Member: 2pac

Library68 books — see library

ReviewedNone so far

Cloudsauthor cloud

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GroupsI See Dead People['s Books]

Favorite authorsMaya Angelou, Alice A. Bailey, Nathan Mc Call, Leroi Jones, Niccolo Machiavelli, J.D. Salinger, Sun Tzu, Alan Watts, Malcolm X (Shared favorites)

About me "It's like if you plant something in the concrete and if it grow and the rose petal got all kinda scratches and marks, you ain't gonna say 'damn, look at all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from the concrete..' you gonna be like 'DAMN! a ROSE grew from the CONCRETE?'"

About my library "Tupac's relationship with Leila Steinberg, who befriended Tupac in the late 1980s and became his mentor, was crucial to his development as a reader. According to Dyson, "the most important role Steinberg played in Tupac's life was that of a literary soul mate . . . it was as reading partners that Steinberg and Tupac most profoundly shaped each other's lives." (92) The pair spent hours in the Bohdi Tree Bookstore in LA. On a bookshelf in Steinberg's apartment, she keeps copies of the books that Tupac read (Tupac lived with her for awhile). Included in that collection are books such as J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Jamaica Kincaid's At the Bottom of the River, Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick, Eileen Southern's Music of Black Americans, and the feminist writings of Alice Walker (In Search of Our Mother's Gardens) and Robin Morgan (the now classic Sisterhood is Powerful: Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement).

Many of the texts cited above were read before Tupac reached the age of 20. Tupac's bookshelf was indeed the bookshelf of a young man who, at his age, was extraordinarily well read and well-rounded intellectually — likely more so than the average student entering in the first year class of most Ivy League institutions. Dyson argues that "Tupac's profound literacy rebutted the belief that hip-hop is an intellectual wasteland . . . Tupac helped to combat the anti-intellectualism in rap, a force, to be sure, that pervades the entire culture." (99)"

- Tupac's Book Shelf, Mark Anthony Neal

Real nameTupac Shakur

Account typepublic, free

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/2pac (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/2pac (library)

Member sinceSep 19, 2007