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Around the World in 2000 Books

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Solomon Islands

Lali: Looking Back

December 31, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 2 Comments

Lali: A Pacific Anthology, ed. Albert Wendt, 1980

Cook Islands, #5; Tonga, #2; Samoa, #2; Niue, #1; Fiji, #1; Vanuatu, #1; Solomon Islands, #1; Papua New Guinea, #7; Kiribati, #2
£13.84 from Amazon.co.uk
Read: September 2015-December 2016
Rating: 3/5
Recommended for: Moana groupies

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Raetemaot: not everyone is a writer

July 12, 2017July 11, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 1 Comment

Raetemaot: Creative Writing from Solomon Islands, Julian Maka’a, ed.

Solomon Islands, #6
Paperback, $20 from Alibris.com (I kind of can’t believe I paid $20 for this)
Read September 2016
Rating: 2/5
Recommended for: trainee editors after a rousing game of spot-the-professional-writer

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Custom Stories from Choiseul

July 10, 2017July 10, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 1 Comment

Custom Stories from Choiseul, various authors, 1995

Solomon Islands, #6
Skimmed on Google Books
Read September 2016
Rating: 2/5
Recommended for: incurable elaborators

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Suremada: Another bewildering reading experience from the Solomon Islands

July 7, 2017July 29, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 1 Comment

Suremada: Faces from a Solomon Island Village, Rexford Orotaloa, 1989

Solomon Islands, #5
$20, alibris.com
Read August 2016
Rating: 1.5/5
Opening line: Anaibolafafawa was the village Big Man.
Recommended for: Rambling internet commenters

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The Alternative: Actually, let’s just stick with option A.

July 5, 2017July 10, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 1 Comment

The Alternative, John Selwyn Saunana

Solomon Islands, #4
Borrowed from San Francisco State University, via SF public library
Read September 2016
Rating: 1.5/5
Recommended for: petulant opportunists

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The poetry of Jully Makini

July 3, 2017July 29, 2017 ~ Kelly Dunagan ~ Leave a comment

Civilized Girl, Jully Makini, 1981

Solomon Islands, #3
Read September 2016
Various internet sources (see below)
Opening Line: Cheap perfume/ Six inch heels/ Skin-tight pants/ Civilized girl

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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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