{"id":8299,"date":"2023-02-22T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?p=8299"},"modified":"2023-02-17T16:53:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T16:53:19","slug":"staff-picks-browsing-bookstores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/staff-picks-browsing-bookstores\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Browsing Bookstores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contrary to my usual morning routine, I\u2019ve been sneaking in my reading at night. After full days, those night-time sessions have been the only hope of turning off my brain.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I picked up Mieko Kawakami\u2019s <\/span>All the Lovers in the Night<\/span><\/i> at a fabulous bookstore in Manhattan, Albertine<\/a>. The experience of the bookstore itself is enough to transport you, let alone reading the story. On the ground floor, a mix of French and English language books is packed within a tight space. The second room upstairs has a beautiful ceiling, worth stopping in just to check it out. I traveled to France for the first time last summer, so my interest in the culture is growing. I attended a talk there last October<\/a>\u00a0on Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946\u20131962,<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>a book about American artists who took\u00a0<\/span>a<\/span>dvantage of the GI bill and traveled to Paris. <\/span>The most memorable part of this talk was learning about Shinkichi Tajiri<\/a>, because his name took me a great deal of practice to pronounce and his work is very interesting. Anyway, less about the store and more about the book …<\/span><\/p>\n

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All the Lovers in the Night<\/span><\/i><\/a>, surprised me. I had not read Kawakami before and wasn\u2019t sure if\u00a0<\/span>I should expect a story akin to the Modern Love column<\/a>. The plot pulled me in, although not because of exciting action and thrilling encounters, per se, since not a whole lot happens in much of the story. <\/span>However, it had what I needed at the time \u2013 somewhere to escape to and relax at night. It was fun to escape to the different worlds belonging to Fuyoku, a proofreader in her mid-thirties. She is effectively isolated in her daily routines despite living in the hub of Tokyo. I found the book a beautiful story and thought-provoking regarding the networks of relationships in which we choose to engage. Also, the meta level reading about a proofreader, as she discusses the stuff of writing, was very enjoyable. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Later on, I found myself taking another bookstore jaunt. This time I was in the Rutgers Bookstore, killing time before the bus arrived to take me home from the train station. First, I wandered through the store aimlessly, landing at the Rutgers Press section for a bit. As I was poking around, the cover of Nancy Wang\u2019s <\/span>Reel Inequality<\/span><\/i><\/a> stuck out to me. I read the book jacket and made a mental note to find the book sometime in the future. On my run the next day, I was listening to Megan Markle\u2019s podcast, Archetypes<\/a> and Professor Wang was <\/span>interviewed! I\u2019m a total sucker for these moments of coincidence.<\/span><\/p>\n

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However, I was in the mood for something less academic. I found <\/span>The Female Persuasion <\/span><\/i>in<\/span> the fiction section and picked it up because of the colorful cover. The book itself starts out in academia but ends up in the non-profit world. However, the meat of the story is found in the relationships an<\/span>d experiences of the protagonist, Greer Kadetsky, and her take on college experience. The author\u2019s focus on how students end up re-centering their experience on finding a job at some point during their time at university becomes poetic through third-person perspective. Greer\u2019s idol and feminist leader, Faith Frank, becomes a point of intrigue\u00a0<\/span>and sometimes satire. Additionally, the whole non-profit world and general interest in making a difference in the world becomes a topic for questioning how to lead a life without hypocrisy. I found the writing to be funny, on-point and always engaging. Check it out in the RecReads<\/a> collection <\/span>and peruse other titles through the libguide.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Other suggestions in the collection:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n