

the hunger games, suzanne collins (7/11)*

catch and kill: lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators, ronan farrow (7/13)

periods gone public: taking a stand for menstrual equity, jennifer weiss-wolf (7/15)

catching fire, suzanne collins (7/18)

mockingjay, suzanne collins (7/20)

lord of the flies, william golding (7/25)

the vanishing half, brit bennet (7/26)

just mercy: a story of justice and redemption, bryan stevenson (7/28)

simon snow book 2: wayward song, rainbow rowell (8/15)

where the crawdads sing, delia owens (9/1)

circe, madeline miller (9/5)

sharp objects, gillian flynn (9/7)

such a fun age, kiley reid (9/10)

daisy jones and the six, taylor jenkins reid (9/11)

conviction, denise mina (9/16)

this is how you lose her, junot díaz (9/17)

how to behave in a crowd, camille bordas (9/29)

white fragility: why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism, robin diangelo (9/30)

the ballad of songbirds and snakes, suzanne collins (10/4)

harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone, j. k. rowling (10/6) *

someone we know, shari lapena (10/7)

where’d you go, bernadette, maria semple (10/8)

beach read, emily henry (10/10)

all adults here, emma straub (10/13)

one true loves, taylor jenkins reid (10/15)

maybe in another life, taylor jenkins reid (10/19)

i wish you all the best, mason deaver (10/20)

furia, yamile saied méndez (10/22)

after i do, taylor jenkins reid (10/23)

don’t look back, karin fossum (10/24)

charlotte’s web, e.b. white (11/2)*

room, emma donoghue (11/4)

wit’s end, karen joy fowler (11/5)

the midnight library, matt haig (11/5)

forever, interrupted, taylor jenkins reid (11/6)

mary poppins, p.l. travers (11/7)*

a plague of prisons: the epidemiology of mass incarceration in america, ernest drucker (11/10)

the last story of mina lee, nancy jooyoun kim (11/13)

ask again, yes, mary beth keane (12/3)

the girls, emma cline (12/9)

the importance of music to girls, lavinia greenlaw (12/13)

the guest list, lucy foley (12/15)

harry potter and the chamber of secrets, j.k. rowling (12/15)*

matilda, roald dahl (12/17)*

harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban, j.k. rowling (12/17)*

homegoing, yaa gyasi (12/18)

play it as it lays, joan didion (12/19)

the thing around your neck, chimamanda ngozi adichie (12/20)

the time traveler’s wife, audrey niffeneggar (12/23)*

#sfl

[imnothinginparticular]

#finishedbooks The Penguin Book of Migration Literature edited by Dohra Ahmad. This stood out on the shelf at the library since Penguin books are quite rare there, so like a Criterion Collection film...why not? This is a collection of short stories, poetry, and excerpts from novels around the theme of migration that is broken into four parts: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, and Returns. Found this relative and important for two reasons: the first more personal in that I have lived the majority of my adult life as an immigrant in Japan and a bit in Sweden, and the second with xenophobia on the rise a book like this is important because it addresses the bankruptcy of empathy...which I guess is ironic as the very act of reading fiction is a process empathy. But at the heart of all these stories is the question of one's home...is it where you were born, or where you die? Is it where you currently are or where you are going? I recall a poet once said that "our feet may leave, but not our hearts", while Baldwin called home "not a place but simply an irrevocable condition." I always felt more naturally inclined to this because in the US I always felt like an outsider/second class that every job interviewer and police officer has shown me since a teenager, but found solace in Japan because I could never not be an outsider. The fact that I shouldn't be an outsider in the US but am has always been harder to accept, as Morrison said in her Nobel Lecture, "What is it to have no home in this place. To be set adrift from the one you knew. What it is to live at the edge of towns that cannot bear your company." With that the book features writers as disparate as Zadie Smith and Claude McKay to Julie Otsuka and Phillis Wheatley but just really well curated. The heartbreak of Edwidge Danticat's "Children of the Sea" about a group escaping a coup via boat in the Caribbean to the US carries a the passage, "Since there are no mirrors, we look at each others faces to see just how frail and sick we are starting to look." To Dinaw Mengestu's "An Honest Exit" about a professor who may or may not be telling the truth about his father's life to now captivated students where in his story his father is cynically advised "tell them you were fighting against communism and they will love you." Or the Hanif Kurieshi's "My Son the Fanatic" of a father who's son is becoming a jihadist and can't comprehend it as their life in the UK is everything he dreamed of. Just a timely book and great collection.

#finishedbooks

[sexualpiscesgirl]

Current Read; The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

[foreverlostinliterature]

2/6 Book Deals

Good morning, everyone! I hope you’re have a wonderful week! I’m back again with some books on sale, and today it seems like there is a pretty nice selection today, so definitely take a look. Assassin’s Apprentice and The Lies of Locke Lamora are always good options to check out if you haven’t! :)  Have a great day, everyone!

Today’s Deals:

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb - https://amzn.to/2GYGoZ3

Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All by Various Authors - https://amzn.to/386p0NM

Conceal, Don't Feel by Jen Calonita - https://amzn.to/3858rBV

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu - https://amzn.to/31wG11b

The Hidden Flower by Pearl S. Buck - https://amzn.to/2vdqdUV

The Search for the Green River Killer: The True Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer by Carlton Smith & Tomas Guillen - https://amzn.to/31wqbnc

The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell - https://amzn.to/2SnZhKf

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - https://amzn.to/2Uw1rKE

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey - https://amzn.to/373Q6E7

Traitor’s Blade (Greatcoats Bk. 1) by Sebastien de Castell - https://amzn.to/3878Vrh

Behind the Mask: The Story of Jane Seymour by Angela Warwick - https://amzn.to/384Py27

NOTE:  I am categorizing these book deals posts under the tag #bookdeals, so if you don’t want to see them then just block that tag and you should be good. I am an Amazon affiliate in addition to a Book Depository affiliate and will receive a small (but very much needed!)  commission on any purchase made through these links.

#bookdeals #booksale #robin hobb #assassin's apprentice #henry viii #anne boleyn #locke lamora #scott lynch #the lies of locke lamora #traitor's blade #sebastien de castell

[bountyofbeads]

Obama Shares His Summer Reading List https://nyti.ms/2H5uflG

Obama Shares His Summer Reading List

The former president recommended new books by Téa Obreht and Colson Whitehead, as well as well-known works by Hilary Mantel and Toni Morrison.

By Arit John | Published August 14, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 16, 2019 |

Former President Barack Obama shared his summer reading list on social media on Wednesday, offering a mix of novels, short story collections and nonfiction for anyone, in his words, “looking for some suggestions.”

The list covers both new releases and older works from authors such as Téa Obreht, Colson Whitehead, Ted Chiang, Haruki Murakami, Dinaw Mengestu and Hilary Mantel. Mr. Obama started with an invitation to read works by the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, who died last week at the age of 88.

“Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Sula, everything else — they’re transcendent, all of them,” he wrote. “You’ll be glad you read them.” The former president presented the author with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Mr. Obama’s interest in reading has been well documented. The former New York Times chief book critic Michiko Kakutani reported at the end of Mr. Obama’s presidency that he would read for about an hour on most nights. Mr. Obama said that reading fiction left him “better able to imagine what’s going on in the lives of people throughout my presidency.”

He shared recommendations for books and movies throughout his presidency and has continued the tradition after leaving office. Last summer, he posted a more academic list of nonfiction works to his Facebook page. At the end of the year he released a list of his favorite works of 2018. His wife Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming” topped the list.

In the reading list he shared on Wednesday, Mr. Obama continued to promote a diverse group of writers, many of whom focus on issues of race, immigration, gender and class.

“I am deeply honored to be on @BarackObama’s summer reading list, and more than a little nostalgic for a president who values reading,” the author Lauren Wilkinson wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Obama wrote that Ms. Wilkinson’s “American Spy,” her debut novel about a black female secret agent, is “a whole lot more than just a spy thriller, wrapping together the ties of family, of love, and of country.”

The list also includes “The Nickel Boys,” Mr. Whitehead’s fictionalized account of the state-run Dozier School for Boys, where dozens of students were tortured. Mr. Whitehead was among a handful of novelists, along with Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Junot Díaz and Dave Eggers, whom Mr. Obama invited to a luncheon at the end of his presidency.

Stephanie Land’s recent memoir, “Maid,” which chronicles her time as a single mother and cleaner, offers an “unflinching look at America’s class divide” and “a reminder of the dignity of all work,” according to Mr. Obama.

“I’m so dead rn,” Ms. Land wrote on Twitter in response to the list. “I can’t believe I get a chance to be on this list with these very incredible writers.”

President Obama recommends Téa Obreht, Lauren Wilkinson, and more for your late summer reading.

This afternoon, on Facebook, President Barack Obama posted one of his periodic reading lists, updating us all on the books—new and old—that he’s been reading and enjoying this summer.

Another memoir, Hope Jahren’s “Lab Girl,” follows both the writer’s personal journey to becoming a scientist and her work on the secret life of plants. In her 2016 review of the work, Ms. Kakutani called it “a book that, at its best, does for botany what Oliver Sacks’s essays did for neurology.”

Here’s the full summer reading list, with links to reviews:

The collected works of Toni Morrison

“The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead

“Exhalation” by Ted Chiang

“Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel

“Men Without Women” by Haruki Murakami

“American Spy” by Lauren Wilkinson

“The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr

“Lab Girl” by Hope Jahren

“Inland” by Téa Obreht

“How to Read the Air” by Dinaw Mengestu

“Maid” by Stephanie Land

#literature #nature #thanks obama #obama legacy #barack obama #summer #us politics #politics #sunday reads #must reads #long reads #currently reading #reading #news #latest news

[reading-by-the-sea]

“I could make out the faces of every person in every car. None of them were going to arrive at any destination soon. They were going to be late for their dinners and their meetings. If I could have, I would have told each of them that it was okay. There was nothing to be done. This was the way the world worked. Some days you floated through, others you merely had to endure.”

— Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

#the beautiful things that heaven bears #dinaw mengestu #quotes #reading

[opulentquotes]

A bird stuck between two branches gets bitten on both wings.

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

#The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears #Dinaw Mengestu #quote #lit #literature #Bishop

[bookish-thinking]

Review: “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears” by Dinaw Mengestu

I did not quite know what to make of this book. Nothing really happens ... It is so laid back, so boring. The main characters are almost sluggish, there is no development, they are losers compared to other immigrant rags-to-riches or romance stories. And maybe that was the whole point - a more realistic and therefore mold-breaking immigrant story. But it was boring and depressing. Some of the usual topics appear briefly, but none of it is fleshed out or has any meaning. This novel could have been so many things - while still not adhering to the standard story type - a rags to riches story, a Bildungsroman, a romance novel, a crime story - but it was none of those things. On top of that, it was playing around on different time lines without always making quite clear which time line we were currently on, which added to the confusion. So yes, this was a disappointment.

#dinaw mengestu #the beautiful things that heaven bears #immigrant story #book review