BOOKS We review three gems you

Three Gems You Won’t Find on the NY Times Reading List

REVIEWED BY VICTORIA STARR MARSHALL

Writing While Masked: Observations on 2020

By Mary Ann Gonzales, Tyson Greer, Wanda Herndon, Laura Celiese Lippman, Jan Spalding, Suzanne Tedesco, and Beth Weir

When faced with pandemic isolation and lockdown, this writers’ group of seven accomplished Seattle women moved their weekly gathering to Zoom and set about chronicling the moment. Beginning in January 2020, each chapter represents a month of the year and opens with a calendar recap of significant societal, political, and COVID-19 related events that took place—the sheer magnitude of which is shocking. What follows is a superb collection of poetry, short essays, and journal-style accounts of disruption, denial, gratitude, despair, anger, frustration, and hope as each sought to make sense of an extraordinary year. Writing While Masked can be purchased online through Third Place Books in Seattle.

Chicago Quarterly Review: Anthology of Black American Literature Edited by Charles Johnson

The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement and revealed the blind spot many—if not most—white Americans have in understanding the experience of living as a person of color in this country. For me, the realization of my whitewashed life was a profound awakening and lead me to start seeking out a new genre of books, movies, and stories to educate and inform myself.

A collection of poetry, essays, and excerpts written by some of America’s most revered Black voices, Anthology of Black American Literature allows us to step into lives and perspectives that may be very different from our own, but at the same time remind us of the commonality all souls share.

In his review of Anthology of Black American Literature in Newcity Lit, Donald G. Evans says it this way: “Ultimately, the success of this anthology, all put together, lies in the fact that it is by Black writers but not exclusively for a Black audience. These timely and considerate pieces are about love, friendship, family, about hopes and fears, as much as about any particular issue. This anthology is a work in which a greater humanity, not yet realized, is the focus, and the sense that we can all do better for one another is a sentiment that trumps even the central theme of race.”

Jeffery Renard Allen Steven Barnes Arthur Burghardt Cyrus Cassells CHICAGOQUARTERLYREVIE W Louis Chude-Sokei Aaron Coleman celeste doaks Rita Dove Rachel Eliza Griffiths Peter J. Harris C HICAGOQ UARTERLY R EVIE W Le Van D. Hawkins Tsehaye Geralyn Hébert David Henderson E. Hughes Charles Johnson Jamiel Law Clarence Major John McCluskey, Jr. E. Ethelbert Miller Yesenia Montilla David Nicholson Delia C. Pitts Mona Lisa Saloy Sharyn Skeeter Clifford Thompson Jerald Walker Jan Willis

C HICAGOQ UARTERLY R EVIE W

C HICAGOQ UARTERLY R EVIE WAnthology of Black American Literature

2021 Volume 33

CHICAGO QUARTERLY REVIEW

CHICAGO QUARTERLY REVIEW

Anthology of Black American Literature

Edited by Charles Johnson

Volume 33 · 2021

Shape Up!! as you Sit, Stand, Walk: It’s Nature’s Exercise

By Helen Fleder

This slim book on posture by Helen Fleder has transformed how I view the importance of posture and increased my awareness of how I sit, stand, and hold myself. A former ballerina, Fleder, now 97, provides an ingenious image to help visualize good posture and remind us to hold ourselves in proper alignment. Simple exercises combined with some sound advice on attitude and stress management, Shape Up!! offers an easy road map to living well and living longer, by someone who’s done just that. Shape Up!! is available on Amazon.com.

GAMES FOR YOUR BRAIN

ANSWERS

Palindromes

1. Bib 2. Ewe 3. Pup 4. Eve 5. Bob 6. Dud 7. Gig 8. Gag 9. Kayak

Who and Where in History

1. 753 BC Romulus and Remus 2. 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain 3. 1775 Lexington, Massachusetts 4. 1861 Fort Sumpter 5. 1896 Athens, Greece 6. 1913 The zipper 7. 1945 Cerebral hemorrhage (stroke) 8. 1961 Yuri Gagarin 9. 1964 Tanzania 10. 1986 The Soviet Union (now Ukraine)

Two-Part Word Game

1. Stone (stole) 2. Eight (light) 3. Dairy (daily) 4. Peace (place) 5. Yeast (least) 6. Graze (glaze) 7. Purse (pulse) 8. Save (sale) 9. Prank (plank) 10. Demon (lemon)