Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)

In my bid to read all Pulitzer novels from the 2000s, I have read some excellent books this year, but Becoming by Michelle Obama has become my favorite.

Mrs. Obama's book brought me to tears, made me laugh out loud, let me see myself in her, and brought me the same singing hope I had during the Obamas' presidency.

When I was six and seven years old, I made my way through a volumed set of bound books that described the childhoods of our founding fathers and mothers. It stirred a sense of patriotism and love for our government that led me to the Girl Scouts and, eventually, the law.

For me,  Michelle Obama's story nudged this same internal touchstone and then meshed other well-loved genres:  a Horatio Alger coming-of-age novel, the secret, sweet stir of a romance and the tense, ambitious political thriller, all written in the pop-culture language of a the smartest and savviest mommy blogger.

Articulate and with great craftsmanship, the story is well plotted and well paced. Told in chronological order, we watch a young girl become a professional woman and see the world through her extraordinary perspective.

To learn that her perspective is not so far from mine was heartening and gratifying. Both of us raised in middle class, minority families that knew that education was the code that led to equality, she, too, had a father that died too young from multiple sclerosis. She, too, would become a lawyer who would often be the only woman and the only minority in the room. She, too, would struggle with the balance of a law career and living a normal life.

Then I watched her fall in love, marry and then stand by the man that would lead our country for eight years. It was enlightening to see Barack Obama, our country and our world's leaders through her gaze.

It was a privilege to read her book and I would advocate everyone, but especially all women, to read this extraordinary book.

• Listening Length: 19 hours and 3 minutes
• Program Type: Audiobook
• Version: Unabridged
• Publisher: Random House Audio
• Audible.com Release Date: November 13, 2018
• Language: English, English
• ASIN: B07B3JQZCL

Parasite (2019) - Kang-ho Song, Joon-ho Bong

Joon-ho Bong is fast becoming one of my favorite directors. His latest, Parasite, won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, proving that I'm not alone in my thinking.

Clever, beautiful and genre-bending, this film stars Kang-ho Song, who plays the patriarch of a poverty-stricken family that includes actors So-dam Park, Woo-sik Choi and Hye-jin Jang. Song is a favorite of Bong's and has appeared in five out of Bong's eight films.

This is a film about a poverty-stricken but clever family that entrenches themselves into a wealthy home. One by one, each gets the next hired into the "castle in the sky" through trickery and cunning. The wealthy family, with an air of naïveté, glides through life, tossing decisions, groceries and orders with abandon into their shopping cart of a life, with little thought towards consequences.

There are real moments of humor--possibly my favorite was Jang's imitation of the North Korean dictator.

One of the most perilous scenes was wrought with a tunnel of a stairway that radiates the unknown and the unacknowledged. Turning metaphors on their heads, a tunneled staircase with its looming light is a portent of doom and water becomes a carrier of stench and disease. Trigger warning: if you were a victim of Harvey or similar events, beware.

With Escher-like stairs taking us up and down between subterraneans and the high place this mythopoeic warning cautions us of the space between the haves and the have nots and what exactly supports who.

Common Ground

Marbled halls lead
to Common Ground.

I hear You declare,
"It's not unusual
to be loved
by anyone."

I walk through
teak walls,
glass doors,
A cat walk,
to Amille's.

I hear You again:
"It is unusual
for me to say this."

I'm in love with you.