Person
Every book Concepción De León recommended on podcasts
Concepción De León’s most recommended books
- Scratch by Manjula Martin
- Dominicana by Angie Cruz
- The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
- It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
- Poems: North & south by Elizabeth Bishop
- The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang
- The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
- The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shukla
- The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
Concepción de León appeared on The Book Review podcast to discuss, recommend, and review various works of fiction, essays, and memoirs. During her appearances, she shared several books she was currently reading or excited about. She discussed reading Dinaw Mengestu's novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears around the holidays and highlighted Angie Cruz's novel Dominicana. In a closing roundup, she mentioned reading Manjula Martin's edited collection Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living alongside Pamela Paul. Exploring memoirs and family dynamics, she talked about starting Issa Rae's book The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and discussed Mark Wolynn's It Didn't Start with You, which examines how inherited family trauma shapes identity and how to break the cycle. When discussing Elizabeth Bishop's former house in Key West, she noted how the poet's time there influenced her first poetry collection, North and South. Additionally, she expressed enthusiasm for Karen Thompson Walker's dystopian novel The Dreamers, which centers on a small college town where women begin falling into a sleep they never wake from, and Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman's essay collection The Good Immigrant, featuring twenty-six writers from diverse global backgrounds sharing their immigration experiences.
Books recommended by Concepción De León
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Scratch
Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, edited by Manjula Martin, is an insightful anthology that explores the intersections of creativity, finance, and the realities of sustaining a writing career.
Discussed“I'm reading this book called scratch writers money and the Art of making a living by Mula Martin and it combines two of my favorite topics money and writing”
Where to get it
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Dominicana
Dominicana by Angie Cruz is a historical novel that tells the harrowing yet triumphant story of a young Dominican girl who is married off to an older man and moves to New York City in the 1960s.
Recommended“I am reading for the first time Dominicana by Angie Cruz”
Where to get it
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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu is a powerful novel exploring the immigrant experience, displacement, and isolation in America through the eyes of an African-born man running a store in a gentrifying Washington, D.C.
Recommended“I don't know if it's seasonal though I I think the part that I'm uh in the book right now is actually like around a holiday but I'm reading the Beautiful Things That Heaven bears by now mangusu”
Where to get it
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It Didn't Start with You
It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn is a psychological exploration of how inherited family trauma and unresolved ancestral pain shape our lives and how individuals can break these generational cycles.
Discussed“um this one is very different it's it's called it didn't start with you how an inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle”
Where to get it
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Kindred
Kindred by Octavia Butler is a classic science fiction and time-travel novel that examines slavery, history, resilience, and human connection.
Discussed“I am reading a book that has been on my list for a while Kindred by Octavia Butler and I'm really enjoying it”
Where to get it
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Poems: North & south
Discussed“one interesting thing is that Elizabeth Bishop spent about a decade in her life in Key West and she wrote her first poetry collection there North and South and so it really had a huge influence on her work”
Where to get it
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The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays
Discussed“and then the last one is the collected schizophrenia by esm Wun Wang and that one I'm just really interested in mental illness and I hear I haven't I haven't started this one at all but I hear that she writes about it very beautifully and very intelligently”
Where to get it
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The Dreamers
Discussed“one I'm really excited about it's the dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker and I think I've only gotten through maybe 20 pages of it but it's essentially about an epidemic in this small I guess college town um in which the women start to kind of fall asleep and never wake up”
Where to get it
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The Good Immigrant
Discussed“and then im also really excited about this book of essays called the good immigrant that came out I think a couple of months ago and it's just 26 different writers that are from different immigrant backgrounds from all over the world writing about their experience of of immigrating to America”
Where to get it
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The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Discussed“so I started reading her book The Misadventures of awkward black girl which has sort of been on my list for a really long time”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| O Pioneers! | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 1 |
| Analyzing Freud | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 2 |
| Revisiting Baldwin vs. Buckley | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 1 |
| Ralph Ellison’s Life in Letters | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 1 |
| Thrillers for Summer | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 3 |
| Jill Lepore on the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 2 |
| Poetry & Politics | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 1 |
Other mentions (3: passing, ad reads, own books)
“she talked a lot about being influenced and being inspired by Anthony Mara's book A constellation of vital phenomena and so it sounds like she's interested in really Global voices”
“was because it got a blurb from Emily St John mandal who wrote station 11 which is one of my favorite books of the last four years”
“I I think I was thinking about beloved you have some time to go there might be ghosts coming up”