{"id":502651,"date":"2026-10-20T22:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502651\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T22:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:04:32","slug":"meet-the-readers-of-dolores-park-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502651\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the readers of Dolores Park, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning how to read right <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Can I ask what drew you to read How to Read a Book?\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am 33. I haven\u2019t read a book since before College. I graduated from USC in Business. I speak well, but we never had to read much. I just decided I wanted to learn how and see what I was missing. I know I have a lot to catch up on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018How to Read a Book\u2019 by Charles Van Doren and Mortimer J. Adler<\/p>\n

Women journalists in Arab countries <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

My name is Nairi. It is Armenian. I am half Lebanese. I have been to Beirut and up in the mountains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The book is about women journalists in Arab countries. Much of the time they cannot report from anywhere unless they have a man to protect them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am unemployed. I was working in public health. I need something different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you been to any Arab countries? No.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe you want to be a journalist? (I did not ask that but there you have it.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World,\u2019 Zahra Hankir (editor) Christiane Amanpour (foreword)<\/p>\n

Life<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

My name is Arden. I design cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When you are on the highway and you see a Volvo Truck, that has my design work inside it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What is your journal about?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What do you think of what is going on in Minneapolis? It\u2019s crazy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scary?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

A notebook for planning<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

We are Josie and Maxine. Sure, take our picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re planning a \u201cSurvivor\u201d party. It\u2019s been on television for 25 years. We\u2019re inviting 18 of our friends.<\/p>\n

We are brainstorming the worst things that we can do to each of them! (Laughter)\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s amazing you have so many friends. You get older, not so many.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I can imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks, have a great party.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s how I got here.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

What brought you to read, Under the Volcano?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have you read Bolanos\u2019 The Savage Detectives? There\u2019s a\u00a0 Lowry quote before the book begins.<\/p>\n

I remember Under the Volcano as a dark book. A granular book, a deep dive into\u00a0 being an alcoholic drinking Mescal all in one day in some town in\u00a0 Mexico. I read it in 1965 in Nigeria. I was in the Peace Corps and\u00a0 I had just arrived. I followed it with a translation of Dante\u2019s\u00a0 Inferno. I must have had a real case of Culture Shock.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What do\u00a0 you do? What\u2019s your name?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Kendrick. I am a journalist for Reuters. I am out here to cover\u00a0 tech. I am from Rochester. I went to Duke.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My whole life has\u00a0 been on the run from snow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where do you put this project? Yes, let me see it on Facebook. Great.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let me know if I put down anything wrong.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Under the Volcano\u2018 by Malcolm Lowry<\/p>\n

The Zephyr<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

My goodness! You really fill the page.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a new journal. I just got off the train. The Zephyr. Amtrak west from Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I met some real interesting people. I need to write about it. A great trip: mountains and people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where did I go to school? Wesleyan. Computer science. I like to use code to build models. That\u2019s also my work. Yes, AI will take it all away, including my job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a whole new landscape. I am on my way to Tokyo and Kyoto. Thanks for stopping by to ask me.<\/p>\n

Reading the prophets <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s the Bible. I am here for the word.<\/p>\n

A passport to existentialists <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

My name is Provatti. I tell people it\u2019s \u201cProvoke\u201d but with \u201ct\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u00a0 am from Nepal. Yes, the park is a \u2018low mountain\u2019, much lower\u00a0 than the ones I know back in my home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Computer science is what\u00a0 I do and study. Do I like to read books?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh yes. Now I am\u00a0 reading Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism. I am about to\u00a0 read Nausea and after that it will be Camus\u2019s The Stranger.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u00a0 love to read and use my journal to write and think about what I\u00a0 am reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, sometimes I think I will always be a stranger in\u00a0 this strange land.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yes, the politics these days make\u00a0 everything feel uncertain. But I want to suggest the experience of\u00a0 reading the book transcends the boundaries used to create and\u00a0 make a separate land unto itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here the readers are citizens,\u00a0 the book a passport.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Existentialism and Humanism, by Jean-Paul Sartre\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Stranger, by Albert Camus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Learning how to read right Can I ask what drew you to read How to Read a Book?\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[194581,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-502651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-doloresparkreading","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}