DiverseAThon is Here Again

It’s DiverseAThon time again.  This round runs January 22 – 29.  It is a low key event.  Just read diverse books during the week.  There are Twitter chats too.  Those were the highlight of the last one.

The optional group read this time is The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.  I read this last summer.  You can check out my review to find out about my mixed feelings about it.

We’re supposed to start with a TBR post, like I can ever stick to a schedule.  I’m still on my library ban until March 1st so I won’t be getting any new books just for this.

Lately I’ve been jumping back and forth in between lots of books. Here are the diverse books that I’ve started recently that may not be done by the time diverseathon starts.  Making this list makes me realize how flighty I’ve been lately.

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

“Mexico City, 1988. Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said “I love you” with a mix tape.
Meche, awkward and fifteen, has two equally unhip friends – Sebastian and Daniela – and a whole lot of vinyl records to keep her company. When she discovers how to cast spells using music, the future looks brighter for the trio. The three friends will piece together their broken families, change their status as non-entities, and maybe even find love…
Mexico City, 2009: Two decades after abandoning the metropolis, Meche returns alone for her estranged father’s funeral.
It’s hard enough to cope with her family, but then she runs into Sebastian, reviving memories from a childhood she thought she buried a long time ago. What really happened back then? What precipitated the bitter falling out with her father? Is there any magic left?”

I feel like I should love this one but so far it isn’t grabbing me.

On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta by Jen Lin-Liu

“Feasting her way through an Italian honeymoon, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. Who really invented the noodle? she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe—and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? She set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean.”

This is a good one but I keep setting it aside for something faster moving.

The Pulse Between Dimensions and the Desert by Rios de la Luz

“In The Pulse between Dimensions and the Desert, Rios de la Luz’s writing is electric and alive. It grabs you and pulls you into her universe, one that is both familiar and foreign, a place where Martians find love, bad guys get their ears cut off, and time travel agents save lost children. In this innovative, heartfelt debut, de la Luz takes her place as a young author that demands to be read and watched.” —Juliet Escoria

I take forever to read short story collections.

The Reader by Traci Chee

“Sefia lives her life on the run. After her father is viciously murdered, she flees to the forest with her Aunt Nin, the only person left she can trust. They survive in the wilderness together, hunting and stealing what they need, forever looking over their shoulders for new threats. But when Nin is kidnapped, Sefia is suddenly on her own, with no way to know who’s taken Nin or where she is. Her only clue is a strange rectangular object that once belonged to her father left behind, something she comes to realize is a book.”

This is the book this month for #DSFFBookClub.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman

“What is autism: a devastating developmental disorder, a lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more—and the future of our society depends on our understanding it.”

I’ve been poking my way through this slowly.  I’m interested when I’m reading it and then I forget about it for a while.

Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins

“The grandson of slaves, born into poverty in 1892 in the Deep South, A. G. Gaston died more than a century later with a fortune worth well over $130 million and a business empire spanning communications, real estate, and insurance. Gaston was, by any measure, a heroic figure whose wealth and influence bore comparison to J. P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. Here, for the first time, is the story of the life of this extraordinary pioneer, told by his niece and grandniece, the award-winning television journalist Carol Jenkins and her daughter Elizabeth Gardner Hines.”

I just started this one.  It is quite interesting.  It’s been on my Kindle app for a long time.

Here are some possibilities of books I have that may get read.  These are just a few of the books on my Kindle app.

Stained by Abda Khan

“Selina, a beautiful, British-born Pakistani young woman recently lost her father, and finds herself struggling to cope with life, in particular with some aspects of her studies. Matters go from bad to worse, when a trusted family friend from the mosque offers to tutor her, and rapes her instead. With the threat of dishonour to her family at her back, Selina goes to extreme lengths to avoid scandal, and prevent shame being brought to her widowed mother’s door. It will take all the strength and courage Selina can muster when her life travels down a dangerous path, from which there may be no return…”

The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke

“Facing challenges in an increasingly colonial world, Chye Hoon, a rebellious young girl, must learn to embrace her mixed Malayan-Chinese identity as a Nyonya—and her destiny as a cook, rather than following her first dream of attending school like her brother.”

Ok, so my goal is going to be to have everything I’ve currently started done by the end of the DiverseaThon week, with the possibility of DNFing Signal to Noise for a while if it doesn’t pick up for me.

Have any of you read any of these?