What I'm Reading: January 2020
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
I added this title to my list as a fiction novel and admittedly, after reading the first half of the book I was a little bored. It took me until hearing the recognizable name Hedy Lamarr before it dawned on me—this was a real story of the infamous Hollywood actress. Once I figured that out, it was so much more fascinating because the events being described that seemed so unlikely had actually happened. This book was an incredible insight into a woman that was vastly under-appreciated for much more than her beauty until now. Did you know that Hedy Lamarr was a brilliant inventor whose creation of a frequency hopping device for radio-controlled torpedoes in WWII contributed to our modern day WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS? Yeah, neither did I until I read this!
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
This novel was a quick and lighthearted read with a glimpse into the ways we tend to underestimate others at first glance. It was quirky and kept me guessing up until an unexpected twist at the end!
When Nikki, the daughter of Indian immigrants living in West London, is strapped for money she impulsively takes a job teaching “creative writing” at a Punjabi community center. She quickly realizes that the class of proper Sikh widows that show up are there to learn basic English literacy more than short-story writing. “When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind….But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.” (Amazon)
The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto
This book is a fascinating telling of the earliest history of New York City, most notably the as yet untold stories of the Dutch settlement that was its predecessor—New Amsterdam. I’m a bit of a history nerd so I loved this, especially since much of the area discussed in the book is where I lived in the city for the past four years. It was so fascinating not only to hear about the real people that walked the same streets hundreds of years before me, but also to better imagine the complex events that made NYC such a pivotal example of the American dream even to this day.