FROM NORTH TO SOUTH Virtual Book Tour Now Underway

Olga García Echeverría

Amo a mis libros. The ones I’ve been lugging around since my college years. The Ethnic Studies ones that saved me. Frantz Fanon who helped decolonized my mind. The memoir of a Woman Warrior slaying ghosts. James Baldwin who took me to Another Country. I love Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Langston Hughes’ insurgent verses, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up…?"

Amo a mis libros. A las antologías that birthed nuevas metodologías--This Bridge Called My Back and Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About. Books that changed me forever--Ntozake Shange’s Colored Girls and Galeano’s Open Veins. Gloria’s Borderlands and Zora’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

I cannot name them all—Angela Davis, Leslie Marmon Silko, Edward Said. They are unforgettable--Gioconda dressed in dynamite con un fosforito en la mano. Neruda’s melodramatic suspiros, "Puedo escribir los versos mas triste esta noche." Lorca’s yearning Yerma. Woman Hollering Creek. Krik? Krak! The God of Small Things.

Amo, amo, amo a mis libros. So much so that I’ve clung to them throughout the years, their numbers steadily increasing. They’ve survived it all—my radical Spring cleanings, my numerous moves, earthquakes, erosion, and most recent even an explosion. They’ve outlived lovers and long-term relationships, overflowed from shelves onto tables, desks, chairs, and eventually the floor. Then they went into boxes, and finally into storage. They may have stayed there indefinitely among the dusty rubble of unused things, but last month as I moved once again I had an epiphany: putting great books into storage is tragic, like Tennesse William's Laura holding on to her tiny glass menagerie. It's criminal, like killing a mockingbird. Now that I've read and enjoyed them, why not open the cage and let the libros fly into the hands of others? Farewell to Arms and Farewell to Manzanar. Fly caged book, fly!

I Know Why the Donated Book Sings

My books landed in the heart of Boyle Heights. On 1st Street, in a lending library and community bookstore called Libros Schmibros.

A Libros Schmibros volaron mis libros. I'm so happy about their new home. Aside from loving the name of the bookstore, I think the founder David Kipen deserves a big aplauso for giving books like mine another chance to breathe. Bien laid back and a lover of books, David opened Libros Schmibros this past July. He came up with the catchy title to represent both the Jewish and Latino history in East Los. Since July, David has had a steady stream of neighborhood people coming in to browse the shelves, ask questions, walk away with little treasures in their hands. While interviewing him in his library recently, a homeless woman named Patricia came in. She wanted to let David know she had lost Seabiscuit, the book he lent her not too long ago. "Sorry," she said. But she brought in a used copy of The Da Vinci Code to replace it. David smiled warmly, "You didn't have to replace it, but that's great. Thanks." Maybe she'll bring him two dollars later she adds shly. "No, no," he reassures her, "Do

[As always, winners of book give-aways on La Bloga are invited to submit guest posts, including reviews of the book they won. Below is a submission from one of the winners of an Ernest Hogan book. – La Bloga]

Over the years, I have become a fan of Ernesto's work and was disappointed to find out how hard it is to get copies of his "Ben Bova Presents" books. Through Facebook, I learned about Ernesto's interview on La Bloga.

The interview itself was fascinating and I really enjoyed learning how he brought his Chicano roots into his science fiction. Finding out that there was an opportunity to win one of Ernesto's books was a bonus. I entered the contest and was thrilled to learn that I'd won a copy of Cortez on Jupiter.

My great-grandparents were farmers in New Mexico. My grandparents and parents grew up there. Even though I grew up in San Bernardino, California, I always thought of New Mexico as my home turf.

Although I've long enjoyed science fiction, I always had a difficult time finding contemporary "literary" fiction I really enjoyed. About ten years ago, I shared executive director duties of the Border Book Festival in Las Cruces with Denise Chávez. Denise introduced me to such writers as Sandra Cisneros, Rudolfo Anaya, and Luis J. Rodriguez. These were contemporary writers I could relate to. I may not be Latino, but these writers spoke my language culturally.

What excited me about winning Cortez on Jupiter was the prospect that it blended the science fiction that I love with the culture that I live. What I most enjoy about science fiction is that it's intrinsically a hopeful literature, even when it paints portraits of a dark future. Science fiction usually imagines that humans will somehow manage to survive into the future. Sometimes science fiction is cautionary, imagining pitfalls to avoid. Sometimes it imagines a bright future. However, the key is that humans survive and learn something in the process.

I saw Ernesto most recently at Coppercon, a science fiction convention which was held over Labor Day weekend in Mesa, Ariz. He gave me the copy of Cortez on Jupiter that I won and signed it for me on the spot. Since then, I've had a chance to read the novel and it did not disappoint. Ernesto tells the story of Pablo Cortez, a guerrilla artist from Southern California who, through a variety of circumstances, ends up on a mission to Jupiter to attempt contact with lifeforms found there. The future Ernesto depicts is neither especially bright nor dark, but it is essentially hopeful.

By René Colato Laínez