As my senior year at Saint Louis University draws to a close, I am amazed at how much has changed since I first stepped foot on SLU’s campus, in 2011. I have seen this university struggle to find its place as a Jesuit institution in the city of St. Louis, […]

Reading for pleasure is a foreign concept to college students who are drowning in more essays and articles to read for class than they can reasonably handle. During free time, there is little else college students would like more than rest their brains for a while. Still, with the right book, there can be something peaceful and restorative in an hour spent reading fiction. Your brain is working, but it’s not worrying about your life and your problems; instead, you immerse yourself in someone else’s story. For a short while, the problems of a fictional character become more important than your own.

I’m not advocating for reading “Anna Karenina” to take a break from your chemistry notes (although if that’s what you want to do, all the more power to you). However, there are plenty of compelling, but light books to nurture your reading habits, despite the sometimes overwhelming amount of schoolwork that has piled up on your desk. Here are some books from different genres that don’t lose any of their literary merit for their easy-to-read qualities.

“We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart
Lockhart’s sharp prose and complex characters combine beautifully in this haunting novel about a wealthy family’s hidden brokenness. “We Were Liars” tells the story of Cadence Sinclair and the mysterious head injury that has left her clueless about what happened to her and her family the previous summer. The mystery slowly reveals itself to Cadence and the reader at the same time, giving the reader an unforgettable experience.

“Anna and the French Kiss”; “Lola and the Boy Next Door”; “Isla and the Happily Ever After” by Stephanie Perkins
Sometimes all you want is to live vicariously through someone else’s love story. This trio of young-adult novels delivers compelling characters and conflicts in addition to swoon-worthy romance stories. The books all take place in the same universe, which means that the protagonists of one book show up as minor characters in the others. It’s a nice twist on some already worthwhile reads.

“Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” by Robin Sloan
There’s nothing like a book that celebrates a love of books, and this one does it while being relevant, witty and exciting. Protagonist Clay Jannon gets a job at a curious little bookstore, and as he discovers that the store is more than it seems, the mystery around it grows bigger and bigger. The reader can join him in his curiosity, as well as enter the battle between technology and old media.

“Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi
“Persepolis,” though nonfiction, puts the reader right in the shoes of someone with a compelling story. Satrapi tells her own memoir in the form of comic strips, showing that comics are not only for superheroes. Her story begins with her childhood in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution, and as she grows up, her personal history intertwines with the history of Iran as she confronts the struggles of adolescence.

Who doesn’t love Amy Poehler? Anyone who’s watched her work on “Saturday Night Live” or “Parks and Recreation” was excited to hear that Poehler would be joining the growing number of women in comedy who have published hilarious memoirs. Poehler herself references them gratefully as inspiration in her introduction: Tina Fey’s “Bossypants”, Mindy Kaling’s “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?”, and Lena Dunham’s “Not That Kind of Girl”, among many others. Women are speaking up, and their words are funny, touching, entertaining and inspiring.

Poehler’s book, “Yes Please” is full of anecdotal wisdom from personal history. She explains the title in a set of instructions at the beginning of the book: “I love saying ‘yes’ and I love saying ‘please’. Saying ‘yes’ doesn’t mean I don’t know how to say no, and saying ‘please’ doesn’t mean I’m asking for permission. ‘Yes please’ sounds powerful and concise. It’s a response and a request. It is not about being a good girl; it is about being a real woman.” The book cover, with its bright lights and Poehler’s strong pose, echoes the same assertive and courageous message. (The back of the hardcover, without the dust jacket, reads “Thank you”.)

Courtesy of Heidi Lewis

Let’s get this out of the way — the book is not a literary masterpiece. It isn’t supposed to be one. It’s a funny memoir by a celebrity we wish we could be friends with. Reading the book feels sort of like that; Poehler might as well be sitting on your living room couch, chatting with you about her life experiences.

“Yes Please” offers hundreds of pages of uninterrupted Amy Poehler for those of us who want that. This isn’t a book people would read if she weren’t already famous, and it’s not a book that someone who doesn’t care about her should read either. The celebrity-memoir type of book inhabits a strange section of literature. What is important is not the book, but the author, who is not an author by profession. (Imagine if famous authors created TV shows for fun the way it seems these actors write books for fun.)

The trend is odd, and perhaps motivated by the money that publishers can rake in by selling mediocre books written by celebrities, but the fact is that “Yes Please” is still enjoyable. Readers get inside looks into momentous “Saturday Night Live” skits, such as Poehler’s Sarah Palin rap in 2008. Poehler also laments a skit where she unknowingly mocked a disabled child, and she writes about shame and the difficulty in apologizing and asking for forgiveness.

The pages of this book include stories on Poehler’s life in Chicago and New York, the beginnings of “Parks and Recreation”, her life as a mother of two young boys, and more. It’s a fun insight into her life with as many quirky stories as you would expect. Feel free to pass on this book if it’s not up your alley, but fans of Poehler will eagerly eat it up.

Courtesy of Cristina Flagg Cousins

In the wake of protests around St. Louis, some of which have turned violent, communities have come together to clean up their neighborhoods and support each other. These protests were incited by the grand jury’s recent decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for his fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo. on Aug. 9.

The South Grand neighborhood, only a couple miles away from SLU’s campus, is now home to dozens of beautiful murals that decorate the boarded-up windows of shops and restaurants that were damaged as a result of the protests in the neighborhood. The damage consists mostly of broken storefront windows, costing the owners between $3,000 and $25,000. Cafe Natasha’s, located at the intersection of Grand Boulevard and Wyoming Street, witnessed nine windows broken as stones and even a trash can lid were thrown through them.

Courtesy of Cristina Flagg Cousins

The neighborhood community, however, has come together to rebuild their home and show that riots are not the only reaction to the grand jury’s decision. Business owners in the area put out a call to artists to come paint the boarded up windows of all the storefronts that had been damaged. Volunteer artists responded en masse, filling the street with colorful and hopeful images and quotes to improve the bleak mood of a city in distress. An ongoing fundraising campaign is raising funds to offset the cost of replacing the storefront windows.
Natasha Bahrami, who runs Cafe Natasha’s, explained, “We thought that the boards needed to express what was going on in St. Louis with a positive spin … it was powerful to see it in action.”

Members of the South Grand business district created an organized effort to “corral artists and make sure that all businesses had artists allocated to them,” Bahrami said. A Facebook page titled “Paint for Peace StL” also organized and recruited volunteers and artists to paint boarded up buildings around St. Louis. The page shows an image of colorful paint brushes with the caption “Our weapons of choice.”

These murals have shown the power of art to a community both broken and strong at the same time. Residents and business owners in the neighborhood have found comfort and hope in these paintings and the solidarity they represent. A press release from the neighborhood association begins, “South Grand finds itself overwhelmed. Not by the destructive nature of a few, but by the love of our community. Thank you. … When boards covered windows, neighbors painted them.”

Bahrami echoes this gratitude: “The murals will continue to represent to us how the community came together to turn a disaster into a beautiful movement of support and positivity … We are proud of our community for coming together and showing us and other damaged businesses a level of wholehearted support so that we feel blessed instead of victims.”

On Saturday, Nov. 15, the Indian Student Association (ISA) celebrated a night of food, music and dance. ISA provided hundreds of attendees with a full dinner and night of entertainment with their fall show, entitled “Denied is the New Accepted.”

Elizabeth Scofidio / The University News

Doors opened a little before 6 p.m. for a buffet dinner. Guests filled their plates with Indian dishes, such as pakora (fried vegetables), Methi Malai Chicken and gulab jamun, a dumpling like dessert, and sat at assigned seats, surrounding 48 tables, throughout the ballroom.

After a last call for food, and several people rushing up for seconds, the entertainment of the evening began with a guest performance by Astha, SLU’s fusion a cappella group. Members asked the audience to rise for the singing of both the Indian and U.S. national anthems. Astha continued the set with three more songs that combined Eastern and Western musical traditions into mash-ups, including one of “Mitwa” and “Bigger Than My Body.”

The bulk of the evening’s performances was dances. Each class – freshman through senior – performed a group dance number. A classical dance group, a Bollywood-style dance group, a music group and a guest performance from the Filipino Student Association also occurred during the event.

The performances throughout the night were enthusiastic and full of energy; it was clear that the entire ISA was excited to put on this event for their audience, which was filled with friends and family. Performers sat in the back of the ballroom when they were not onstage and vocally cheered on their peers. Dances throughout the night were sometimes graceful and sometimes more intense. Music ranged from modern to more traditional, showcasing a variety of styles and moods.

The Bollywood-style dance group was a highlight of the show. The group’s performance told a love story through the dance of two college students who are forbidden by their parents to see one another. Of course, the story ended happily.

As a buffer between the various dance and music performances, ISA members performed skits revolving around the idea of being denied and rejected. The comedic skits poked fun at SLU, but added little to the show except length. One skit inexplicably ended with a pie on someone’s face.

Halfway through the performance, ISA’s executive board came onstage.
Members introduced themselves one by one and explained the charity aspect of the evening. ISA supports Manav Sadhna, which is a non-profit, based in Illinois, that works on humanitarian projects in the state of Gujarat in western India.

Jacqueline Woodson’s newest book, “Brown Girl Dreaming,” beautifully combines poetry and memoir to tell the story of her youth.

Woodson was raised in South Carolina, and later in New York City, and in this book, she writes of the reality of growing up in both the North and the South with the remnants of the Jim Crow era. She writes of her siblings, her mother, learning to read and write and struggling with being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. Her experiences are captured in these poems, and through reading them and experiencing them with her, a reader catches a glimpse of the soul of a girl.

Courtesy of Goodreads.com

The silhouette on the cover of a girl carrying a book, butterflies escaping from it and swirling through the crepuscule sky, points to the universality of this story. This girl could be any girl, and the reader is invited to take a step into her shoes for three hundred or so pages.

At the same time, the title reminds us that our shared humanity contains specific stories, and this one belongs specifically to a certain kind of person. “Brown Girl Dreaming” tells the story of African-American girls, who grew up during the ‘60s and ‘70s. By paying attention to this story specifically, we can learn more about ourselves as a nation, as a culture and as a human race.

Many try to categorize books as “girl books” or “boy books,” but the truth is that one person’s story, regardless of age, gender or race, can and does speak to all who are willing to listen. “Brown Girl Dreaming” just wants people to listen to its words. They are quiet but strong, unsure but curious. They grace the page with delight, eager to leave the confines of the physical book and enter the mind of the reader.

Each poem in this book is only a page or two long, and it would be easy to plot through them all in one sitting. However, these poems, packed full of rich images and poignant moments, deserve more time and attention than that. They deserve to be read and re-read, really thought about and reflected on.
The simple experiences and thoughts that become poems are as precious as childhood itself. A series of poems throughout the book entitled “How to Listen” perfectly captures this: “What is your one dream, / my friend Maria asks me. / Your one wish to come true?”

Or her simple, self-aware “p.s. 106 haiku”: “Jacqueline Woodson / I’m finally in fourth grade. / It’s raining outside.”

Each poem tells a moment, and these moments weave together to create a beautiful narrative of childhood and life that any reader can appreciate.

Woodson has previously written many books for young adults and children, including “Hush” and “Locomotion.”

Her works have won much recognition; “Brown Girl Dreaming” was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature this year.

“Grace’s Guide: The Art of Pretending to Be a Grown-Up” is a humorous look at the struggles millennials face as they become adults. Readers may recognize the author, Grace Helbig, from the YouTube comedy world, where she has almost two million subscribers and posts videos multiple times a week.

As college students, we’re all pretending to be grown-ups. It’s a strange in-between. We’re responsible for our own actions and decisions, but generally have no idea what we’re doing (or at least, I don’t). College is a helpful bubble to learn the skills we need to become full-fledged adults in the real world. Skills, like cooking or managing a professional life, are currently something of a mystery, but we’re trying.

For many of us, thinking about the future and facing the fact that we are no longer children is a topic stressful enough to make us curl up in our bed with ice cream to watch “Lizzie McGuire” episodes we downloaded off the Internet in order to ignore the impending doom of adulthood. Facing responsibility seems too scary.

Courtesy of Tammy Richards

“Grace’s Guide” offers a welcome relief from the serious tone that usually accompanies discussions of job interviews and tactics for coping with anxiety. Helbig takes the wit and humor that has made her YouTube channel so popular and transfers it to an amusing book that any college student could use in their dorm or apartment.

The book is filled with lists of tips split up into four categories: your professional life, your social life, your love life and lifestyle. The tips create ridiculous acronyms such as “A PICKY COP” or “ASIA SHAVED.” Some of them are helpful, some just silly. The anecdotes and potty humor give the tone of an older sister trying to help out a younger sibling. Who else would recommend, “Wrap yourself up in a blanket and roll around on the floor like a human taco” to manage your anxiety?

This book is an interesting look at the direction of YouTube content creators. Google (which owns YouTube) is working hard to convince both consumers and advertisers that YouTube is a valid place to spend one’s time and money. The increasing number of Internet personalities who are publishing books show that they are both embracing traditional media and demonstrating the strength of the Internet as a platform.

This isn’t a book to read cover to cover; it gets repetitive to read list after list of tips, but it could work well as a coffee table book in a dorm room or college apartment. Sure, this book is partially “fluff” (an uncomfortable percentage of the book is filled with full-page photographs of Helbig), but there are real tips hidden among the jokes. “Grace’s Guide” is certainly more palatable, and less overwhelming than the thousands of results from a Google search of “how to throw a good party”.

I have traveled all over the country of Scotland, and never have I seen more kilts in one location than in Forest Park this weekend.

The St. Louis Scottish Games and Cultural Festival took place this past Friday and Saturday, Sept. 26-27. The St. Louis Scottish Games Corporation states on their website that the goal of the festival is “to foster and encourage open exchange of cultural, educational, and recreational concepts and pursuits between those with an interest in the culture and heritage of Scotland and others in the Greater St. Louis area.”

Elizabeth Scofifio / Contributor

The festival was a crossroads of Scotland and the U.S., of old and new. A man wearing a kilt walked around carrying bagpipes, a beer and an iPad. Two sword fighters dressed in medieval garb fist pumped after a battle.

A $10 student entrance fee gave access to the festival on Saturday, and there was more than enough going on to get your money’s worth.

Sounds of bagpipes echoed throughout the festival and into the parking lot to greet those arriving. This music was provided by a pipe band competition that lasted through much of the day. Pipe bands, consisting of bagpipers and drummers, had traveled from around the region to compete. Soloists played in the morning, groups in the afternoon.

The musicians’ outfits, complete with kilts and high socks that seemed all too heavy for the hot day, their precise movements and their musical talent created a professional and impressive atmosphere as they performed. Still, while waiting for their turn to compete, one conductor reminded his band over and over, “Smile!” These games, while formal and well choreographed, were meant to entertain.

Of course, the real games at the event that everyone was looking forward to were the athletic ones. This included the caber toss, where athletes throw a large wooden pole with the objective of flipping it over, and the sheaf toss, where athletes use a pitchfork to hurl a bag stuffed with straw over a horizontal bar high above their heads.

Elizabeth Scofidio / Contributor

Other activities, such as sword fighting, sheepdog demonstrations and highland dancing filled the day. A music tent also hosted various Celtic bands, including Keltic Reign and Plaid to the Bone.

For many, this festival was more than a fun day at the park. Dozens of Scottish clans had tents during the weekend and used the time to have a clan meet-up.

Larry Greer, the State Deputy Chief of the American Clan MacGregor Society, was eager to connect with his clan and meet with people who were interested in their Scottish heritage.

“That’s one reason we’re here: to promote genealogy and knowledge of where we come from,” he said.
Greer wasn’t always connected to his Scottish heritage. “We had no clue,” he said. “But I did as much research as I could.” The research is impressive, with photos, maps and genealogical records filling the tent.

“It’s amazing how much we have in common. You never realize how much you share with people you never knew,” Greer said about meeting others who share the MacGregor heritage.

He told anecdotes of meeting other MacGregors, and how they share large portions of their personalities. “It’s made it a lot of fun.” He now believes that personality is something embedded in a person’s DNA rather than a result of their upbringing.

A closing ceremony late Saturday afternoon ended the festival. All 11 competing bands came together to play “Amazing Grace,” followed by “Scotland the Brave.”

Their military-like precision and thundering melodies and drums gave an enthusiastic send-off to the weekend.

The Sept. 11 Interfaith Commemoration in Music: An Appreciation of Religious Diversity brought together different St. Louis communities to celebrate the variety of faith traditions that thrive in this city.
The event was hosted by Arts and Faith St. Louis, a local organization whose mission is to “establish an ongoing, intentional relationship between the arts and the faith communities to build a more harmonious St. Louis.”

Courtesy of artsfaithstl.org

The event, hosted at the Sheldon Concert Hall in Grand Center, included performances from religious groups from around the city, giving a spotlight to various forms of musical tradition, worship and prayer.
Performers such as the well-known soprano Christine Brewer, a choir from Rosati-Kain High School, and members of the Baha’í community graced the stage. The differences in background of these groups did not matter that night as they all came together to highlight their differences and their common humanity.

The event opened with the audience standing and singing together the national anthem, led by U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel Jaime Torres (Ret.). Timothy O’Leary, general director of Opera Theatre St. Louis, welcomed the crowd with a quote from Victor Hugo, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”

O’Leary explained that his event is meant to bring people together in memory of 9/11, a tragedy that was mean to tear us apart.

Members of the Osage Nation, who had traveled from Oklahoma for this event, sang an opening prayer before Rev. Dr. David Greenhaw, President of Eden Theological Seminary, took the stage to make opening remarks.
Greenhaw compared St. Louis to a table that continues to grow and welcome new members around it to join in the meal. “St. Louis is a wonder,” he said, “unfolded over time.”

He stressed the diversity of St. Louis and the value of that diversity. “We have said, ‘bring your faith, worship your God the way you do, and we will take you seriously.’”

Greenhaw also spoke of the events that have been happening in Ferguson, Mo.

“This year, in our own city, Michael Brown will not be at the table. There’s an empty space. This is a call to us, because it shows we’re not yet the community we want to be. We still have a ways to go.”
He ended his speech on a positive note, “We can still celebrate and share together the beautiful wonder that we already are,” he said. “Celebrate the gift it is from God to be together, different as we are.”

Notable performances include the Hindu Temple of St. Louis’s large all-ages choir, which sang a prayer that was a part of Gandhi’s daily morning ritual, and a special performance from the Sikh Study Circle of St. Louis.

“Face to Face,” a song written by Peter Martin and performed by Christine Brewer and members of the St. Louis Symphony, was specially commissioned for this event by Arts and Faith St. Louis. The song’s lyrics come from Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore’s collection of poetry, “Gitanjali.”

The last performance was from the Normandy High School Choir, which is the high school Brown attended. The choir sang “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway musical “Rent.”

Rev. C. Jessel Strong spoke a few words before ending.

“The common thread of humanity is impossible not to feel,” he said, remarking on the power of the performances of the evening.

St. Louis has made progress towards justice and peace, Strong said, but “progress is not an end point. More progress, more dialogue, more action is needed.”

The evening ended with the audience standing once again, singing “God Bless America” with all the performers gathered together onstage.

An un-air-conditioned room with blank walls and folding chairs became a literary salon last Friday as eager readers endured the heat to hear from writer Roxane Gay. Hosted by Left Bank Books, the event was part of Gay’s book tour celebrating her new collection of essays entitled “Bad Feminist.”

kellywritershouse/ Flickr

Drawing from her own life experiences as a woman of color, the book revolves around Gay’s commentary on contemporary feminism. She admits that she is a “bad feminist” herself – she is a vocal advocate of gender equality – but her use of this phrase is her way of claiming feminism, while acknowledging her personal imperfections. This idea provides a sense of relief for Gay and many of her readers; one need not be a perfect adherent to any supposed rules of feminism to claim the word “feminist.”

Gay’s friendly nature was clear as soon as she took the stage, immediately speaking as if everyone was gathered for a slumber party. She began by commenting on her love for Channing Tatum and reading tweets composed as she read the September 2011 issue of “Vogue.”

The first essay she read was “Typical First-Year Professor,” where she documents the joys and struggles of beginning her career as a university professor. “I tell [the students] to do things and they do those things,” she writes about her first day of teaching. “I realize I am, in fact, in charge.”

She also read her essay “I Once Was Miss America,” which focused on the pride and hope she felt as a child when Vanessa Williams was crowned the first African-American Miss America in 1983. Gay grew up in a Haitian-American family and says that she felt she was “never Haitian enough, American enough, never black enough to be comfortable”.

This insecurity came up again in the second half of the event, during a question- and-answer session. An audience member asked Gay if she found it difficult to put herself out there in her writing, revealing aspects of her personal and emotional life.

“I still don’t feel comfortable, [but] I think certain stories need to be told. I feel like I have a responsibility.” She said that she continues to write these stories in order to make others feel less alone, because she felt so alone for so long.

Gay also touched on the events in Ferguson after an audience member pointed out the low number of black people at the event. Gay argued for the necessity for authors and publishers to reach out to black communities to make sure they know they are welcome in the literary community.

Despite the impossibility of being a perfect feminist at all times, Gay finished by restating her attachment to the word. “Feminism allows me to believe I’m capable,” she said. “I love believing in myself.

In addition to being a writer and editor, Roxane Gay is a professor of English at Purdue University; the founder of Tiny Hardcore Press; an avid blogger, and a competitive Scrabble player.

Left Bank Books is an independent bookstore in St. Louis that hosts more than 200 author events every year. A calendar of upcoming events can be found at www.left-bank.com/upcoming_events.