Books acquired: “Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers,” Riverside Art Museum; “Shot in the Heart,” Mikal Gilmore; “Good-bye to All That,” Robert Graves
Books read: “Letters to My City,” Mike Sonksen; “Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers,” Riverside Art Museum; “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou
For 2024’s second month, I decided to chip away at the backlog of books given to me by friends, writers or publishers. This was a good plan. But although I read three, three more arrived (one of which I managed to read the same month). So the month was a little like running in place, but at least I didn’t fall further behind, right?
Here’s what I read:
“Letters to My City” (2019; revised 2023): A winning combination of L.A. neighborhood histories (Florence-Firestone, South Central, North Long Beach and others), tributes (to Huell Howser, a beloved teacher, the 562 area code) and poetry, some of which lists streets, writers or cities by name, a la Chuck Berry, to great effect. “Who’s rockin’ the populace in the postmodern metropolis? LA authors.” Third-generation Angeleno Sonksen loves LA’s present as much as he does its past, a rare and welcome thing. As a prose writer, he’s an enthusiastic amateur, but he’s earnest and he pays close attention. I like and admire this book. (Copy sent to me in December 2023 by the author.)
“Collidoscope” (2024): This is a museum catalog for one of the opening exhibits from the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture in Riverside in 2022, with overall and detail photos of the pieces as well as some text about Einar and Jamex de la Torre, who live and work on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Their glass sculptures and lenticular art (think of 3-D baseball cards) are often silly or scatological and sometimes evoke wonder with their panoramic sweep and myriad of details. (Copy sent to me by the museum.)
“Caged Bird” (1969): Angelou’s first memoir, this tells the story of her childhood, bouncing between locales and parents/grandparents, as seen through a child’s eyes and memory, with some pieces unknown or only guessed at. Generous, warm, well-observed and the funnier and more vivid for it, and sometimes shocking. I listened to the audiobook, which is read by Angelou, effectively, although I sped it up to 1.25 because she read so deliberately. (Copy bought in September 2023 at Pasadena’s Octavia’s Bookshelf with a gift card, but primarily read via a library borrow of the audiobook.)
I can’t really recommend “Collidoscope,” unless you saw the exhibit and want a memento, but the other two books might interest you, and surely I don’t need to tell you that “Caged Bird” is a modern classic. You may well have read it yourself.
Two other gift books were in progress during February, but I didn’t get them read in time. One was finished March 2, after I wrote the bulk of this post and had uploaded the photos. But there’s no rush; it can wait for my March Reading Log. Since I expect to only get to three or four books, I’m going to make that another gift-book month. And it’s my birthday month, which will mean — more gift books!
I’m looking forward to April and May, when I can get back to some pre-pandemic books. In the meantime, what did you all read during February? Let us know in the comments.
Next month: “Station Eleven” and more.