![]() Selected entries begin in 1965, when Walker was a 21-year-old student at Sarah Lawrence College, and cover more than five decades of personal events, like her marriage to a white Jewish lawyer in 1960s Mississippi, artistic achievements like winning the Pulitzer Prize, and drawing ire at numerous points for her work and activism. (Boyd honored me in 2019 by asking me to join her in planning Walker’s 75th birthday celebration in her hometown of Eatonton, Georgia.) The esteem and affection that connected Boyd and Walker manifest in this edited collection of journal entries. Valerie Boyd, the book’s editor and a senior consulting editor for The Bitter Southerner, died in February. The April release of Gathering Blossoms Under Fire marked a bittersweet milestone. Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, 1965–2000 by Alice Walker (author), Valerie Boyd (editor) I get up, grab a book, and get ready for bed. ![]() I slowly awaken on the wet floor, ice pack melted. Moonlight shines through the office blinds. Who needs expensive pedal classes or meditation apps when a good audiobook narrator can prod you into walking another few blocks or soothe you back to sleep in the middle of the night? I’ve also noted a few places where I’ve enjoyed the audiobooks. In addition to the usual fiction and nonfiction selections, I’ve added four poetry collections in case you, like me, often find yourself needing quick doses of perspective. This year’s Reading Roundup includes books that anyone would be proud to read and display on their shelves. That old saw about collecting books and reading books being two separate pastimes? I’m pretty sure it originated for many of us at the school book fair. Math never came easy to me, but I added and subtracted multiple times, trying to make the figures equal the greatest number of paperbacks for my book fair budget. At a time when the American Library Association and PEN America report a sharp increase in the number of books being targeted for bans from classrooms and libraries, I think back to my own school days and our annual book fair.įor me, the only thing surpassing the joy of checking out books from the school library was the excitement of flipping through that pulpy two-page catalog and considering the books I wanted to bring home for good. ![]() From this same vantage point, I am surrounded by bookshelves, many packed three deep with hardcovers. I miss my reading community, but back pain or not, I’m having a hard time picking myself up off the floor and getting back out there.įortunately, my love affair with books is more passionate than ever. I have attended or facilitated some virtual author discussions since 2020, but find they are no substitute for the impromptu conversations, laughs, and hugs with fellow readers in book-signing lines. As my sciatic nerve telegraphs displeasure between my hip and knee, I have a hard time believing I am the same person who bounded between numerous live book events all over metro Atlanta just a couple of years ago. I hold both arms above my head and furiously text regrets to an author friend whose book launch party is happening across town. On day number who-can-even-remember-anymore of the pandemic, I lie on the hardwood floor of my home office with an ice pack tucked beneath my lower back.
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