One thing I love about being a reader is when two books connect unexpectedly. Last month I had one of those moments of book serendipity with two seemingly unrelated reads, Postcards from Cookie by Caroline Clarke and Boy, Snow Bird by Helen Oyeyemi. Both books, written by women of color, explore race, adoption and identity in some ways that I wasn’t expecting.

I actually read Boy, Snow, Bird first, based on the glowing reviews of several other bloggers. The book is a fictional recasting of the myth of Snow White, although the way Oyeymi plays with that story is more inventive than that. The book begins in 1953 when Boy Novak runs away from her abusive father and ends up in a small town in Massachusetts. After she marries a local widower, she becomes the stepmother of a beautiful little girl, Snow Whitman. When Boy’s first daughter, Bird, is born with dark skin, it becomes clear that Boy’s husband and his family have been keeping a secret, passing as white for years.

Postcards from Cookie, a memoir, also starts with an adoption. Caroline Clarke grew up knowing that she was adopted, but never felt any need to learn more about her birth mother until she was an adult, concerned that she might pass health problems to her children. Although the adoption agency could not give Caroline the name of her birth mother, they provided enough details that she was able to figure out that her mother was Carole “Cookie” Cole, the daughter of musician Nat King Cole. After working up the nerve, Clarke contacted Cookie. Most of the book takes place after that contact, exploring the way their relationship developed and was challenged as they grew to know each other.

What struck me about the two books is the way they both ask important questions about what it means to be a mixed race person. In Boy, Snow, Bird, the Whitman family works hard to hide their race from their neighbors, assuming that’s the only way they will be accepted. That, in some ways, turns out not to be the case, although it it something that Boy has a difficult time with.

When Caroline Clarke was adopted in 1964, her African American parents raised her believing she was black. Being African American was part of her identity. When she finds out from Cookie that her father was white, making her a mixed race person, it causes some tension as Clarke tries to come to terms with what a mixed-race identity might mean in a contemporary setting. I thought those questions of race and identity were explored effectively in both books from different angles.

Both books also have many things to say about the idea of motherhood, adoptive and biological, and the relationships that develop between mothers and their daughters. I don’t want to talk about that too much for fear of spoilers — especially for Boy, Snow Bird — but I did want to just mention it as another way I saw threads between these two books.

I’m not sure if these two books would be so connected in my head if I hadn’t read them back-to-back, but I really couldn’t stop thinking about them together. I love bookish connections like that!

Disclosure: I received both of these books from their publishers for review consideration. 

Time and Place // 11:45 a.m., Easter Sunday, at my desk in Morris. I was planning to go to the Twin Cities to see my family this weekend, but I seem to have picked up a cold while traveling and didn’t want to make everyone sick too.

Eating and Drinking // Early Grey with vanilla tea and a banana. I need to think about lunch soon.

Reading // April has continued to be a slow reading month. Since I last updated, I’ve finished just one print book, The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. This collection of essays from Graywolf Press been getting a lot of well-deserved good press — it’s a remarkable collection of essays, all exploring different ideas of empathy and human understanding. You can read versions of the first and last essays of the collection online, which I urge you to do — “The Empathy Exams” from Believer Mag and “Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain” from The Virginia Quarterly Review.

Today I am digging into The Map Thief by Michael Blanding, a true story about rare map dealer who made millions of dollars stealing maps from other collectors. So far I’m really digging it. If I have time, I also want to get back into One More Thing, B.J. Novak’s collection of short stories that I picked up at #BookFest.

Watching // I finally finished watching every episode of The Good Wife that is available online, which is a good thing. I love the show, but I need a break. Last night I flew through the first three episodes of The Hour, a short British series about a news program in the 1950s that I’ve seen compared to HBO’s The Newsroom. It’s more of a thriller than a show about journalism, but it’s a ton of fun anyway.

Listening // U finished listening to Andy Weir’s The Martian last weekend and man, was that fun. It worked really well as an audio book, too, so check it out! Yesterday the afternoon was just gorgeous, so I sat in the sun and listened to Veronica Mars and the Thousand Dollar Tan Line, another enjoyable romp of a book.

Organizing // I spent a good chuck of yesterday afternoon clearing out one of my five bookshelves, the unread nonfiction shelf. It was getting pretty full, so pulled a bag of books to donate and moved some books to new homes. I’m more apt to choose books from a better organized shelf, so this was needed. I’m hoping to go through the rest of my shelves over the new few weeks and get them all organized in LibraryThing.

Blogging // This week I shared an interview with a poet friend of mine for National Poetry Month, gave a brief recap of my trip to Los Angeles and offered another nonfiction recommendation for one of my favorite book.

Hating and Loving // We got five inches of snow on Wednesday, then hit a high of 70 degrees yesterday. Spring in Minnesota is just the craziest thing.

Avoiding // I am trying, rather unsuccessfully, to avoid getting stressed out about a work project that needs to get done this week. I try to leave work and work, but this weekend it’s been tough.

Anticipating // Next Saturday, April 26, is the spring edition of Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon! At this point, I’m planning to participate for as much of the day as I can, although I haven’t officially signed up yet. I’ve already started putting together a stack of books to choose from — one of my favorite parts of the event.

The Nonfiction Recommendation Engine is a semi-regular feature in which I offer personalized book recommendations based answers to a short list of questions. My real hope with the series is that other readers will jump in with recommendations in the comments, making each post a great resource for nonfiction reads. You can catch up with Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV by following those links.

Happy Friday! I’m so glad the weekend is coming — I need a vacation to recover from my vacation (and the cold I seem to have picked up along the way). With that in mind, I’ve just got one nonfiction recommendation to share today.

Today’s request is an awesome one from Rachel:

I’m looking for a travel memoir, a book on public health or international subjects, or narrative nonfiction. Some similar books I’ve read are Turn Right at Machu Picchu and The Foremost Good Fortune (travel memoirs), Spillover (public health), and Methland and Guests of the Ayatollah (narrative nonfiction). I’m looking for something that’s light to media difficulty – just not terribly academic. I can do serious if it’s very well-written, like Mark Bowden. I’d love to find more good narrative nonfiction.

I was so excited to see this request because the perfect book came to mind almost immediately: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. This book combines every topic Rachel mentioned – travel, public health and international politics – into a wonderful narrative.

Mountains Beyond Mountains is the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist who has worked tirelessly to eradicate treatable diseases in countries around the world. He is probably best known for his work fighting tuberculosis in Haiti, Peru and Russia with his organization, Partners in Health. Kidder is an amazing writer who helps humanize Farmer despite his almost super-human work efforts.

If you are curious about Farmer after finishing the book, another one I would suggest is Haiti After the Earthquake, a collection of essays that Farmer collected from relief workers and survivors in the country. It’s not as narrative, obviously, but it’s still raw and important and relevant.

Interested in getting a personalized nonfiction recommendation? Please fill out this form to get on the list. I currently have four requests in my queue. 

PHOTO CREDIT: CHRIS AT SHUTTERHACKS

Whew! It’s been about 24 hours since I finally made it back to Minnesota from my weekend in Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and I’m just starting to get my thoughts together. Rather than a lot of words, I’ve got a photo-heavy post to try and share some of the highlights of the trip.

1. I left for LA early on Friday morning from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, fortified with black tea and a good book (Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates). I flew out of a fancy gate — there were plenty of tables with iPads on them so you could order food and track your flight.

2. I arrived in LA around lunch Friday where I was picked up by Florinda (The 3R’s Blog). We immediately headed to Venice Beach so I could wiggle my toes in the sand and walk in the (chilly!) Pacific Ocean. After a scenic drive home along the Pacific Coast Highway, we went out to dinner with Florinda’s husband, Tall Paul. I’m so glad they were gracious enough to host me for the weekend.

3. Our first event on Saturday morning, the first day of the festival, was a panel with Sheri Fink (Five Days at Memorial), Charlie LeDuff (Detroit: An American Autopsy) and Amy Wilentz (Farewell, Fred Voodoo). All three of their books focused on places in crisis — New Orleans, Detroit and Haiti — so much of the discussion was about journalism and the role that writers have in telling these stories. After each panel, the authors were available to sign their books and chat for a few minutes. I love this inscription from Sheri Fink so much.

4. The second event we went to was a conversation with B.J. Novak (Ryan from The Office and author of One More Thing). While we were waiting in line to get books signed, we met up with Anastasia (Here There Be Books) for a few minutes before she had to catch a train. Anastasia and I roomed together when we went to Book Expo America in 2011, so it was great to see her.

5. When I finally got to meet B.J. Novak, I was a total spaz. I almost skilled getting a picture because it seemed too silly, but then figured what the heck. He doesn’t look nearly as excited (or sunburned) as I do!

6. One of the cool parts of the festival (among many cool things) were the giant crossword puzzles around the campus. Florinda filled out quite a few answers on one of them.

7. On Sunday, we got to the festival a little later than we planned and missed out first panel. That turned out to be fortuitous, however, since it meant we got to spend a little extra time at the Chronicle Books booth. After I found a copy of Beth Kephart’s Going Over, Florinda got to talking with some of the publicists working the booth about the book and her friendship with Beth. It was really fun — I love when publishers are excited and nerdy with book bloggers.

8. We also bought enough books from Chronicle Books to get a free tote. It is a nice one!

9. We made it to two panels on Sunday. The first was a panel about food culture with authors Gustavo Arellano and Dana Goodyear and food critic Jonathan Gold. This panel, we learned, was the first one to sell out at the festival, which made it feel more exciting! There was a lot of discussion about how high-end food is becoming more extreme, while the American palate is starting to explore different tastes.

Our second panel, which I didn’t grab a picture of, featured more nonfiction writers: Tom Bissell, Dana Goodyear (again), Edward Humes and Greg Sestero. This panel, called “Nonfiction: Exploring a Singular Pursuit,” was more of a general discussion about books on obsession and the obsession of writing. My favorite observation came from Tom Bissell: When you start a book, you want it to be great. When you get to your deadline, you just want it to be done. Truer words were never spoken.

We spent the rest of Sunday meandering around the festival but I, unfortunately, got really lazy taking pictures and don’t have many more to share.

10. After another great dinner with Florinda and Paul (and a photo session in front of Florinda’s amazing wall of books), they dropped me off at LAX at about 9 p.m for my red-eye back to Minnesota. I got a few chapters of The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison done before I gave up on reading and finished listening to The Martian by Andy Weir.

So there you have it, some uncollected thoughts on my trip to BookFest 2014!