Thoughts from the Stacks Blog

I have been thinking of disruption lately: of routine; of belief; of ‘the way things have always been’; of comfort; of stability; and of sense of reality. I know that one of the biggest human issues with disruption is that it brings to light the repressed truth that life is chaos: it cannot be controlled. I personally think that - most of the time - life pretty much carries on in a similar pattern and disruption is not a frequent as the doldrum of our everyday activities. But when...

The other day during my weekly coffee meeting with a friend, he mentioned that I must be looking forward to having both sets of grandparents in the same town as I. My father’s parents - moving here from Illinois - will soon be set-up in their new home this week. We (my parents, aunt, and mother’s parents) are all assisting to move them in and get settled. My response, which may sound callous to some, was that it was neither here nor there, as I am not at all close with either set of...

I was sitting out on my back deck this weekend thinking about time and took a pause in my reading of the book, Saving Time. I was staring off into the yard, gazing at my third-year attempt at a vegetable garden (this time tilled into the ground rather than raised bed, fingers crossed) wondering when the bell peppers would start getting taller and begin fruiting. After all, it has been about six weeks since I planted them and I want some peppers! That lead me to thinking about how useless...

I am currently reading Saving Time, by Jenny Odell, author of the 2019 stellar (in my opinion) book, How to Do Nothing. The other day, I took a 15-minute break from my work and brought the book along to read. What did I do on this break? I read, yes, but I also had my eye on the clock to make sure I didn’t run over my allotted break time. Though I was technically “off the clock”, I was still very much “on the clock” and this gave me pause. There are numerous differences between...

I am currently reading a book by Danzy Senna, entitled New People. The book follows a woman’s love triangle (of sorts), but is mainly focused on the complexities of personal identity. I feel as if I have not read about or spoken with someone in such a mental constrictor knot of identity seeking as this book’s protagonist. Allow me to also mention that the protagonist is a biracial woman, adopted as a baby and who’s skin tone does not necessary reflect her mixed parentage. She is...

Have you ever seen an annotated book? Any book with a proliferation of multi-colored tabs sticking out the pages like rainbow raindrops? Google ‘booktubers’, ‘booktok’, or ‘bookstagramer’ and you are bound to run across one of these inanimate bird-books. I am fascinated by these books and the concept of idea organizing that it embodies. I am sure as a book reviewer or a book editor, such annotation must come in handy, but as an individual who just enjoys to read and have an...

I recently finished reading my first Stephen King novel. It was The Shining. My mother selected this novel for Round 2 of our micro-unit reading challenge. (This is a challenge we came up with to choose a book we have previously read, something the other would likely not ever pick up regardless of the not-so-subtle prodding we may have given, but, that we think they may actually like. The reader must give the book a chance – at least 50 pages or so in – but may, of course, stop...

What makes one voice more valuable than another? Whose views and opinions matter more in a community and societal setting? At what level, and at what point, did we (a society) collectively decide which histories are be taught and perpetuated generation after generation? If we have “grown” and “become more intelligent and efficient” beings, why have we not adjusted our systems to reflect that evolution? What are we so afraid of? I think the Millennial and Gen X...

I am currently reading Prince Harry’s autobiography, Spare, and while it is very good, it is also raising many questions in my mind. After finishing up a section regarding his last tour to Afghanistan in the British Army, in which he speaks toward a doctored article written about him following an exit interview given to the press. He goes on to speak of his lack of regret toward the people he killed during the war. Apart from the fact that these acts took part during a war and that was...

I have mixed feelings when it comes to history. They (who “they” are I cannot specify) say that, as you get older, you become more interested in history. I must not have reached that age yet. My main issues against history are that a) we seem to obsess over it when there is nothing that can be done to correct it – it happened; b) we have yet to learn from it even though we obsess over it; and c) it is served to us through the lens or filter in which we choose to present it. (And when...

In a recent conversation with a friend – though I cannot recall how we got there – I started sharing my experience of how I saw the world while my father was still in the Marine Corps. For failure of better expressing it, I told him that in my experience of growing up in a military environment, I was not raised to see “color”. I know many people do not like this expression as, of course, I saw the differences in skin pigmentation. What I mean to express is that the Marine Corps...

I feel as if the desensitization to violence that seems to have taken over in our country has reached a higher pitch. Sometimes it feels like a glorification. I have never been a big movie person, but I do like a great film from time to time. However, my last skim through Apple Trailers provided almost only more of the gore, slasher, thriller, killer – vibe permeating our “entertainment”. On top of that, a few weeks ago, my housemates and I thought we would try out the Japanese...