Katelyn’s Comments (group member since Jan 07, 2016)

Katelyn’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

That is a beautiful quote. It reminds me of many of the sentiments from bell hooks's All About Love, which we read way back in March 2016.

Share reviews here, and indicate spoilers at the top of your posts as needed :)

Many of us have probably read Toni Morrison's work in the past, so we'd love for you all to share your thoughts, ideas and questions, especially while we're all still in the process of reading and may not be ready to discuss Beloved specifically just yet.

Respond here but we also welcome you to post to Instagram with a quote, picture, or book cover (of Beloved or another Morrison tome) and tag @oursharedshelf for a chance to be featured on our Instagram!

- Share a memory of reading Toni Morrison's work: your first time encountering her, a particularly memorable work that stayed with you, etc.
- Share a favorite quote or passage, something that has resonated with you.
- If you could ask her a question, as we have done with other author Q&As, what would you ask?

We hope to honor Toni Morrison's memory through memories of our own <3

Oooh, that's a great strategy, Claire! I've been getting more into audiobooks the last couple of years, I especially love when they're read by the author.

Great news, Hélène! Glad you were able to get yours hands on one :)

@Hélène, that's so frustrating :( Do you have the ability to make requests? Your librarian may be able to order additional copies if there is a demand! Perhaps mentioning the book club could help, too. Otherwise, like I mentioned above, try checking the Pay It Forward thread periodically to see if anyone can share a copy with you!

Welcome, Joyce!

Florian— totally understand! Maybe there will be some Pay It Forward action that you can try to take advantage of!

Hi Florian and Hélène—sorry to hear that the books are too expensive this time around. In case you haven't seen it, Helen posted a thread about book availability in the Announcements folder that you should check out in case you haven't yet for relevant discounts if books are purchased through the publisher. We do our best to ensure that the books are widely available both geographically, with relation to language, and pricing. We negotiate to have prices reduced when possible, which we were able to do with these offerings. That being said, we know that not every month will work for every member which is why we try to switch things up with regard to these many variables each go around.

Perhaps to mitigate cost, you can consider choosing one of the two books to purchase so you can join in on the discussion? This is just to remind you that reading both books is not mandatory for participation—I don't mean to ignore or trivialize the difficulties of acquiring the books!

In any case, we hope you'll join us in September, and in the meantime chat in some of the other discussions happening here :)

I'm the same Eunice! I usually have more than one book going :)

And I agree with your prediction about the books' influences on one another. It'll be interesting to compare the shorter narratives with the longer-form autobiography. I'm really excited to see where they take us!

Please use this thread to post Pay It Forward offers and requests for Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian - My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph

Our Pay It Forward initiative is strictly with regards to LEGAL methods of book sharing (for example, sharing hard copies or Kindle sharing). Any posts regarding illegal scans/PDFs/file sharing will be deleted without warning.

Please use this thread to post Pay It Forward offers and requests Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America

Our Pay It Forward initiative is strictly with regards to LEGAL methods of book sharing (for example, sharing hard copies or Kindle sharing). Any posts regarding illegal scans/PDFs/file sharing will be deleted without warning.

That's usually what I do, too. There could otherwise be confusion between the content of the two! I wonder if in this case, a collection of narratives and an autobiography, that would be less of an issue. I might experiment with alternating between Butterfly and one narrative from Solito, Solita. I don't know yet! I'm still finishing up Pachinko so I probably won't start until I've finished that one.

What a privilege to have these personal introductions from Soledad and Yusra! I am so so excited to read these books with all of you.

I'm so looking forward to reading both Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America and Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian - My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph over the coming months, especially because I'm looking forward to reading them in relation to one another.

I'd love to consider the experience of reading books as a pairing with all of you. How do you go about reading two books that are related? How does that impact your understanding of the texts?

And, once we've all had a chance to tackle these amazing books: How did these specific books inform one another?

Let us know what you thought of Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian - My Story of Rescue, Hope, and Triumph !!

Please note that this thread may contain spoilers

Let us know what you thought of Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America !!

Please note that this thread may contain spoilers

Hi everyone!

I'm still in the process of reading Pachinko and I'm really enjoying it so far. Consider this a disclaimer, in case this subject is clarified later in the book in a way that I haven't caught on yet.

Something that has stood out to me in reading is the way that the story seems to be told from an omniscience perspective, such that we get the inner monologue of multiple characters in the span of a single scene. For example, we are privy to the thoughts of both Sunja and Hansu in a single scene.

This is interesting because, at least in most books I've read recently, it seems to be the fashion that fiction is written in a close perspective: perhaps in first person, or in third person but in which we are given access to the thoughts of a single character that a follow (either for the entire story or section by section).

I wonder if anyone has thoughts about how this impacts the way we follow this story? What is the significance of this perspective choice?

Alexa, this reminds me of something that I learned when I was working as a canvasser. We were running a campaign on environmental issues and one of the rules of thumb was that if someone disagrees and isn't interested, then just move on. That was mostly because we were operating under a fundraising deadline, but I think it also applies to the amount of energy we are each able/willing to spend. It's not worth spending a lot of energy on someone who doesn't want to listen. At other times, maybe we feel energized for a debate.

Sarah, I agree that one strategy is to tailor our message, but the idea of framing feminism around the idea of female relatives is something that always irks me. It recenters the issues around the relationships that women have to men, as opposed to challenging the men to care about women broadly. I think there are other ways to tailor our messages without doing this!

This weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing the play Gloria: A Life in NYC, based on the life of Gloria Steinem, and drawing heavily from My Life on the Road (this was the closing weekend, otherwise I'd recommend it). Naturally, I was thinking a lot about OSS and wondering about live experiences such as theatre performances.

I really enjoy theatre and find the experience of seeing a live performance very valuable. I often feel a special kind of camaraderie with others when I am sitting in an audience, a communal feeling of connectivity and mutual experience.

I also recognize that in many cases, tickets can be prohibitively expensive, meaning that audiences are often decidedly homogenous. As a result, even when tickets are affordable, certain spaces might seem unwelcoming to some demographics of people.

In any case, I thought this might be an interesting discussion. What have been some of your favorite experiences of live performance? What makes a performance "feminist"? As feminists, can we think of ways to make performances more accessible/welcoming?

Wow, I'm loving reading all of these responses!

Like Vanessa, I've been enjoying returning to the cover periodically as I read to reconsider the drawings there. I also didn't think of Theodore's interpretation until he posted and now I'm so glad you shared! It definitely changes the way that I understand the symbolic significance of the various images.

I am usually more likely to read a blurb to decided on a book than focus on the cover (although that may be what initially catches my eye, it's not usually the deciding factor). But the cover of Fierce Femmes really captures the content of the book in a special way!