Person
Every book Concepción De León recommended on podcasts
Concepción de León participates in literary discussions as an insightful cultural critic and avid reader who engages with contemporary fiction, essay collections, and historical poetry. Across her appearances on The Book Review, she shared a diverse range of reading material. She discussed reading Dinaw Mengestu's novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears and Angie Cruz's Dominicana. Delving into nonfiction and personal growth, de León mentioned exploring Issa Rae's memoir The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and Mark Wolynn's generational trauma study It Didn't Start with You. She also highlighted works that capture social and historical landscapes, including Karen Thompson Walker's dystopian novel The Dreamers, which depicts a sleeping epidemic in a college town, and the essay collection The Good Immigrant, featuring contributions from twenty-six writers of various global backgrounds. Additionally, while discussing the purchase of Elizabeth Bishop's former home in Key West, de León reflected on the profound impact that Bishop's early poetry collection, North and South, had on the author's formative career during her decade living there.
Books recommended by Concepción De León
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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 explores how inherited family trauma shapes identity and how individuals can break recurring cycles of distress.
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 groundbreaking science fiction and time-travel novel that explores the heavy emotional and historical burdens faced by its protagonist.
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 | 2 |
| Ralph Ellison’s Life in Letters | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 1 |
| Thrillers for Summer | The Book Review | 2024-07-18 | 3 |
| 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”