Quickies: I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying & Simon the Fiddler

I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying by Bassey Ikpi Format: PaperbackPages: 257Source: Library What it is: A series of essays detailing the author’s immigration from Nigeria to the United States as a young child. As she gets older, she struggles with self-destructive behaviors, a complicated relationship with her mother, and bouts of severe depression; she’s later diagnosed with

This Will Be My Undoing

I received an advance copy This Will Be My Undoing a couple of months ago, but then life happened and I didn’t get a chance to dive in until the week it went on sale. Unbeknownst to me, at the same time, there was a bit of a storm brewing on Twitter over some of

That Other Me

Greetings from Dubai! I was here last month but didn’t get to post this because I was too busy sightseeing during the few hours I had during my layover. Now I’m here again, slowly making my way back home. Today’s book is by Maha Gargash, who was born and currently lives in Dubai. This is

Bad Feminist

On my first night in Naples, I went out to dinner with some kids (the thing about backpacking as a thirty-something is that almost all of the other backpackers are at least a decade younger than you). We were at a restaurant, and somehow the conversation briefly turned to “real feminists,” which, to the guy in our

The Free

Leroy Kervin is an Iraq war veteran with a traumatic brain injury. He’s been living in a group home for years now, unable to feed or care for himself. He wakes up one night with uncharacteristic clarity and he’s able to see it all: his life now vs. the life he had long ago built