Winter Reading List

Newsflash: I love to read! I know that many people do seasonal reading list. I just read what comes out or whatever piques my interest when I’m at the library. However, I have decided that I want to develop a reading list for the winter. Below are the 18 books that I’ve selected, I am hopeful that I will be able to get through many of them while I am on break between semesters. I have read Otherwise as Sheila the Great and The Autobiography of Malcolm X before and look forward to doing so again. Biko is a story that I am looking forward to reading. I am looking forward to dedicating some time to relaxing, reading as I light the wick on my new bookish candles from Frostbeard Studio.

 

Please share what you’re reading and if you have any recommendations!

 

 

 

Attica Locke -Bluebird, Bluebird

Danielle Girard- Dead Center

Harlen Coben -Don’t Let Go

Donald Woods- Biko

Alexander McCall Smith -The House of Unexpected Sisters

Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers 1967 to Present

Malcolm X and Alex Haley-The Autobiography of Malcolm X**

Tsitsi Dangarembga- Nervous Conditions

Roxane Gay-An Untamed State

Audre Lorde-A Burst of Light and Other Essays

Joy Jordan-Lake- A Tangled Mercy

Simeon Wright-Simeon’s Story An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till

Rainbow Rowell -Attachments

Walter Benton- This is My Beloved

Eve L. Ewing – Electric Arches

Judy Blume- Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great *

Ayobami Adebayo-Stay With Me

Colson Whitehead -The Underground Railroad

Kali Nicole Gross-Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America

Andres Resendez-The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

 

a note on the body- Danez Smith

Hi! I am quite a few blog posts behind in my anticipated schedule for this month. I think I may have missed at least one post last week and one earlier this week. In the rush of finishing up the semester, ordering Christmas gifts, grading, and celebrating both my grandmother’s birthday and mine I have fallen behind here. I do not like when that happens.

I have several goals now that the semester has ended for one school and I am only teaching one class over the winter break. I will be sharing those next week when I plan to get back on track with posting. In the meantime, please enjoy this poem by Danez Smith.

 

 

your body still your body

your arms still wing

your mouth still a gun

          you tragic, misfiring bird

you have all you need to be a hero

don’t save the world, save yourself

you worship too much & you worship too much

when prayer doesn’t work:      dance, fly, fire

this is your hardest scene

when you think the whole sad thing might end

but you live      oh, you live

everyday you wake you raise the dead

          everything you do is a miracle

White Trees- Nathalie Handal

Sometimes, poems tell a story that we weren’t expecting. It forces us to make connections and for me it’s a reminder that we can see the beauty in the most unexpected places. Please enjoy this poem by Nathalie Handal. I hope that it gives you a bit of unexpected joy too on the first day of December.

 

 

When the white trees are no longer in sight

they are telling us something,

like the body that undresses

when someone is around,

like the woman who wants

to read what her nude curves

are trying to say,

of what it was to be together,

lips on lips

but it’s over now, the town

we once loved in, the maps

we once drew, the echoes that

once passed through us

as if they needed something we had.