America reads up

America Ferrera, actor and editor of the new anthology, American Like Me: Reflections On Life Between Cultures, would love to see Harry Potter get the Game Of Thrones treatment

WHAT BOOKS ARE ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND?

Brittney Cooper’s Eloquent Rage: A Black

Feminist Discovers Her Superpower. It’s razor sharp and hilarious. There is so much about her analysis that I relate to and grapple with on a daily basis as a Latina feminist, particularly this point she makes: “When I talk about owning eloquent rage as your superpower, it comes with the clear caveat that everyone is not worth your time or your rage. Black feminism taught me that. My job as a black feminist is to love black women and girls. Period.” I say hear, hear!

I’ve also been fascinated with Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, but it’s quite dense and I usually pick it up at night so I keep falling asleep after a few paragraphs. I’m rereading my friend Amber Tamblyn’s brilliant debut novel, Any Man. But mostly I’m reading Goodnight Moon to my 3-monthold son every single night.

WHAT WAS THE LAST TRULY GREAT BOOK YOU READ?

The Warmth Of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, astonished me. I was ashamed to just be learning about the history and truth of the great migration of black Americans in our country. This book forever altered my understanding of the United States of America. It made me hunger for the rest of this nation’s untold history.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE THING TO READ?

I love stories that illuminate the experience of coming of age in the United States as a woman of colour. Growing up, I very rarely saw myself in the books I read and loved. I get giddy when I see women of colour from my generation telling their stories. Patrisse Khan-Cullors’s memoir, When They Call You A Terrorist, and Jenny Zhang’s

story collection, Sour Heart, are two recent favourites.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE MOVIES OR SHOWS BASED ON BOOKS?

I was so ready to hate Big Little Lies, because who needs another TV show about rich people’s problems? But I absolutely loved it, particularly the conversations it sparked around domestic abuse and supportive female sisterhood.

AND WHAT BOOK WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO SEE TURNED INTO A MOVIE OR TV SHOW?

Julissa Arce’s My (Underground) American

Dream is the true story of how she became a Wall Street executive as an undocumented immigrant. I would love nothing more than to see this intelligent, ambitious and complicated character on television breaking the dehumanising and dangerous stereotypes currently being espoused about Latino immigrants in this country.

Also, I for one am ready for the Harry Potter books to get the Game Of Thrones treatment. As a lover of the books, there was just too much that didn’t make it into the movies and I’m here for 80 hours of a darker and more detailed adaptation of the series.

WHAT’S THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY?

I tried to read Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss, to my newborn son, but eventually I couldn’t say the words through my snot and tears.

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE YOU LAUGH?

How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran, put me into embarrassing fits of laughter in very public places. I had to stop reading it on the subway (one of my favourite places to read) and indulge only in the privacy of my home.

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE YOU FURIOUS?

The Giving Tree. I don’t understand why this is a children’s book or what it’s trying to say. Am I the tree? Am I supposed to make myself a stump? I’m so confused. And angry.

WHAT KIND OF READER WERE YOU AS A CHILD?

I was a binge reader. I got into the habit of reading full books in one sitting, whether I was reading The Phantom Tollbooth at the last minute for class, or racing through as many volumes of The Baby-Sitters Club as I could in one afternoon. Weekends were for reading in bed all day. I’d start with “the funnies” in the newspaper, and then binge on teen horror mystery books. I distinctly remember skipping meals all day to get through the one about some popular children trapped in a mall running from a murderous Santa Claus.

IF YOU COULD REQUIRE THE PRESIDENT TO READ ONE BOOK, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

The Drama Of The Gifted Child by Alice Miller. A little self-reflection and working out his childhood trauma could go a long way toward saving us all. If he understood his inherent value maybe he wouldn’t

DISAPPOINTING, OVERRATED, JUST NOT GOOD: WHAT BOOK DID YOU FEEL AS IF YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO LIKE, AND DIDN’T? DO YOU REMEMBER THE LAST BOOK YOU PUT DOWN WITHOUT FINISHING?

The Catcher In The Rye. I’ve tried so many

times.

WHOM WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO WRITE YOUR LIFE STORY?

Sandra Cisneros. The House On Mango

Street was the first book I read that allowed me to see myself as the protagonist of a story. It was also the first book I read in school written by a Latina author. For years I’d bike through my neighbourhood or walk to school imagining how Cisneros would paint my block and what words she might use to describe my face, my grit, my longing to see the world. I have been deeply influenced and inspired by her in many ways through the years.

WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO READ NEXT?

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade

Of Changing The World by Anand Giridharadas. I’m deeply curious about how we achieve real change that actually betters people’s lives. As someone interested in seeing more social justice in my lifetime, I invite the uncomfortable conversations that challenge the status quo and hold good intentions accountable. Also, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel.

I hear tacos go extinct in this second instalment, and as a taco lover myself, I’m dying to know how it all ends.