Category: Bookish

5 Min Read, Bookish, Social Media Handles

I am Regina Lynette, Tsundoku Sensei.

Regina Lynette

When I was a baby I fell off a bed head first into a bookcase with glass doors. The glass shattered and a shard of glass was stuck in my right eyelid. I needed stitches and it left a scar that moved, as I grew, a little higher on my eyelid, just under my eyebrow. Since I’ve had it for so long I never see it. But as people get to know me, in time they ask about the scar. When they ask, I always subconsciously search for it with my hands or look for it in a mirror, and then tell the short version of the story quickly because it all sounds horrific.

I suspect it was an early sign that I would be bookish – I needed to be with the books so desperately that I dove right into a full bookcase.

I remember reading for pleasure in the summers while in grammar school, almost always while laying on the bed under a ceiling fan and eating a granny smith apple. As life changed and I grew up, reading became a pleasure for my screened porch and my special strawberry lemonade. When it was difficult to maintain a quiet reading space, I made a reading soundtrack (curated on Apple Music and Spotify if you’re curious) and reading then became what I did in between loading and unloading the machines for weekend cleaning (washer, dishwasher, etc.). I bought fashion handbags based on whether or not they could hold a book and became a shuttle bus commute reader. I got the very first Nook for Christmas. And about eight years ago the unimaginable happened – I found it difficult to read anything at all. I just didn’t even know who I had become.

After years of having a bookshelf filled with books I’d already read, my accumulating stack of new books to be read was unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For a while I continued to buy new books because I believed that when my desire to read returned, it would be wonderful to just pull a new book off the shelf at home and read them all back to back without searching for a new read at the store. But then I stopped buying books because I wasn’t reading them, and it felt like a waste of money. Not buying books felt like giving up on my life. It sounds a bit dramatic, but it is honest. So I thought maybe I should become a book collector. But I didn’t become an avid book collector of pristine first editions and other valuable books nor did I have much interest in carefully preserving the books in my collection. Books are meant to be treated with respect, but they should look loved and that means some of them have battle scars. Spine creases are like laugh lines – little wrinkles that come from repeat happiness. Handwritten treasures, worn covers, and doodles all add to a book’s value to me.

Several years ago I received a book that had been sort of re-gifted – it was a book on grief and was given to me when my father died by someone who had received it when her father died. There was a note inside from the person who gave it to her, and she added a note for me. Then when someone I knew lost her father, I wrote a little note inside and passed it on to her. I just imagine this book being passed around the world forever and having all those little notes inside make the book more valuable in my eyes.

When I first heard the term Tsundoku Sensei, I added it to my list of social media bio identifiers. A Tsundoku Sensei is a master at collecting books whether or not they will be read. Because that’s what I’ve been doing, collecting books regardless of whether or not I will ever read them. I ‘tsundoku’ for a variety of reasons. If you identify with the list below, you might be a Tsundoku Sensei, too.

I began collecting copies of the same book. I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho at the end of every year so I buy a new copy every December. Whenever I see a copy of The Color Purple by Alice Walker or Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston that has a cover I don’t already own, I buy it. And I have a few copies of books in different formats – e-book, audiobook, paperback and hardback – just because I changed my mind about the format I wanted or because of needing a physical book or new book for a book signing.

I started buying books by recommended authors. Since I haven’t been reading a lot of books lately, I have been collecting books by authors I imagine I would love based on various recommendations or general media exposure. Edwidge Danticat is one of those writers and I was right – after reading her book of short stories, Everything Inside: Stories, I fell in love with her writing. Thankfully, I already have five of her books waiting on the shelves. I am slowly reading through Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves by Glory Edim because every time I read an essay I go on a book buying spree.

I buy entire collections or series of my favorite authors. When I find a book I like, I generally go back and read everything I’ve missed and buy everything that comes out later by that author. Even though I consider this a tsundoku-related pattern, I generally read most of the books I buy from these authors like Tayari Jones, Kevin Young, and Pearl Cleage to name three. I don’t have everything that Walter Mosley has written, but I do own the entire Easy Rawlins series (and will be buying the newest one – Blood Grove – early next year), even though I haven’t read the last three.

I buy children’s books. This started primarily when I was in college, majoring in Early Childhood Education with the intention of teaching pre-school until I got married and had kids who I would then homeschool. My plan was that I would buy books for my own teaching purposes to be sure I kept pristine copies for reading to the kids. And these books would eventually line the shelves of my own children’s rooms. That hasn’t happened but I still add to my collection of children’s books to eventually give to [insert kid from the future here].

I buy books written by recently deceased writers. When Toni Morrison died in 2018, I already had more than half of her novels, several audiobooks, one children’s book and a book of essays. However, upon learning of her death I sought out hard copies of the entire collection of novels. I did the same thing when John Lewis died this summer. I bought his children’s book, the graphic novels set, and two biographies.

I buy books that I feel I should own. Most often they are about cultural awareness. I get curious about the literature of certain times and places and collect books on the subjects. I don’t believe I will ever read the books I have about Emmett Till but I want them on my shelves. I may or may not read Michelle Obama or President Barack Obama’s books but I want them on my shelves. And I don’t read or speak or write in French at all (yet), but I own several books in French with no English translations. I’m currently trying to justify purchasing a cookbook that’s written in French – proceeds go to support a cause (in France) but shipping is more than the book but it will be signed by the chef but I won’t use it… All I need is one more ‘pro’ and it’s justifiably mine.

If you identify with me as a Tsundoku Sensei, take a look at some gear for you masters in my shop at ImperfectlyByRegina.com. If you’re not quite a Sensei, I’ve made a list of some of the books that I mention above in my Bookshop.org storefront for quick click shopping – you’ll be master in no time flat.

I am Regina Lynette. I am a Tsundoku Sensei.

10 Min Read, Bookish, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker

I am Regina Lynette. And I am a proud Book Lover.

Regina Lynette

I grew up in a family of readers. My parents invested heavily – with their own sweat equity – in my reading and education. I was reading by age three and no matter what word I was facing, they insisted that I knew how to read and refused to accept my asking what a word was or telling them I didn’t know it. I began to believe them. I approached everything with the attitude that I knew how to read and therefore I knew how to read all the words. What they obviously wanted me to do was try on my own, develop my own understanding of phonics, and extrapolate my learning independently. Because when I read Chevrolet starting with a ch- like in cheese and ending with a hard t sound, they corrected me quickly with a laugh. And they corrected my mispronunciation of Arkansas – I just stuck an ar- sound in front of the Kansas – with a tone that I understood to communicate that they were proud of me.

I was in kindergarten the first time I saw any library. Once a week we went to the school library as a class to select a book to read for the week. Mommy was very excited by this prospect and when she asked me about my experience it was with the energy of a little girl opening a present on Christmas morning. She couldn’t wait to hear about it and to see the book I selected and expected to be bathed in a euphoria of hope for her child. Unfortunately, she was very disappointed. I explained to her that we were assigned a table with about five children or so, that had a stack of five books or so in the middle to choose from. We could begin reading our books at the table and then we’d do it all again the following week. Mommy was not only disappointed in the book I chose but in the whole system. But she figured if I selected the biggest and hardest book on the table, we could still get to whatever it was she expected would result from my reading and going to the library. That following week, she was more disappointed to see what the hardest book on the table was and gave me a new directive. I was to ask the librarian if I could select my own books from the shelves and this met with a quick no from the librarian. I wonder if it’s important to note that the first time I saw the quote “Ignorance is bliss” was on a poster hanging on this librarian’s desk. Anyway, Mommy took matters into her own hands that very evening – we went to the nearest public library to get my first library card.

The very beginnings of my bibliomania started the first day I entered a public library. The library was not far from our house, but we headed there with haste because they would be closing soon. The goal was to get a library card and then to learn how to pick books to read. We’d return the following Saturday to actually pick books. I have audibly gasped entering two buildings in my life. The second was in 2018 at Basilique Du Sacré-Cœur de Monmartre in Paris, France. The first was the Whitehaven Public Library in Memphis, Tennessee in 1981.

I’ll be describing my experience from the perspective of that five-year-old girl in 1981 entering her first public library going forward. It’s important that I explain that because if you know the Whitehaven Public Library (or ever visit it – if it’s still there) you will be perplexed by my description.

When we flung open the doors to the library, I gasped in awe, and Mommy was so pleased. There were books EVERYWHERE! And there were people – and by people I mean children my age – looking at books and there were just so many! Who knew there were so many books in the world just for children? The sections for children’s books seemed larger than the entirety of my school library. I was about to explode. Mommy calmed me and we walked over to the desk to request our library card. I couldn’t look away from the world of books that was about to be all mine.

The second thing that happened that would change my life was Mommy asked that the library card be in my name. Oh that woman – actually both women, my Mommy and the librarian – became good fairies when they insisted I have my own library card. I never had anything in my own name before and surely this thing would give me immeasurable power. And then she took us on a tour to show me all the sections of books that were available to me. All three of us beamed that evening.

I got my card and I couldn’t resist taking a few books home so I filled my arms as quickly as I could until Mommy stopped me and we checked out. To my disbelief, I would have these books for what felt like an eternity. That these guardians of wonderful books trusted me to care for them, read them, and return them in that much time – I was dumbfounded. And a book enthusiast had found her happy place at just five years old.

Forget that little school library because it wasn’t for people like me. It was for people who weren’t as intimately involved with the written word as people like me and still needed to be gently introduced to the world of reading and of books. I’d also found my people and the best part about my fellow bibliophiles was that there was no age restriction in this group. For the first time in my life children were regarded with the same respect as adults and I felt empowered.

The last time I visited the Whitehaven Public Library was while in high school. I felt like there was barely room for three books and it looked quite small and sad. I stopped going inside because I didn’t want it to lose the grandeur I’d projected onto it as a five-year-old. And it will forever be sacred to me.

I am Regina Lynette. I am a book lover.

* I’ve curated a Bookshop storefront where you can shop titles from my shelves. Click the Bookshop link above or click HERE to see the books I’ve purchased and read for 2020. I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

10 Min Read, Bookish, Brothers And Sisters

I am Regina Lynette. I am a Silver Sparrow.

Regina Lynette

Silver Sparrow is the title of a novel by Tayari Jones about two half-sisters, their shared father, and how life unfolds for them and their families*. I went to see her at the Decatur Book Festival and while discussing her book, Tayari Jones asked if there were any Silver Sparrows in the room. I raised my hand. The feeling of pride that accompanied that acknowledgement surprised me.  

The story of me and my half-siblings has always been shrouded in shame. I never took on the shame directly, but some people look at me as the shame – I was a catalyst for change in my parents’ lives. But I never even remotely accepted the blame for my parents’ decisions.

My father was married with children at the time he met my mother, and she was divorced with children. They began their relationship while my father was still legally married. I have 3 half-brothers and 4 half-sisters. I shared one half-brother and one half-sister with our mother. I shared two half-brothers and three half-sisters with our father. I’m the only and last child between my parents and all my siblings are “half”. No one in my immediate family used the term “half” so I’ll be dropping that now.

It was easy to share my mother with my brother and sister because they lived at home with me and neither of their fathers were involved in their lives. It was a little more complicated with sharing my father. His oldest children were close to my mother’s age, so he wasn’t co-parenting young children but adults. They were married and having their own children – I have three nieces and a nephew who are older than I am. So, while I was technically sharing my father with his older children, what was happening day to day was that I had a father (and in some respects my mother’s children had him as a father), and his older children were abandoned. With young children, fathers typically make some legal arrangement to share custody with mothers and all the children manage to grow up together in some manner. With adult children, what happened in our circumstances, is that I became a secret.

I didn’t realize I was supposed to be a secret, mainly because I knew the truth about my family structure and we never treated it like a secret. But when I spent time with my father’s children and I met people from their everyday lives, I had to be explained. “Who is this small child with you – too young to be friends with your own children?” people would ask. “This is my baby sister. Yep, there was one more who came much later.” Or if my nieces were asked then it was often, “This is my baby Auntie.”

And I almost got pleasure that we’d shocked someone because our family was a little unexpected. As a teenager and young adult I started to feel more sensitive to other people’s reactions.

The moment I felt for certain that I had been a kept secret was at my niece’s wedding. I was a bridesmaid and was approached at the rehearsal by two ladies I didn’t know. They asked who I was, and I told them the bride was my niece. They assumed I’d sort of adopted my way into the family – not that she was my biological niece. I explained – no, her father is my older brother – and the look on their faces, the sudden silence to me, and the whispering behind my back but in front of my face felt shameful. That is what I felt.  

I feel compelled to provide some disclaimers. First, I do not know those ladies and if they were standing in my face this minute, I wouldn’t know they were the ones with whom I spoke and couldn’t tell you what the significance was of them being at the wedding rehearsal. Second, there could have been any number of reasons they weren’t privy to details about our family that had nothing to do with feelings or opinions on how I came to be – I have no idea what the relationship with these ladies is between my family. And third, though it’s no secret that this brother had a difficult time with our father and his choices, neither he, his wife, or his daughter ever made me feel anything less than precious when I was with them. This is just a recollection of a moment in my life where I felt shame and realized I was a secret – not a factual account of anything done to me by anyone. I was old enough that I could understand that my existence and the circumstances around my conception was not necessarily something to boast about and not necessarily information that just anyone needed to know. Yes, I am very aware that the compulsion to offer that disclaimer speaks rivers and yes, you likely will hear more about that later – I’m trying to keep these entries brief.

The first time I noticed how easy (and benign) it was for me to have become a secret was the first time I realized my siblings had become my secret. Years ago, an associate at work was leading a professional development workshop and as part of his intro and opening comments he would ask if anyone in the room had older brothers. This was much more about a segue into an anecdote about him having older brothers and less to do with getting a census of the participants. Though I had been in the room when he did this presentation several times, this was the first time I was a participant in the workshop, and so this was the first time I raised my hand. He was so startled that I felt a little embarrassed. He was silent for just a beat too long before he said that he had no idea that I had brothers. I said something to try and explain that there was no reason for me to have mentioned my brothers in our previous interactions – we had a professional relationship that was also relatively friendly – and before it became too awkward, he moved on. This would be true for most of the people I interact with on a daily basis. Just because I see or speak to someone everyday doesn’t mean that I’ve had any interactions with them that require them to know anything about my family structure. This has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel about any member of my family and everything to do with the point of whatever I am trying to say at that moment.

So since that revelation, I look back on my memories with a different lens and with much less sensitivity than I used to. If you call me Regina, you do not know the whole story, trust me (even if you already knew everything I just shared). And there are no secrets – just rooms to the house you haven’t been invited to enter, so to speak. If you know me well (likely you call me Gina) you probably get the explanation of my family structure because you probably need it – anecdotes can get complicated if you don’t know the key players. But if you were introduced to me as Regina, and now call me Gina, (or vice-versa) you are missing some details – they aren’t secrets but you find out things on a need-to-know basis. And I determine when you need to know.

The pride in raising my hand at the book festival to identify myself as a Silver Sparrow was because it was a pretty name for something complex that I now find beautiful. My parents made the choices they thought were best at the time. I say that they weren’t always the right choices. Maya Angelou said “Just do right. Right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul.” Some of their choices were expedient at the cost of being right. Some of their choices were profitable at the cost of being right. And some of their choices were easy and comfortable at the cost of being right. I know my parents sometimes didn’t consider – and at times didn’t understand – the impact that their decisions would have on the generations to come after them. And there is a lot of pain associated with all of us who suffered consequences of their choices. But, the day I raised my hand proudly declaring myself a Silver Sparrow was the day I saw the beauty of what they gave me. I was exposed to many different philosophies of life – all my siblings were adults and I was often in a position to be taught by them as parents to children. The brother who I mentioned earlier in the wedding story taught me how women should be treated by what I saw in how he treated his wife and daughter. All my sisters wanted me to look and behave ladylike, even though they all had slightly different ideas of what that meant and different deliveries of the message. Everyone expected me to be studious and ambitious and encouraged me to be the best they thought I could be – whether they really knew what that was or not. If I had not been a Silver Sparrow, I wouldn’t have had the siblings I have, and we wouldn’t have had the life experiences that have made us all more intentional about our life choices and aware of what we are contributing to the following generations. And while my life experiences range from horrible enough to repress to so joyous it is heartwarming, it’s that spectrum that gives me pride.

I have 3 brothers. I have 5 sisters (fictive kin included). I am Regina Lynette, and I am a Silver Sparrow.

*Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones is one of the books that I hugged after I finished reading it. I have read all her books and have recommended all of them at one time or another to friends and family – and now to you.

My Tayari Jones books are enjoying a sunset on the lanai.
Pictured from left to right – An American Marriage, Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow.