Tension and Endurance: The Year in Books from Baltimore/DC
(Mostly) 2021 Baltimore book highlights
Okay, there are also some 2020 releases included here, but let's give each other some grace...
Media & Literature Page 7
Litscope: Sagittarius & ‘Foot Trodden: Portugal and the Wines that Time Forgot’
Indulging Sags' love of exploring new territory
More than a hodge-podge of history gained while gallivanting around Portugal, the book is a love song to the growers and keepers of the age-old tradition of winemaking.
Litscope: Scorpio & ‘Savage Love from A to Z’
The perfect read for Scorpio season!
Everyone knows Scorpio is labeled as the sex pot, but understand that their repertoire is vast. Their knowledge involves not just “the act” but all things surrounding the act, including hygiene, etiquette, and even how to handle the most embarrassing sexual snafus.
Litscope: Libra & ‘You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey’
Being Black in America—much less Omaha, Nebraska, where the sisters were born—is far from easy
The best book to represent Libra this October is You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by sisters Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar.
Litscope: Virgo & ‘Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America’
If you care about the planet, and how the education of America’s children plays into this equation, then this book is for you
Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America by Katie Worth explains how climate change is taught in American schools
A Cure for Toxic Museum Culture: Laura Raicovich’s New Book, Culture Strike
The myth of museum neutrality, why slowing down matters, and making authentic structural changes
Culture Strike is essential reading for art museum professionals, board members, artists, and cultural community members
Litscope: Leo & Blackout
Leo, the romantic and charismatic fire sign, is a natural-born leader.
These love stories are bold, considering we rarely experience this sort of diversity about love and family ties within the Black community proclaimed on the page.
Litscope: Cancer & Mama Phife Represents
Boyce-Taylor is the mother of A Tribe Called Quest rap star Malik Taylor, aka Phife Dawg, who died of complications from type 1 diabetes in 2016
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor's "Mama Phife Represents" embodies Cancer energy well, exploring the depths of a mother’s loss with emotional dexterity.
Litscope: Gemini & George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Saunders' latest book draws from a course he adores teaching on the 19th-century Russian short story in translation
A Swim in a Pond presents readers with two distinct ways to engage with seven full stories by Russian masters Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, and Turgenev: either as a teacher/scholar or as
How Baltimore Fed Lucille Clifton’s Poetry
From 1968 to 1985, Clifton considered herself a “poet who lives in Baltimore” rather than a “Baltimore poet”
Through the imaginative, mystical works she produced—works she insisted she received—Lucille transcended location and met the reader, you could say, at the heart of humanity, where place is merely background.
Litscope: Taurus & Justina Blakeney’s Jungalow: Decorate Wild
Ultimately, what I love about this book is that Blakeney makes me feel like I could jump right in and start sprucing up my own house tomorrow.
Radical Books: Red Emma’s
The bookstore/cafe announced that the cooperative has purchased two buildings that will become their "forever home" in Waverly
A cooperative rather than collective, Red Emma’s tweaks the sometimes oppositional, puritanical perspective of radicalism, expanding without compromising.
Litscope: Aries & Safia Elhillo’s Home Is Not a Country
These poems center on a young Muslim American girl named Nima, but the issues that she wrestles with are far from childish
Safia Elhillo’s Home Is Not a Country is more than a book, it’s a complex adventure, perfect for restless Aries.
Ross Gay’s Meditation on Dr. J’s Baseline Scoop
On the border of poetry and prose, 'Be Holding' interrogates collective and personal histories through Julius Erving's legendary move
Dr. J’s aerial exploits become the associative catalyst for explorations as wide-ranging as pickup-basketball, photography, the slave trade, familial history, and flight of all kinds.
Danielle Evans’ The Office of Historical Corrections Gives Readers More Questions to Sit With
Author Danielle Evans embraces the complexities of characters, places, and dynamics between them
Litscope: Pisces & Kazim Ali’s Northern Light
A spiritual, emotional, Piscean exploration of home
Returning to the beginning, in order to perhaps understand the future, is not easy.
See West Baltimore Right with Shae McCoy
McCoy's photos in 'West Baltimore Ruins' function as a living visual memorial
As McCoy puts it, “It is an artistic callout for city officials to see the cause of their neglect.”
Litscope: Aquarius & Design With Love
Aquarian egalitarianism and designing public spaces
Design With Love is a collaboration by Katie Swenson, the director of the Enterprise Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship, and Harry Connolly, a Baltimore-based photographer