Way back when, my girl Doc got me to join this thing called bibliophil.org so we could see what each other was reading and WANTED to read and then cuss and discuss if and when we found the time between all that reading and blogging and raising babies and, you know, trying not to kill husbands and what have you. If you ever browse my side column over there on the right, you might have seen something called, appropriately enough, "My library on bibliophil.org." Such a cool thing, actually. Every time I read a book, I go over there and add it to MY LIBRARY. But it's also... not entirely accurate which is JUST as vexing as all those "My Profile" thingies or "About Me" questionaires. The reason being is because you can never get it ALL in, never sum it TOTALLY up. That's how my bibliophil library is like. Not only can I not remember half of the books I read before the age of 18, I can't put them all in since bibliophil has this RELATIONSHIP with Amazon.com that will not allow me to list books I've read UNLESS, you guessed it, they are available on le lovely Amazon.com.
So why am I talking about this? Why do I care so deeply about the Bibliophil/Amazon.com unfair, monopolizing hook-up? Because when I was hastily composing my last post about my STUPID STUPID HAIR, I referred to Mr. Biblio Phil to give me MY LIST of summer reads. And as I now reread my last post (like I always do when I have a moment so that I can tear it apart bit by bit and then ask myself over and over WHY, please tell me WHY it is that I am blogging when I have such a scathing case of OCD wherein I edit the holy hell out of whatever it is that I write???) I noticed that I left out the most important book of all... the one that isn't yet available on Amazon.com and, as such, couldn't make my full-of-holes BIBLIOPHIL LIST. That book is Malinche's Daughter.
Malinche's Daughter, my friends, is the most important one of all. I read it in one night. And then I read it again the next night. And then I cried until I finally fell asleep. And then I dreamt of it for several nights after that. I dreamt of Oaxaca, Mexico. And Deming, NEW Mexico. I dreamt of little girls with scraped knees and no tears and tanned shoulders and beautiful, beautiful smiles. I dreamt of my best friend from a long, long time ago because she wrote it. And she poured her soul into this book. And I left it off my list because it didn't show up on Biblio Listy Lou. Which is... ugh.... one of the reasons why maybe I shouldn't blog. I'm just so SLIPSHODDY, you know?
SO.
I wanted to say now, in retrospect, that it wasn't JUST on the list. It's the one I want to recommend the most It's like White Oleander and Woman Hollering Creek and 1984, a book that sticks to your ribs. And I'm not just saying that because I know and love the author. It's the honest-to-goodnest, Girl Scout's Honor, Pinky Swears Truth. I blogged about it just last month. Like my title read, of all the blog posts I've posted, it's my FAVE.
So if you like me even a little, READ IT. READ HER. And then EMAIL ME at catherine at catherinedix dot com so we can do the book club thing and DISCUSS our favorite parts, the parts that broke our hearts, the parts that made us want to scream, the lines that we will highlight and remember forever.
And since I can't refer you to Amazon.com to purchase it right now, you can contact Tianguis, the exclusive distributor of Momotombo Press titles: info@tianguis.biz for a copy. Or call (312) 492-8350 and I'm sure they would be more than willing to sell you one. You won't regret it.
