kristin*'s Page

The best of the books I've read by Zakes Mda but still lacking something... He tries to tie on the commonalities between South Africa and the current state of the US by allowing his character from Ways of Dying to come to the US in this book. Definitely more readable than his other works but in terms of his purpose, I am still unclear...

For the StoryCorp project - where anyone is able to tell/record an interview with a friend or family member. This book is a compilation of stories that have been told over the past couple of years - stories about family, work, personal journeys, etc. It's a great book for a voyeuristic person - snapshots into the lives of strangers from across the country, from all walks of life… Continue

Literally could not put this one down - read the whole thing in one sitting. A sweet story of a young girl who is searching for her mother, and a young woman who is searching for love - somehow they both find the answer to their longings in each other, which allows them to find what they were originally searching for.

I am always intrigued by the titles and topics of Zakes Mda's work, but am always disappointed when I actually read them - yet for some reason I still read his work. I think his stories lack detail - so my image of what is happening in the story is always fragmented. This story is about a man who is a professional mourner - he goes from funeral to funeral and is paid to grieve - to set the… Continue

An interesting book on current global issues... from environmental decline to poverty in the developing world to the excess of wars and terror. I like that it allows you to think about these issues, to conisder the perspectives of those who are on the front lines of those fields, and to begin to dream of what a healed world might look like.

I can't put this book down!

About a first-generation Korean immigrant - who is struggling to figure out what she wants to do with her life, how to fit in her family, her culture, the religion she grew up with into who she wants to become. Traces her through her jobs, her shopping habits, her boyfriends, her friendships...

Will update as I keep reading...

My friend has been raving about this book all summer. He combines psychology, science, and humor to describe the ways we seek out happiness and challenge the ways we think about life. I keep coming back to the ideas he presented on how we allow what we feel and know now to influence how much we think both about the past and the future... Inspiring, not in the way that ma… Continue

Sort of the scientific version of Barbara's Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed." Traces the stories of several individuals while interjecting social commentary, facts, and statistics to give a good picture of the challenges and struggles of the working poor.

I wanted to like this book. I liked the idea of this book. Jimmy Santiago Baca is a good story teller... he has an interesting way of describing what has happened in his life while allowing insight into the thoughts and feelings that took place underneath the surface. If you consider all that he has been through and the odds that he has overcome to learn to write and to write so well, it is am… Continue

I think I liked the show better than the book. The same themes still came out - like what causes someone to be wicked? How do the things we grow up with and experience shape us into what we are? I just felt like it was too complicated to keep all the characters and their changing locations straight and to figure out the implications of those things...