10 - I don't know what to call this
I read some incredible books this month and I can't wait to tell you all about them. There are countless interesting stories and people out there if you try to seek them out. ✨
🌊 Hi, I'm Sachi and this is Currents where I talk about books and other shit. If you want to unsubscribe, click the link below. If you like this newsletter, tell me, so I can feel better about myself. You could also share it with someone. It is optional but I would really like it.
I wrote an essay about my trip to Lucknow in January, how incredible the food is, and how kind the people are. It didn't feel ready yet so I put the newsletter on hold and now we are well into March. :( Sometimes things simply do not get done when you want them to and it is okay. If I manage to bring it to a state where I'm happy to send it, I will. To not make this entirely about books, I'll write about the books I read in March in the next newsletter.
I have been thinking about what it means to have good taste. In the aforementioned essay I joked about how my travel plans revolve around food. I document what I eat on trips, I sketch those dishes, and I talk about food to an almost nutty extent. I could have been a food critic had I not been so easy to please is what I wrote. You could give me a cookie and I'd be thrilled. Does that make me bad at discerning what's great and what isn't?
The idea of a critic, be it a food or art critic, conjures an image of Anton Ego from Ratatouille. You can't help but think of a dour person who likes absolutely nothing. If a person who likes nothing happens to like something that you have made it instantly makes that thing more valuable in the eyes of people. Who gets to play that role? Also, how much of living, experiencing, critiquing, and studying does one have to do to have some sort of authority in that area? / how many followers do you need till you think you need till you can share more of yourself with the world?
There are an overwhelmingly large number of books, shows, and brands being sent our way every minute. Merely catching up with them could be a full time job. What role does critique play in this game of catching up and recommending things? In the small moments between completing and starting a new book/ show, there is space to think about what you just consumed and whether you want more of that in your life. Jumping from one recommendation to another robs you of the ability to make that judgment for yourself. I urge you to take that time with things around you. I urge you to learn what you like and why you like it. (and tell me all about it)
I would like to think there is space for each one of us, our likes, and our dislikes, should we want to share them. I believe having lived for however long you have is enough to make your ideas valid. Even though I think the 18 year old kids on Instagram parading as a life coaches are stupid, may they have the space to do so.
May we see our thoughts and our way of seeing the world worthy of being seen and enjoyed by other people.
((I happened to find this article just as I was writing this.
How getting dressed is helping my mental health - I had a tenuous relationship to my own body, because I didn’t have the “ideal body type,” and lacked thinness and whiteness, which I assumed were necessary. What could I offer when women are primed to believe that beauty is a high offering? So, in constructing my aesthetic, I felt free to become who I knew myself to be, someone who could be remarkable and exciting. If I couldn’t like everything about myself, at least I could admire my own composition—the way you admire a painting—and feel relief.))
* Since you willingly subscribe to this newsletter, here are my recommendations for this month -
📚 Books
This month I was torn between wanting to leap from one book to the next and taking my time to remember and assimilate the stories which found themselves housed in my brain. I am also not quite on track to read 100 books in this year but I will keep going.
I am trying to find interesting books that aren't very popular on Goodreads. It breaks my heart that incredible books that are written by authors of colour aren't half as popular as books written by white American authors. Goodreads is very biased in its promotions. Good stories exist everywhere. One has to look more closely.
**I am trying to write more detailed reviews on Goodreads. I'm adding parts of them here.
⭐️ Maame by Jessica George - (5/5) I LOVED this book as much as a person can possibly love a book. Maddie, the protagonist of Maame is deeply endearing.
Quiet and introverted Maddie cares for her father with advanced Parkinson’s by herself. Her mother travels to Ghana and doesn’t return to the UK for long stretches of time during which she constantly criticizes Maddie and asks her for money. Her brother absconds any sort of responsibility. Maddie pays all the bills. Maddie is reliable. Maddie loses herself so she can hold her family together. That is until Maddie snaps.
Maddie’s mother plans to return to London and encourages her to move out of their family home. In this period she gets unfairly fired and finds another job. It is evident that Maddie is competent at what she does and has a lot of potential. She starts to assert herself at work, make new friends, date, and discover who she is when she isn’t being a caretaker while battling years of depression. You can’t help but love Maddie. You simply cannot. She yearns to be loved back. She tries it all. She does what she thinks she must even if her gut says otherwise. Like the author, Maddie is Ghanaian, and it makes the story so much richer. She grapples with microaggressions, racism, and being misunderstood.
Maddie is moving on and going with the flow until tragedy occurs. She is filled with guilt and pain that she cannot process anymore. Through therapy Maddie realizes that the nickname Maame, which means woman in Twi, was more than a term of endearment.
“It made me grow up when I should have had more time. It made my dad overlook me when I was a child, my mum leave me behind, and my brother get away with doing the bare minimum. It made me lonely and it made me sad. It made me responsible and guilty. It made me someone, if given the choice, I wouldn’t want to be.”
Maame delves into first generation Ghanaian-British experience, the power of friendship, cultural influence on family dynamics, sexuality, independence, racism, and ultimately making choices that contribute to your flourishing. Jessica George achieves all of this brilliantly. Her writing is powerful. Life is messy. This book doesn’t shy away from each character’s flaws. We find out more about why Maddie’s mother and brother behave the way they do. They too had needs that went unfulfilled. It humanized them in a way I felt was required. We’re all imperfect, the best we can do is move forward and make good choices for ourselves.
⭐️ Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi - (4/5) - As the title suggests, this is a prelude. No riot takes place in this unnamed South Indian town. Each chapter is a soliloquy of a character. The characters are people associated with either a Hindu family or a Muslim family in some way. This book lacks a clear and linear plot, a reader has to use fragments from the soliloquies to make sense of what's transpiring in this town. I, personally, did not mind this. Being taken into the depths of each character gave me numerous rich points of view and a clear picture of the social divides in that town. I could viscerally feel the tension building as I progressed from one character to another.
It is an extremely relevant book culturally. Garuda, a drunk teacher in the village, gave the students the most thought provoking classes about history and the ways in which we repeat it. I couldn't stop thinking about some things that Garuda said in this book.
“No big colonial sword needs to come down and slash the fabric of the nation. Muscle by muscle, atom by atom, we are being torn from within. We are our own bomb.”
“I am not here now to help you read between the lines. Please read out of syllabus. A syllabus is ‘set’ for you. You understand? It is ‘set’ by people whose job it is to limit your knowledge. I am against syllabuses.”
“Why did the white man think he could colonize us? Because we were not united? Bosh! They’ve been parroting this lie for a century. Who is the ‘us’, this ‘we’ that was colonized? Who is the ‘white man’? Has there been any moment in ancient or modern history when ‘we’ were united? Such questions are key to authentic nation building.”
“Dogs. Wolves. Cats. They fight with each other but there is no moral position. No argument about who invaded first, who is more aggressive. They just fight over territory. Territory and mating. But that’s a lesson for Biology class.
In the human species, we need to justify wars over territory. In the name of God, or righteous conduct, or free trade. Kings, elected representatives, armies. Police. Imam. Pundit. Pope. It’s like a chessboard.”
If a book makes me think of my own biases against other people, it was worth reading.
Difficult Women by Roxane Gay - (4/5) This book of short stories wasn't as much about difficult women as it was about women being in all sorts of difficult situations and their responses to them. Roxane Gay's writing is so simple on a prose level but so effective when it comes to inciting emotions from a reader. Her writing challenges you to broaden your imagination and feel empathy for people you would otherwise judge. This book is a masterpiece in that regard. Were some stories downright strange? Yep.
The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa - (4/5) This book will leave you in tears. Written in alternating chapters narrated in third person and by a cat called Nana. Nana is a stray adopted by a man in his thirties, Satorou Miyawaki. For a reason unknown to Nana, Satorou writes to some of his friends asking them to take Nana in for him. They travel across Japan to meet each friend to find the right person to care for Nana. It is evident that he adores Nana, which leaves you unsure of why he's sending Nana away to begin with. With each new friend comes a story of how they met Satorou and how his kindness touched their lives. Satorou is an amazing guy. The bond between him and his cat is a touching one.
The story is beautiful. My only complaint is the translation. I have learned enough basic conversational Japanese to guess what a character would have said. The translation felt uncomfortably American.
Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love by Huma Qureshi - (3.5/5) This collection of short stories is written with great care and sensitivity to depict how maintaining relationships can be like walking on a tightrope. Each story has a character torn between honesty and maintaining the status quo of a relationship. These stories take place in the UK, in Lahore, France and Italy. These stories explore the immigrant experience and what it means to be South East Asian in another country. These stories deftly tackle great complexity.
Like any other collection of short stories, it was a bag of hits and misses. I would recommend it anyway.
⚡️ People who are magnificent and I think you should check them out
Nadir Nahdi - taking recipe reels to a whole new level by layering it with personal stories and the history of the conception of the dish. Absolute magic.
His YouTube channel
Somnath Bhatt - a very interesting designer and artist.
His talk.
Dario Calmese - a thinker who challenges the world around us.
A shorter video about him | His website.
Craig Mod - He writes, photographs and WALKS for a living. Imagine creating a life in which you can walk across a country and write about it. Craig is awesome.
A podcast interview with Craig Mod | his Instagram
Book of Cinz - A very very very diverse reader. I discovered Maame because of her.
(from @designershumor on Instagram)
🌸 Other Interesting Things
Greyscape - a place to explore Brutalism, Constructivism, and the concrete world
Creepmart - AI generated creepy toys
Happy Medium - Happy Medium exists to create and curate the best supplies, content, and events for casual artists. There's a lot of stuff out there for kids and capital "A" Artists, but there isn't much for those that fall somewhere in between.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️ A friend is working on a repository of various legal questions you may have and what to do about them. Help him inform people about their legal rights in a fresh way and fill this form. Your identity will remain anonymous but please don't be creepy.
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Until next time,
Sachi