Read Women discussion

With this challenge, we'll focus on reading women authors of non-fiction - any theme, any topic. Participants may join at any time during the year. The challenge will last from January 1st until December 31st, 2024.

This is a self-directed challenge and it’s up to you how much or how little you want to participate. and whether you want to limit your reading to, for example, books about art or history or any other theme. We will use this thread to recommend books, to track our challenge reading, to share lists that resonate, to ask for suggestions, whatever makes your reading life richer.

What's on your tentative "want to read" list? As you finish qualifying reads, let us know how you liked them. Are you planning to participate?

Of course I will participate, and I'll return with a list of suggestions and a reading plan for 2024

Crazytourists_books wrote: "Of course I will participate, and I'll return with a list of suggestions and a reading plan for 2024"

yay :)

I only have 3 nonfiction slated so far for next year, but who knows? My list starts to change in January!

She Devils at the Door by Eliza Smith Brown

The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell (also a banned book if anyone needs one. Unbelievable when you read the story behind this book.)

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

adding:
Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney

ESSAYS
✔️The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World - edited by Alison Hawthorne Deming and Lauret Savoy, essays from various POC writers, majority women, for Q1
✔️Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde, February group read, UK Pride, US Black History Month
✔️A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in Ireland by Rebecca Solnit, March group read, Q1, Irish Readathon
✓ Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy by Larissa Pham, essays
✓ The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
✓ Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
✓ Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli
-Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

MEMOIRS/BIOS
✓ We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib, Pakistani Canadian, audiobook
✓ Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock, memoir of a Black, trans icon
✓ How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair, Q2
✓ My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Kabi Nagata graphic novel memoir for January in Japan
✔️Takeaway: Stories from a Childhood Behind the Counter by Angela Hui, growing up Chinese in Wales, for Dewithon in March
✓ The Young Man by Annie Ernaux, French, extra short
✓ Whip Smart: A Memoir by Melissa Febos Pride Month, Indigenous
✓ The Years by Annie Ernaux
✓ In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

HISTORY
✓ The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop by Clover Hope, audiobook
✔️The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, Q2, African American history spliced with biographies of three migrants of the American south
✔️Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston, Q2
✓ Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis

OTHER
✓ Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba

I came here to post what I think I've got on deck for early 2024, but now I have to come back to check out your lists, Gail and Jen, because I see new (to me) shiny objects to add.

Updating this post to track my actually "read" list:

1. Reindeer: An Arctic Life by Tilly Smith. Finished Jan 9.
2. Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater. finished Jan 10.
3. The Bells of Old Tokyo: Meditations on Time and a City by Anna Sherman. finished Jan 19.
4. The Happiness of Blond People: A Personal Meditation on the Dangers of Identity by Elif Shafak. finished Jan 22.
5. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Finished February 12.
6. Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty by Mandy Matney. Finished April 12.
7. A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast by Dorthe Nors. Finished April 19.
8. Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson. Finished May 25.
9. A Book of Migrations: Some Passages in Ireland by Rebecca Solnit. Finished June 19.
10. Intimations by Zadie Smith. Finished July 3.
11. On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed. Finished July 6.
12. Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith. Finished July 18.
13. Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles. Finished August 4.
14. The White Album by Joan Didion. Finished September 11.
15. The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History by Karen Valby. Finished September 21.
16. Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica M. White. Finished October 8.
17. Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard. November 8.
18. The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich. November 12.
19. Uncommon Kitchens: A Revolutionary Approach to the Most Popular Room in the House by Sophie Donelson. December 7.,

Carol wrote: "I came here to post what I think I've got on deck for early 2024, but now I have to come back to check out your lists, Gail and Jen, because I see new (to me) shiny objects to add.

High on my list..."

Carol difficult women looks really interesting and I've added it to my tbr but it's listed as fiction!

I plan to read 10 books for this challenge which is high for me as I'm not a huge nonfiction reader, but I want to change that. High on my list:

Nature/environment
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World by Linda Hogan
The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories by Alice Walker

Memoir
Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir by Leslie Marmon Silko
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

Mindfulness/spirituality
Flowers in the Dark: Reclaiming Your Power to Heal from Trauma with Mindfulness by Dang Nghiem
Learning True Love: Practicing Buddhism in a Time of War by Chan Khong
Timecode of a Face by Ruth Ozeki

Feminism
Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger by Lilly Dancyger
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon

Nonfiction by women to read in 2024 (so far):

***Updated 12/31/23***

I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan by Katie Porter
Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America by Dahlia Lithwick
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
The Best American Essays 2019 edited by Rebecca Solnit *(anthology)
Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

Read in 2024

Hannah wrote: "Carol wrote: "I came here to post what I think I've got on deck for early 2024, but now I have to come back to check out your lists, Gail and Jen, because I see new (to me) shiny objects to add.

H..."

Ack! You’re right. Even though I’ve read an early short story collection of hers, I forgot she ever writes fiction. Thanks for the heads-up. Hunger , it is.

This is my (so far) list for 2024:

The Outrun: A Memoir by Amy Liptrot
The Flow: Rivers, Water and Wildness by Amy-Jane Beer
Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women by Silvia Federici
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri
Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope and Triumph by Yusra Mardini
How to Have Feminist Sex by Flo Perry
Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis
Touch the Dragon: A Thai Journal by Karen Connelly
Shame by Annie Ernaux (the greek translation)
Singing Away the Hunger: The Autobiography of an African Woman by Mpho M'Atsepo Nthunya
To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace by Kapka Kassabova
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad

Oh I made the same mistake at first- Dara McNulty isn’t a woman. I might still read his book for Irish Readathon though.

You are right! I'll remove it from this list asap. Thanks Jen

Non fiction books I read this year, and I would totally recommend are:

Ice Rivers
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
On the Origin of Evolution: Tracing ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea’ from Aristotle to DNA (two authors for this one, of them a woman)
In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder
Tears of Gold: Portraits of Yazidi, Rohingya, and Nigerian Women
My Name Is Selma
Around the World in 80 Trains: A 45,000-Mile Adventure
Badly Behaved Women: The History of Modern Feminism
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary as Told to George Hajjar

Most of my non-fic reading is set by what the Radical Reading group reads, so I don't over-plan my non-fic tbr, but books I REALLY want to read next year:

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life by Alice Wong
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas

also Becoming Beauvoir: A Life by Kate Kirkpatrick, but I'm worried I'm not going to have enough time for that one...

Monica wrote: "Nonfiction by women to read in 2024 (so far):

I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan by Katie Porter
[book:Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to S..."

Thanks for the inspiration, Monica- adding Rebecca Solnit to my plans too! I haven't decided which one but I aim to go nature-themed for Q1.

Every year about 1/3 of the books I read are nonfiction. My overall goal next year is to read books I already own. For this challenge I want to plan 10 books although I'm sure I will read more. These are the 10 books I have owned the longest.

1. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
2. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz
3. On Revolution by Hannah Arendt
4. All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
5. Borrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age by Sue Armstrong
6. Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of a Young Black Girl in the Rural South by Anne Moody
7. The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart
8. The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich
9. The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin
10. Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson

Still compiling my list of TBRs for 2024.

Here are some I read this past year and loved:

A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom
Hijab Butch Blues
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution
Beautiful Country
Crying in H Mart

I love non-fiction, so I will definitely participate on this thread. I don't know about setting a specific goal. I'll have to give that some thought. Some that I read this year that I would absolutely recommend:

History:
Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History by Bridget Quinn
Toward the Setting Sun: Pioneer Girls Traveling the Overland Trails by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien
Frontier Grit: The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women by Marianne Monson

Memoirs:
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia ed. by Anita Heiss
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics by Dolly Parton (listen to the audiobook because there are clips of her songs)
Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog

Environmental/Social Justice
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life by Winona LaDuke
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Self-Help/Grief:
Women with ADHD: The Complete Guide to Stay Organized, Overcome Distractions, and Improve Relationships. Manage Your Emotions, Finances, and Succeed in Life by Sarah Davis
The Worthy Mind: Transform Your Mindset. Strengthen Self-Worth. by Meadow DeVor
Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A nonfiction recommendation I can give from my 2023 reads would be Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis. Short and excellent. I already have my next book of hers en route to me cuz I'm eager to read more from her.

I finished Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein this morning. It was a very thought-provoking read and is difficult to describe. What drew me to it was the discussion of conspiracy theories and the far right, but it was much more than that. I enjoyed Klein's attempt to grapple with our current moment post-pandemic.

I started the audible version of Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater and have been instantly immersed. She’s a gifted storyteller, but also doesn’t get distracted by rabbit holes or dump research content into readers’ laps.

Some really interesting titles in these comments. Lots I’ve not heard of, allowing me to delightedly update my TBR. Thank you all.

Susan wrote: "I finished Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein this morning. It was a very thought-provoking read and is difficult to describe. What drew me to i..."

Wow! That sounds really interesting, as well as a little scary! I've added it to my TBR. Thanks Susan.

Carol wrote: "I started the audible version of Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater and have been ..."

This also sounds very interesting Carol.

So, I do have a few now on my list to read. I am trying to clear out my Audible list because there are so many titles. LOL. So, here are a few on deck:

Women of Means: The Fascinating Biographies of Royals, Heiresses, Eccentrics and Other Poor Little Rich Girls (Bios of Royalty and Rich & Famous) by Marlene Wagman-Geller
The Jamestown Brides: The Untold Story of England's 'Maids for Virginia' by Jennifer Potter
Where the Light Gets In: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again by Kimberly Williams-Paisley
The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir by Dee Williams
Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too by Beth Terry
Tears of the Silenced by Misty Griffin
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz

I finished my first book for this challenge: Reindeer: An Arctic Life by Tilly Smith. Just delightful. It wouldn’t be a 5 star read for everyone but it was for me.

I have finished the first two on my list:
Women of Means: The Fascinating Biographies of Royals, Heiresses, Eccentrics and Other Poor Little Rich Girls (Bios of Royalty and Rich & Famous) by Marlene Wagman-Geller
The Jamestown Brides: The Untold Story of England's 'Maids for Virginia' by Jennifer Potter

They were both pretty interesting, and I enjoyed them.

I finished 24 Hours in Charlottesville: An Oral History of the Stand Against White Supremacy by Nora Neus. This book is about what transpired in Charlottesville, VA, around the planned Unite the Right rally. I'm always impressed by the amount of work that must go into a good oral history, not only all the interviews that need to be done but then crafting it into an effective narrative. This was an intense read but I'm really glad I picked it up at the library. 5 stars

I finished listening to We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Pakistani-Canadian journalist and photographer Samra Habib and was captivated from start to end and almost crying at the end. I definitely wanna get this for my bookshelf of favorites at home.
She writes simply and eloquently and her story sooo spoke to my heart. She talks about art, spirituality, language barriers, cross-cultural upbringing, queerness, self-discovery, as well as fashion, travel, and friendships. And in such a compact memoir. Big recommend.

And I'm quite enjoying my string of readings linked by Islamic faith lately. Cool to get the various views from:
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Autobiography of Malcolm X
10Min 38Sec by Elif Shafak
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
and now this one- finally one addressing the intersection of queerness and Islam.

I have finished two more on my list:
Where the Light Gets In: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again by Kimberly Williams-Paisley - I would highly recommend this book. I was sobbing while reading it.
Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too by Beth Terry - I mentioned this on another thread, but it is also fantastic. Full of really good suggestions and resources.

Jen wrote: "And I'm quite enjoying my string of readings linked by Islamic faith lately."

My chiropractor recommended a book to me that might interest you. I have not read it yet, so I cannot say anything about how good it is!

Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace by Patricia Raybon and Alana Raybon

I finally finished a classical feminist text The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy by Gerda Lerner. I really loved it, I think it is a great book, but it isn't a must-read. It's a topic that's super interesting to me though, so it definitely was a must read for me 🤭
I feel like my review of the book is really messy, but in case someone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I just finished listening to Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz (pen names Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels), and I really enjoyed it. She comes right out and says that looking at ancient Egyptian culture through a misogynistic and colonialist lens is ridiculous. LOL. It was great.

Misty wrote: "I just finished listening to Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz (pen names Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels), and I really enjoyed it. She comes r..."

Oh interesting find, adding to TBR. And thanks for sharing about Undivided.

My plan in message 5 is updated with some new additions and I figured out emojis for marking things as read- yay, hehe...

And FYI, I discovered yesterday that The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop by Clover Hope is free on Audible right now. I'm hoping to get to it before its freebie status expires. I canceled my Audible account cuz I just started a Libby account while I been here in the US- also yay.

The other day I finished Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson's Creek: How Seven Teen Shows Transformed Television, which I picked up at the library on a lark. It was a fun, easy read that had lots of behind-the-scenes info on casting, writing, directing, and studio interference of the seven shows discussed (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Freaks and Geeks, Dawson's Creek, Friday Night Lights, The OC, Glee, and My So-Called Life). This was the perfect book after a few heavier reads!

I learned yesterday that 2024 is the inaugural year for the Women's Prize for NonFiction and I"m quite excited. https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens...

If you're on Insta, check out the many recommendations readers made in response to the Women's Prize account's announcement invitation to suggest winners. Pretty exciting - lots of TBR additions for me.

Carol wrote: "I learned yesterday that 2024 is the inaugural year for the Women's Prize for NonFiction and I"m quite excited. https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens...

If you're on Insta, che..."

That is very exciting, indeed!

Carol wrote: "I learned yesterday that 2024 is the inaugural year for the Women's Prize for NonFiction and I"m quite excited. https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens...

If you're on Insta, che..."

Oh, I didn't know about this, how exciting!

Carol wrote: "I learned yesterday that 2024 is the inaugural year for the Women's Prize for NonFiction and I"m quite excited. https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens...

If you're on Insta, che..."

This made my day. Can’t wait for that long list announcement on the 15th!

Updates on my nonfictions-

unfortunate few duds for me-
Takeaway: Stories from a Childhood Behind the Counter by Angela Hui- I read in honor of Dewithon/reading Wales. It's a memoir of growing up Chinese in Wales with immigrant parents running a Chinese takeaway. I was pretty excited for this one and hoping for a story that felt like home but man, the writing and lack of depth were quite disappointing.

Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy essays by Larissa Pham- mannn, another frustrating one. She weaves personal stories with art writing. The art writing was so, so fulfilling for me as she actually wrote about some of my favorites in art, but the weaving in of the other threads didn't work for me.

On the upside, I'm so far really liking Janet Mock's Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More as audio narrated by herself.

I'm planning to join for the May nonfiction group read and I'm thinking of adding Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff as audio maybe this month.

Titles that made the shortlist of the inaugural Women's Prize for Nonfiction 2024:

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia
A Flat Place: Moving Through Empty Landscapes, Naming Complex Trauma by Noreen Masud
Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming
How to Say Babylon: A Jamaican Memoir by Safiya Sinclair

Winner to be announced June 13

Our magnificent shortlist is made up of six powerful, impressive books that are characterised by the brilliance and beauty of their writing and which each offer a unique, original perspective. The readers of these books will never see the world – be it through art, history, landscape, politics, religion or technology – the same again.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, Chair of Judges, Broadcaster & Writer


The longlist of 16 titles here:
https://womensprize.com/announcing-th...

A few more non-fiction books I have read:

Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston, and I highly recommend it. It is an important and valuable document. I think it should be required reading in high school.

Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-Biological Lesbian Moms Tell All ed. by Harlyn Aizley. Most of these stories are great. There are a couple that are not. I listened to it and practically screamed "Maybe you're just a bad person" to the woman who said she might have to get rid of her cat if they had another baby. Humph.

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez - everyone should read this book. I am a huge feminist, was a women's studies double major for a while (finally had to drop it so I could graduate!), and have done almost all of my undergraduate and graduate research on women's issues, so I feel pretty well-versed in women's issues. However, I learned so much in this book. The issues are vast. I highly recommend it.

Nonfiction by women to read in 2024 : 1Qtr

Planned (revised):

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
The Best American Essays 2019 edited by Rebecca Solnit *(anthology)
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century by Alice Wong
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil
Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business by Roxane Gay
A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home: Housekeeping Hacks You Can't Live Without by Melissa Dilkes Pateras

Read in 2024 ...so far

This morning I finished On Human Slaughter: Evil, Justice, Mercy by Elizabeth Bruenig, a short collection of essays on capital punishment that originally appeared in The Atlantic. I was drawn to this because the U.S. state in which I live has a new governor who is planning to resume carrying out death penalties. It got me up to date on some of the issues surrounding lethal injection, as well as how things have gone terribly wrong with Alabama attempting to execute prisoners on death row over the last few years.

Last night I finished an Audible original: Talking While Female & Other Dangerous Acts. It is a collection of essays, and it is powerful and emotional and occasionally funny. I don't know if it is technically considered a "book." Don't care. If you have Audible, I highly recommend getting this book. I cried. I laughed. I got angry. Each story is really great. There are a few things in Spanish that I only got a little, but it is mostly in English. I'm guessing that a Spanish speaker would get even more out of it. It's really, really good, and I am so glad that I listened to it. The subjects range from first sexual experience, to pregnancy loss, to abortion, to death of a loved one, and so much more.

Some recent five-star nonfiction reads for me- How to Say Babylon, a memoir by Safiya Sinclair, and The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson, African American history tome spliced throughout with three incredibly touching biographies of migrants from the American south. Both just wow, had the tears welling up in my eyes...

Up next is Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston :)

Recently I have read:

The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories: Glorious, Rufus, Gertrude Stein, Splendor, Hortensia, Agnes of God, The Gladyses, & Babe by Alice Walker - it was honestly a little weird in spots, but I still really enjoyed it. Walker is such a fabulous writer.

Unashamed: A Coming-Out Guide for LGBTQ Christians by Amber Cantorna-Wylde - this book was really fabulous. It was heartbreaking, but I highly recommend it.

I read Intimations by Zadie Smith, and On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed last week, in that order, and thought they were both fabulous. Highly recommended, especially if you're looking for shorter audible reads.

I also recently finished Rebecca Solnit's A Book of Migrations. I'd started it when it was our group read, got interrupted and hadn't gotten back to it, but I"m so glad I did. It had some unexpected chapters in the middle about the colonization of the Congo and other non-Ireland topics that were especially strong. Overall, a powerful read.