Maleka's Five Books of a Dystopian Nature

All of these books show glimpses (or huge perspectives) of where our world can go if we continue on paths of environmental destruction, war, and other sad and oppressing states. Another world is possible!

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (HarperCollins, $14.99)

[Note: Brave New World is also one of Maleka's April Picks and Erica's August 2010 Picks.]

1984 by George Orwell (Signet Classics, $9.99)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $8.99)

[Note: The Hunger Games is also one of Maleka's October 2010 Picks and the basis for Kate's January 2011 Picks.]

The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman (Random House, $7.50, 11.95, or in omnibus form for $21.99)

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy (Fawcett Books, $7.99)

February 2012, Maleka Fruean

Maleka's 5 Favorite Books Of All Time

Maleka's 5 Favorite Books Of All Time


Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Penguin, $9.99)
First book that made me cry. First book that made me hold my breath in suspense.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Harper Collins, $14.99)
First book that completely blew my mind.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (Random House, $14.95)
Like one long, long, lifelong love letter. And I enjoyed every minute, every day, every year of it.

The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (George Braziller, $12.95)
The pain and beauty of being a woman, being a mother, being a wife, and transcending from all those identities.

Zami by Audre Lorde (Random House, $15.95)
Audre, I wish I could have drank coffee with you in New York or Mexico and talked to you about writing, life, and love.

Maleka's Top 5 (or so) Vegan Cookbooks

Maleka's Top 5
(or so) Vegan Cookbooks

Get your vegan cooking on in 2011. You don't have to be an anarcho-punk, animal rights activist, or live in West Philly. It's just healthy!

1)Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry (Da Capo, $18.95)
Includes a suggested soundtrack for each recipe. Dope!

2)Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moscowitz (Da Capo, $27.50)
I consider Isa the best vegan chef out there. This is a vegan Bible.

3)Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moscowitz (Da Capo, $19.95)
And this is brunch to end all brunches.

4)The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (Fair Winds Press, $19.95)
Yes! Bake without eggs or milk.

5)Vegan Lunch Box by Jennifer Mccann (Da Capo, $19.95)
Vegan Bento Box lunches are cuteeeee.

p.s. I also love Ripe From Around Here by jae steele (Arsenal Pulp, $23.95), full of delicious vegan recipes and emphasizing mindful eating and local foods!

Five Books That Made Maleka Want to Eat

Anyone that knows me knows that I love to eat. I also love to cook. I LOVE reading about eating, especially about foods from around the world. Some of my favorite scenes in novels/memoirs are of food preparation or feasts with all kinds of people attending. Here’s a list of books that have excellent eating scenes, all of which made me want to bust out some utensils as soon as I was done reading and enjoy a hearty meal.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin, $15.00)
I know, I know. This book has a lot of hype already. But I cannot deny the food scenes in Italy. The main character of Liz sitting in the middle of Italy eating fresh asparagus and eggs or chomping on the best pizza described on the planet is simply amazing.

Made From Scratch by Jenna Woginrich (Storey, $12.95)
Her combination of dark chocolate and awesome coffee and her descriptions of fresh pasta and homemade bread made my day.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner, $14.95)
Two words: Indian food.

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel (Ten Speed Pr., $24.99)
This is simply a fantastic book. It presents photo shoots of families from all over the world posed with one week's worth of all the food and drink they consume. It is interesting to see the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables in most of the poorer families' households versus a huge amount of processed and junk foods in the richer households. I loved the photo spread of what people ate for breakfast all over the world. Savory noodles, yum!

Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen (Penguin, $14.00)
Bich is like me - she likes reading about food too. Her memoir is packed with scenes from her childhood and adolescence where she sits cuddling a book and reading long passages about food in Little House on the Prairie, dreams about eating "American food" which involves mostly processed cheese product, and eats in the kitchen with her beloved grandmom who fries thin potatoes for her almost every afternoon and serves up traditional Vietnamese soups. I was craving both traditional Vietnamese dishes AND American junk food after reading this.

December 2010, Maleka Fruean

Five Books Maleka Wants to Read (or Finish) This Fall

I start a lot of books and never finish them. It's not that I don't like them! It's just that there's laundry and book clubs and life. And then there are books that I never start but I keep staring at them in the store, petting them, waiting for the day to make them mine and devour the story whole. Okay, here's the list:

The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine (Anchor Books, $16.00)
Need. to. finish. this. Such a good beginning!

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak (Viking, $25.95)
Also started but did not finish. I cannot wait to keep going. It's a love story with Rumi, y'all!

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $8.99)
I love dystopias. No, seriously. One of my favorite books of all time is Brave New World! I can't wait to start this.

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (Knopf, $24.95)
Hey, guys, I like to do things in bare feet! Also I want to start running again. I think this will give me inspiration.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Vintage Crime, $14.95)
I started this. I really wanted to love it so much that I wouldn't put it down for two days. But I just kind of liked it in a very medium sort of way. I want to finish though. I need to see why people love it!

October 2010, Maleka Fruean

Maleka's Five Poetry Collections to Sink Your Teeth Into

Grit and tender membrane by Samantha Barrow (Plan B Press, $13.95)
"I will be wearing the stench of celestial love in the morning"

The World is Round by Nikky Finney (InnerLight Publishing, $14.95)
"I turned around held up my shirt and brought my smooth belly into her scarred one; our navels pressing, making out some kind of new equatorial line."

What the Living Do by Marie Howe (Norton, $13.95)
"and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless: I am living, I remember you."

The Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada (Norton, $13.95)
"I don't like to be still. I want to climb the steps at Macchu Picchu. I want to talk about poetry all night. I want more wine."

New and Selected Poems: Volume One by Mary Oliver (Beacon, $17.00)
"I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

-July 2010, Maleka Fruean

Five Children's Books That Made Maleka's Heart Burst Wide Open

(and by bursting wide open, I mean these books either made me cry in a good way, or left me speechless, or made me want more, or made me want to change the world for the generations to come, or made me want to savor and cherish every minute on this beautiful and imperfect planet filled with all of humanity.)

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart ($6.99, VHPS)

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold ($6.99, Random House)

I'm in Charge of Celebrations by Byrd Baylor ($6.99, Simon and Schuster)

The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor ($6.99, Simon and Schuster)

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown ($16.99, Little Brown)

-Maleka Fruean, June 2010

Five Books That Have Inspired Maleka's Creativity

How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Art Life Museum by Keri Smith (Penguin, $14.95)

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (Random House, $14.00)

Run Toward Fear by Haki R. Madhubuti (Third World Press, $12.00)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (Random House, $15.95)

Creative Family by Amanda Soule (Random House, $18.95)

May 2010, Maleka Fruean

Maleka's Five Books with Absolutely Fascinating Female Characters

1) Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

2) The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.

3) Sex Wars by Marge Piercy.

4) Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta.

5) Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy.

-April 2010, Maleka Fruean

Random Books I Want To Read

Greetings book lovers!

On a semi-regular basis I will post random selections of books I want to check out that are in stock at Big Blue Marble Bookstore. These could be classics, Indiebound bestsellers, African history, memoirs, pop culture, humor, kid chapter books, or anything that strikes my fancy. I have an infinite love of books and an infinite amount of curiosity. So these are books that I look at while drinking a cup of Rishi Masala Chai (available in our cafe... hee,hee), while I am dusting off the tops of shelves, while I am daydreaming in the middle of the sales floor about authors I want to come visit us, and while I am wiping smudges off our wooden floors. These are books that we receive weekly and books that have been sitting on our shelves for awhile. Join me, if you will, on a virtual tour of book love through our bookstore.

Love, Maleka, events coordinator at Big Blue Marble Bookstore



First Random Pick: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, $15.95, in our History section.

Intriguing. I heard this book first mentioned in a reading by local author David Grazian for his book On the Make. It seems to be a classic book about urban planning and the history of cities. Plus the other day I had a personal revelation that I always want to live or at least be very close to a city. And Jane Jacobs was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania! So it reminds me of the TV show The Office and I love that show.

My New Inspiration: Randa Jarrar

One of the wonderful things about hosting the Women of the World book club here at the bookstore is finding a bunch of new women authors with all kinds of multicultural and world backgrounds. Case in point: Randa Jarrar, author of the new novel A Map of Home. Just read her bio:

Randa Jarrar is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, and translator. Randa grew up in Kuwait and Egypt, and moved to the US after the first Gulf War. At the age of 13, she enrolled in 10th grade, and went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College at 16. Two years later, she became a single mom, and by the age of 22, she had a Masters’ degree, a four- year-old, and a desire to write a novel. She began A Map of Home at the age of 23, writing the bulk of it in a trailer in small-town Texas. Jarrar’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Oxford American, Ploughshares, The New York Times, Progressive Magazine, as well as online and in numerous anthologies. She is also a translator of Arabic fiction, and her publications include Hassan Daoud’s novel The Year of the Revolutionary New Breadmaking Machine. She currently lives in Austin, TX and is working on a collection of stories and a new novel, about a young single mother and her magical prophet son.

Ummm, can I be your friend and hang out with you and be inspired and write a novel and get my master's degree and raise my kids? Thank you. That is all.
-Maleka