Read Women discussion

My planning/ideas list:

something by Zadie Smith and Roxane Gay

fiction

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (short stories)

Broken Places by Tracy Clark (mystery, Chicago)

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (debut)

A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

something by Buchi Emecheta

The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy by Paulina Chiziane (496 pages, Mozambique)

Homegoing or Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

What You Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs (classic)

Jubilee by Margaret Walker (classic)

The Talking Drum by Lisa Braxton (historical fiction)

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

The Richer, the Poorer by Dorothy West (short stories)

This Bitter Earth by author:Bernice L. McFadden|119881]

nonfiction

Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine

Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie(May release date)

Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia by Karida L. Brown

A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry

Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin

The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots by Brenda E. Stevenson

Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route by Saidiya Hartman (recommended by Javier - retracing history of Atlantic slave trade, plus Ghana)

The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran

Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment by Angela J. Davis

something by Audra Lorde and Lucille Clifton

The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper (memoir, Liberia)

1. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Finished January 19.

2. Good Boy, a prize-winning short story by Nigerian author, Eloghosa Osunde. Read April 13.

I loved this. Review, including link (no paywall) to her story.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

3. Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine. Finished April 21.

Fantastic. Challenging. Excellent. Highly recommend to every reader.

4. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. 5 stars. I’m amazed that this is a debut.

5. Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry. Finished June 1.

6. Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall. Finished June 26.

7. Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I really want to read that one at some point, you've picked some really great titles.

Alwynne wrote: "I really want to read that one at some point, you've picked some really great titles."

It was serendipitously on a table at my library, so was easier to commit to than if I’d had to seek it out. I’m really glad I read it, and also glad I didn’t have to stay in a land if grief for more than 45 minutes or so.

I’ve been really delighted with each of these reads and highly recommend them all. Church Ladies is the least perfect one, but parts of it were stellar and there’s a ton of value in my mind in staking out a different claim from pretty much all other writers at the moment.

8. Dead Dead Girls by Canadian author, Nekesa Afia. Not entirely successful, but so like-able I forgave it its implausibility and eye-rolling ending. It’s a debut, so I get to be gracious if I want to be.

9. Assembly by Natasha Brown. Finished September 28.