This post is part of a series in which I describe the twenty-four books I read in 2019 for Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge. 

Task: An #ownvoices book set in Oceania.

Jo found that the pieces of land, dismembered from each other, the orphaned parts of the now-dissolved whole, were to be found on the maps all numbered the way the graves at the Mullum cemetery were numbered… The way that convicts – rapists and murderers – were numbered in prison.

We have family in Melbourne, Australia, and I’ve had the extremely excellent experience of visiting twice. Between people I care about living there and having taken a couple of extended trips, I always perk up when Oz comes up.

Most of what I know about Australia comes straight from my sister-in-law and her family, including the very little I know about Aboriginal rights. I’ve been at events and looked at programs that included a Welcome to Country statement, which seems to me to be much closer to the front of the white Australian consciousness than the equivalent circumstances in the United States and Canada. I mean, words are cheap, sure, but it seems like a start, at (the very) least.

This post is part of a series in which I describe the twenty-four books I read in 2019 for Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge. 

Task: A translated book written by and/or translated by a woman.

Alternate: An #ownvoices book set in Mexico or Central America.

I wasn’t just a lowly seller of objects but, first and foremost, a lover and collector of good stories, which is the only honest way of modifying the value of an object.

I originally picked this out after listening to an interview with Valeria Luiselli on the First Draft podcast. I’d been thinking it would be my pick for the Mexico/Central America own voices challenge, but after reading it, it felt more in the spirit of the book to use it for the translation task instead.

I enjoyed this before I read the concluding remarks from the author, but MAN does that author’s note drive the point of the whole book home. On its surface, The Story of My Teeth is the story of Highway, an accomplished auctioneer offering a series of auctions of his own teeth at varying levels of postmodern absurdity.