Lydia Schoch

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I’m a quiet and reserved person in most real-life conversations, but nonfiction is one of those topics that makes me light up. If we ever meet in person and you want to see the talkative side of Lydia, just mention nonfiction you’ve enjoyed or ask me what I’ve been reading lately in that genre.

Without giving into my urge to share a dozen different answers to this week’s prompt, the best nonfiction title I’ve read is The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.

The author did an excellent job of explaining how systemic racism affects every aspect of the prison system as well as what happens to former prisoners after they are released and try to reintegrate into society.

What I liked the most about this book was how thorough it was. This obviously isn’t something that has a quick or easy solution, but the more we all know about how this system works the better we can become at (hopefully) fixing it and breaking the cycles of incarceration and crime that so many people become stuck in due to racism (among other reasons).

A relative of mine used to work in a prison and would sometimes share (non-identifying) stories about some of their clients and how difficult it is for prisoners to access certain services while they’re incarcerated and to find legal work and build stable lives for themselves once they’re released. Race only adds yet another layer of hardship to people stuck in those circumstances and makes it that much trickier to get out.

Even though Canadian laws are less punitive for certain crimes than American ones are, I have to say that we have a lot to work on in this area as well. This book is about the U.S., but the problem definitely isn’t confined to that one country.

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Here’s a quick housekeeping note before I dive into my answer: blogger was once again not allowing me to comment on some blogspot sites yesterday for Top Ten Tuesday. I was eventually able to leave most of those comments by switching to a different browser and playing around with certain settings, but if I can’t reply to your post today it’s probably due to this issue.

Okay, onto my answer.

I have never read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and never plan to change that.

I’m treading gently here because I know this is a classic novel that many people adore, but I am not interested in it for the following reasons:

1) Romance is something I appreciate as a garnish in stories instead of as the main dish. I normally read books with little to no romance in them at all, so leaping from that to a full-fledged historical romance novel is a bit too much for me in the vast majority of cases.

2) With all due respect to Ms. Austen, she and I grew up in wildly different cultures. I struggle to relate to books from any era that make getting married the most important life goal for their characters, much less ones where an entire family’s economic and social fate hinges on whether their daughters find wealthy husbands.

I grew up in a family that prioritized education and personal development to the point that I was discouraged from dating when I was a teenager, so it’s a huge culture shock for me to read about families that push their teenage and young adult daughters to find a husband. It’s a completely unrelatable theme for this reader because of that.

3) From what I’ve heard, the main character clashes terribly with the man she eventually marries when they first meet. I tend to shy away from people who have abrasive encounters with me online or in real life unless it’s a one-time occurrence or there’s a reasonable explanation for why we clashed on topic X and we otherwise get along pretty well.  There’s a huge difference between politely existing in the same space with someone who may not be your cup of tea due to reason X and purposefully seeking out the company of someone you struggle to find common ground with during your limited free time.  Life is too short to waste worrying about high-conflict, optional relationships in my opinion. Why not seek out more compatible friends, romantic partners, etc. whenever possible instead?