About Reading – The Book Neighbourhood

How I Found Joy in Reading Science

“We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out – and we have only just begun.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

Hello Neighbours

The only science reading I’ve known all my reading years is studying from textbooks up to high school. The only time I’d venture beyond the prescribed learning material was when it came to Biology, for the fun of it. This might have given my mother the idea to try to push me towards the medical field. All other natural sciences were a struggle.

Now as my reading keeps on expanding and as I gain interest in so many genres, so many topics, and ideas, I find myself curious about science. Okay, there may be a little influence from the spouse but a lot of times I feel like the more I read, the more I discover how little I know. About myself, about humans, other species, history, the world, existence…all of it. My curiosity just keeps growing and my hunger to learn more just keeps intensifying.

There were other influences. Each time Sheldon Cooper said something smart, I would Google it. Then after watching The Theory of Everything, I wanted to know more about Hawking and his work.

So I bought a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and put it down after a few pages. I did not understand much. I tried again after a few months and still nothing. Advice from the spouse, who is a physicist, was to read it at a relaxed pace and not fret much about the big stuff in it, then go back the second time and things would start making sense.

Well, I found it to be good advice but the intimidation was far greater than my willingness to take his advice. It just felt like the book was meant to be understood by people in the field, and we the general readers were not invited to the party. I put it away but remained curious.

“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious.”
– Stephen Hawking

I then stumbled upon Einstein: His Life and the Universe by Walter Isaacson. I figured since the spouse is crazy about Einstein, I’d buy it for him.

[Shoutout to people who indirectly buy books for themselves and claim they are gifts for people they live with.]

I started reading it before he could even hold it and only got up to Mileva getting pregnant. Now here the challenge was not the science, it was my struggle with (auto) biographies and memoirs. I am getting better, though. Back to the shelf, we’ll try again, Albert.

Someone else I discovered on The Big Bang Theory came to mind because of how easy I’d heard him explain difficult stuff. Yes, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I bought his book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry last week, and let me tell you, I am very happy to have invested in it.

I am now on Page 104 and I’m happy to report, neighbours, that I’m getting most of it. Not everything, though. It really is for people in a hurry and it is fun to read. I’m not getting that stress when I read a book that makes me feel like I will fail to explain if someone asks me what it is about.

So, neighbour, I am not even done with the book but if you’re struggling with reading science books, I recommend this one to break your virginity. It will be orgasmic!

I’ll tell you what it’s all about when I finish.

Happy reading, neighbours.

Which Books or Authors Get You Out of A Reading Funk?

When the words from a book build a wall in front of you.

It happens to the best of us. You stare at your TBR pile on the shelf and not even one of them calls your name, no matter how excited you were when you were buying them. You start a book only to drop it after a few pages, and try another one, but nothing is doing it for you. It sucks!

There are a number of ways to get out of that funk. It can be any other activity that is not reading, like listening to a podcast, doing other hobbies, meditation…anything but reading. Sometimes spending time off your reading couch and in an actual word can pull you back into the reading world.

There’s also another way, which always works for me – reading, I know, it doesn’t make sense but it’s kind of a ‘fight-fire-with-fire’ thing and it works.

What I do is go back to the books I love the most, or the genre that got me into becoming an avid reader.

Here are the books and authors, in no particular order, that kick me out of my reading funk.

Dr Maya Angelou

There is just something soothing and wise about Auntie Maya that just pulls me back into the world of reading. I also listen to her interviews and poetry recitals so much that when I pick up one of her books, I read in her voice and it sounds like sitting on the porch with an auntie or grandma sitting behind me on a rocking chair telling me a story. My favourite of her works is A Song Flung Up To Heaven. (See review).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

One of my favourite classic authors. His novels inspired me to write and whenever I hit a wall, I’ll pick up something I’ve read before like Devils or Notes from Underground and I don’t even have to finish it. A few chapters and that hunger for reading and just consuming book after book returns. My favourite of his books is Crime and Punishment.

Poetry

I have subscribed to Poetry Foundation so I receive daily poems and if I want more I just head to their website www.poetryfoundation.org. It is a wellspring of some of the best poetry in the world. Dr Maya Angelou, Pablo Neruda, Koleka Putuma, Rumi, Nayyira Waheed, Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Langston Hughes, Ben Okri and many others. I recently bought this collection below and I am in love with it.

English Classics

They also work and there’s a particular way to read them; I have to be alone, with a cup of tea or coffee and some baked goodies, preferably scones. Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens and many others.

Mystery and Thriller Books

Specifically David Baldacci and Jeffrey Archer. This is because these are the books I started off with when I was growing up. These are the kind of books that dominated our bookshelf so whenever I’m in a funk I’ll pick up one of these guys (my roommate has a lot) and I’m back in the game.

Bessie Head

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read Maru. It’s short and it’s everything I love and enjoy about African literature. I’ve been reading it since high school. I keep having to rebuy a copy because I either give it away or sell it when I do my shelf declutter.

The books I cannot read when I’m in a funk a non-fiction books. Never. It just doesn’t work because of their weight and seriousness. I’m struggling already so I need something softer or more exciting.

How do you get out of your reading funk?

My Book Wish List

Since my focus has been on reading more books by women, for women and about women, I’ve noticed how lacking my bookshelf is. It’s really not supporting my mission, so my collection is about to change. Some of the authors I’m adding to my wish list are popular and some I discovered through research.

Here are some of the books I want to add to my reading list.

Sojourner Truth

She was a women’s rights activist and abolitionist, who was born into slavery but managed to escape. The book I’m adding is The Book of Life.

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a civil rights activist, feminist, poet and essayist. Some of her titles that I wish to read are; Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, and The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde.

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
― **Audre Lorde**

Alice Walker

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and activist. I want to read her famous book The Color Purple and some of her other works, Possessing the Secret of Joy and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose.

Octavia E. Butler

Octavia Butler was a science fiction author and from her list I’m adding, Kindred, Parable of the Sower and Bloodchild.

“I found that I couldn’t muster any belief in a literal heaven or hell, anyway. I thought the best we could all do was to look after one another and clean up the various hells we’ve made right here on earth.”
― **Octavia E. Butler,** Parable of the Talents

Nawal al Saadawi

She is an Egyptian writer, feminist and psychiatrist. I want to read God Dies by the Nile, Woman at Point Zero and The Hidden Face of Eve.

“She is free to do what she wants, and free not to do it.”
— Nawal El Saadawi (Woman at Point Zero)

Roxane Gay

She’s a feminist, social commentator, editor, professor and writer. I am adding Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Ayiti.

“I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.”
— Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist: Essays)

Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan was a women’s rights activist, feminist and writer. I have always wanted to read her book, The Feminine Mystique and I am definitely adding it to my wish list.

“Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women’s intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?”
— Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)

Ama Ata Aidoo

She is a playwright, poet and author. I’m adding The Girl Who Can and Other Stories, Changes: A Love Story and An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems.

bell hooks

bell hooks is a feminist, social activist, professor and author. I want to read Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, and Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood.

Virginia Woolf

Woolf was an English 20th-century author and I’m adding A Room of One’s Own to my list.

Janet Mock

Janet Mock is a transgender rights activist, director, producer and writer. I want to read her book Redefining Realness.

“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community. – Janet Mock

Zora Neale Hurston

She was a writer and anthropologist, and it’s definitely time for me to read her book Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Margaret Atwood

She is a literary critic, essayist, novelist, poet and activist. I also want to hop onto that The Handmaid’s Tale train, and add The Testaments while I’m at it.

There are more authors I want to add, but as I keep reading and learning, I’ll keep adding more to my shelf. One can never read too many books. I’m excited and can’t wait.

What are you adding to your wish list?