Monday, July 06, 2020

Black Lives Matter: More Fiction and Nonfiction

I read a tweet the other day, and while I can't remember it exactly, I'll give you the gist: Reading about the lives of POC is so interesting and absorbing that when you go back to reading conventional (white) fiction, it's quite dissatisfying.

That's how I feel. Everything feels a little less robust and flavorful. I suppose after a while intensity dies down and everything evens out, but I don't want that to happen.

Here are more titles that I've read 2010-2020. We're up to the summer of 2014.  I could not stop reading Maya Angelou. Craving her voice in my mind's ear, one memoir called for another.

15. Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas - Maya Angelou. Memoir.

16. The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou. Memoir.

17. All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes - Maya Angelou. Memoir.

18. A Song Flung Up to Heaven - Maya Angelou. Memoir.

19. Mom & Me & Mom - Maya Angelou. Memoir.

20. Bad Feminist - Roxane Gay. Essays.

21. Yes, Chef - Marcus Samuelsson. Memoir.

22. TrailBlasian: Black Women Living in East Asia - T.K. McLennon, ed. Essays.

23. Cooked - Jeff Henderson. Memoir.

24. Finding Fish - Antwone Quenton Fisher. Memoir.

25. Hunger: A Memoir of (MY) Body - Roxane Gay. Memoir.

26.Who Was Harriet Tubman? - Kem Knapp Sawyer. Juvenile Biography.

27. The Warmth of Other Suns - Isabel Wilkerson. History (of the Great Migration).

28. A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry. Play.

29. Born a Crime - Trevor Noah. Memoir.

30. If Beale Street Could Talk - James Baldwin. Novel.

31. Becoming - Michelle Obama. Memoir.

32. An American Marriage - Tayari Jones. Novel.

33. Who Was Jesse Owens? - James Buckley, Jr. Juvenile Biography.

34. Red At The Bone - Jacqueline Woodson. Novel.

35. Not Without Laughter - Langston Hughes. Novel.

...TO BE CONTINUED...except in reverse. I'm up to date, so I'm going to revisit my earlier book journals.

So. 35 in 10 years. Between three and four a year. I'm pleased with the richness of this list, but I can do better.

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