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Around the World in 2000 Books

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Which Way, Big Man?: Exit stage left (before we fall asleep)

September 11, 2017September 8, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ Leave a comment

Which Way, Big Man and five other plays, Nora Vagi Brash, 1996

Papua New Guinea, #8
Paperback, $2, Amazon.com
Read November 2016
Rating 2/5
Recommended for: earnest but unskilled dramaturges

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Last Virgin in Paradise: What a Girl Wants (is largely considered irrelevant)

February 6, 2017December 31, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 3 Comments

Last Virgin in Paradise, Vilsoni Hereniko and Teresia Teaiwa, 1993

Fiji, #3 and Kiribati, #3
Borrowed from SF library
Read November 2016
Rating: 3/5
Recommended for: drama/women’s studies double majors

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A slightly belated #burmese #bookstack

I have been reading this book since November. It’s not terrible or anything; in fact it’s a pretty compelling story of a young woman who marries a man who doesn’t understand her and treats her like a doll, determining what she eats, what she wears, when she sleeps, and (most harrowingly) whether and how often she can see her family. The heroine’s passivity in the face of all these ever-tightening restrictions is a little frustrating to me, but it’s set in Burma in the 1930s, where women were pretty much expected to be passive and compliant all the time. It’s not exactly a page-turner, but I don’t think that’s why I’ve stalled out on this book. I don’t know whether to blame the pandemic or just life with two small children, but for perhaps the first time in my life I just haven’t felt like reading. Might as well say “I haven’t felt like breathing,” but there it is. But at last I’m nearly finished with “Not out of Hate,” and I decided to download the Kindle edition of “Letters from Burma” and the audiobook of “Burmese Days” so that hopefully I can get a little more reading done during the long long hours I spend nursing my toddler to sleep in a dark room. I would very much like to reach a stage where parenting and reading are not in conflict, but I’m afraid that day might never come.

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post. Frankly it’s been a while since I read anything that wasn’t by NK Jemisin or Stephen King. But I still have all these books from Southeast Asia that I’ve read and haven’t written about, so I jumped back in with quick takes on a whole bunch of books from the Philippines, including this fantastic buddy-cop serial killer mystery starring two Jesuit priests.

Folsom Street Fair, 2015

#tbt to my last blog post of 2019: America Is in the Heart, by Carlos Bulosan

Drawings from today’s blog post, Philippine Food and Life by Gilda Cordero-Fernando. Link in profile.

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Top Posts & Pages

Florante at Laura: Two guys crying in a forest, essentially
Shadow and Solitude: A play in one stupid act
What the Hell for You Left Your Heart in San Francisco
Last Virgin in Paradise: What a Girl Wants (is largely considered irrelevant)
The Desawarnana: Boners in translation

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