Library Fridays

I have always enjoyed biographies, whether about famous or historical people that I liked or about people I had never heard of before, living hundreds of thousands of miles away from me (or hundreds of years before me). I did not realize the full fascination I had with them until last semester when I had to read the autobiography of Malcom X for one of my college classes. I had not learned hardly anything about him in high school, nor had I ever thought about reading about him. even though it started out as a school assignment, I found myself immensely interested in the book for myself. Not only was it interesting because it was an autobiography, it was also intoxicating to finally learn about a famous American figure that I had only heard the name of. I realized that I was returning to what I used to love in high school: history. I used to love my history classes in high school, but I had not taken any in college. At my school, there are classes that are like a combination of a history and English class. I instantly loved this class and it inspired me to read more biographies (I had started to drift away from reading them).

What I love about biographies is... well, there's more than one thing.

1. They can broaden your knowledge about history of your country or the world. In history classes, some topics or people are not extensively covered.
2. They open up new points of view.
3. They can introduce foreign topics or ideas into your mind.
4. If you disagree with the person, you can see their point of view.
5. They can make you think about your stand on a certain topic or person.
6. They can give you alternate ways of thinking about yourself, other people, other cultures, etc.

Fictional books can do this as well, but I love finding out information about the world around me (while I am also a major fangirl of the many fictional worlds that exist :P).

So, now to the point of this blog. I am hoping to use it to catalog the biographies/autobiographies/nonfiction books I read this year (I have also become interested in Japanese, English, etc haiku poems and poets. I may include poetry anthologies). I may write essays or posts about what I read, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I usually don't like reviewing or criticizing what I read, so I'm not sure what this blog will be for. Other possibilities are posting quotes, etc. We'll see. I just want to have this blog here in case I do feel like posting about what I read.

Current book: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Next: Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America by Linda Furiya

The way I go about choosing biographies: Whatever strikes me fancy, pretty much. I have read biographies about women in the Middle East several times before, I always find them fascinating. I am also interested in Japanese culture etc. My sister read "Bento Box" years ago, and I always wanted to. For some reason I never got around to it, so I figured this would be the perfect time. I also will occasional choose biographies about famous people I admire, such as Walt Disney, Fred Astaire, etc. I'm looking forward to this adventure!

Oh, right. The name "Library Fridays" comes from the fact that I want to visit the library on Fridays to look for more books. I went a little crazy today and made a whole list, so I think I'll go along that path. Every once in a while I will visit the library on a Friday and do a random search and make a new list. I may also post my list on the Friday. That would be a reason to post here. Sounds good to me.

Anyway, I hope to keep up with this this year. Happy 2011!

-Bee