Stephen鈥檚 Year in Books

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2024

50,728

pages read

166

books read

Stephen

Shortest Book

pages

Longest Book

743

pages

Average book length in 2024

305

pages

Most Shelved

6,449,386

people also shelved

Growing Seeds from Stones by Coffee Quills

Least Shelved

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Stephen鈥檚 average rating for 2024

3.9

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

4.70 average

Stephen鈥檚 first review of the year

liked it

Willie Mae Brown was a child during the Civil Rights movement, which reached its high point in 1965, with the Selma to Montgomery march that resulted in the鈥侰ivil Rights bill of 1965, with great assistance from the local sheriff and state troopers who gave the movement a media spectacle when it attacked the first march down Highway 80, resulting in 鈥淏loody Sunday鈥�. Willie Mae was not involved in the movement,鈥俠eing too young, but she offers here Willie Mae Brown was a child during the Civil Rights movement, which reached its high point in 1965, with the Selma to Montgomery march that resulted in the鈥侰ivil Rights bill of 1965, with great assistance from the local sheriff and state troopers who gave the movement a media spectacle when it attacked the first march down Highway 80, resulting in 鈥淏loody Sunday鈥�. Willie Mae was not involved in the movement,鈥俠eing too young, but she offers here reminiscences of growing up in town during the sixties.鈥侷鈥檝e read two other Selma memoirs during this time 鈥� one of young boy growing up鈥俰n Selmont prior to the march, and of another who was an adult pharmacist working downtown. The opening chapter is a emotionally impactful and florid invocation of what growing up a young girl in the segregated south was like,鈥俢omplete with a description of the March 7 attack which she was absent at, and which veers into the realm of fancy, inventing dogs and robed Klansmen roaming the streets. (There were no dogs,鈥倀he city authorities had as much tolerance for Klansmen as they did Yankees,鈥俛nd I鈥檝e never heard or read of of Klan activity within Selma in this period or in the 1870s despite actively searching for it.)鈥僒he memoir improves much as she moves to her own life, describing how her parents saved up enough money to move into a 鈥榳hite鈥� area of town: her father 鈥楧ah鈥� worked for the railroad and their family appears to have been relatively well to do, owning land and a rental property.

鈥係ince I knew she wasn鈥檛 involved in the movement, I read this principally for the same reason I read Ordinary Average Guy,about growing up in a trailer park in this same period: the little details of life in those days fascinate me and provide a richer view of the town that was than the politically-oriented histories. The most interesting stuff is the unexpected, like Brown recalling a neighbor woman skeeting a bit of breastmilk onto the floor before feeding a child to 鈥渃alm the haint鈥�. The majority of the book is simply these recollections of childhood, with drama between siblings and cousins happening concurrently with occasional glimpses of the casual inhumanity of the racial order 鈥� a time when the sheriff鈥檚 deputies were perfectly fine beating on the door in the middle of the night to effectively demand her father鈥檚 hunting dogs to enlist in a manhunt. Being a child who lives her life within Selma鈥檚 black community, Willie Mae is largely sheltered 鈥� but she does run into racial antagonism herself, when she begins working for a鈥倃hite woman who asks her for help bringing laundry into a laundromat, not thinking about the fact the laundromat owner is a hateful ass who has no compunction against鈥俬urling racial abuse at a child. The woman is embarrassed and shamed at her own naivete,鈥僡nd bawled out by Willie Mae鈥檚 mother as well.鈥俆he timeline is a little questionable since the mood being invoked is always one of January 鈥� March 1965鈥檚 political activism and racial tension constant,鈥倃ith no clear idea as to when these things are happening. This is made worse to frequent mentions to 鈥渃oloreds being killed鈥�, which鈥傗€� well,鈥俬as little connection to what was going on in Selma. The only black person killed in those months was Jimmie Lee Jackson, shot in Marion, another county over 鈥� though his death partially inspired the Selma march, so it is worth mentioning.鈥俆he only man killed in Selma, in fact, was a white minister named James Reeb who was accosted and beaten, and then 鈥� oddly, very oddly 鈥撯€倀aken to Birmingham instead to Good Samaritan (the 鈥榖lack鈥� hospital) or the Baptist or Vaughan hospitals in Selma.鈥�(Even Montgomery would have been a better option than Birmingham,鈥俷early two hours away!)鈥俆owards the end,鈥倅oung Willie Mae gets a glimpse of 鈥楰ang鈥�, and sees the crowds gathering outside of Brown Chapel.鈥� Wrapping up, I鈥檓 not sure what to think of the book: it鈥檚 certainly well-written, prose wise, and鈥侷 suppose if you were absolutely ignorant about racial relations in the 1960s it would be eye-opening.鈥俆he book make depressingly clear to me how prejudice begets prejudice 鈥� Willie Mae and her contemporaries have the same contempt for poor white 鈥榗rackers鈥欌€倀hat the latter have for them, regardless of their actions 鈥� the only difference being these two communities of prejudice being that poor blacks weren鈥檛 in a position to participate in bullying. Power or no power, though, racism poisons the soul, and it鈥檚 sad to see this made manifest but not reflected on. ...more

厂罢贰笔贬贰狈鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

In Search of Zarathustra by Paul Kriwaczek

Distracted by Alabama by James Seay Brown

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

it was amazing

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn

Human Scale Revisited by Kirkpatrick Sale

it was amazing

The Luna Missile Crisis by Rhett C. Bruno

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore

it was amazing

The Hidden Life of Deer by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

In the Company of Trees by Andrea Fereshteh

Lovers and Others Strangers by Jack Vettriano

it was amazing

The World's Largest Man by Harrison Scott Key

How to Stay Married by Harrison Scott Key

it was amazing

The Irish in Baseball by David L. Fleitz

A Right to Read by Patterson Toby Graham

P. G. Wodehouse In His Own Words by P.G. Wodehouse

it was amazing

The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told by Jeff Silverman

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

it was amazing

I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider

Diary of a Tokyo Teen by Christine Mari Inzer

it was amazing

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

it was amazing

Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno

it was amazing

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

it was amazing

A Daughter of Fair Verona by Christina Dodd

Stephen鈥檚 last review of the year

liked it

Hal is a working girl in a bind. She had to take over her mother鈥檚 tarot shop after she lost her to a reckless driver, and while she can usually keep her head above the water weaving stories from the cards, she made the mistake of borrowing money from a loanshark whose punitive interest rates are crushing her. But what鈥檚 this in the post, under the letters threatening dismemberment and arson? It鈥檚 a letter from a lawyer advising her that she鈥檚 me ...more

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