If your library needs more melanated voices, we got you
When it comes to listening about how people experience the world, the more diversity the better. Here's some inspiration to end #BlackHistoryMonth on the right note.
4 Books Black Women Leaders Are Reading (And You Should Too)
For #BlackHistoryMonth, Elisa Sangster, CEO of Forté Foundation via Forbes, reached out to multiple inspiring leaders to ask them what books inspired them.
These are some of the recommendations she got, and that are definitely worth adding to your reading list:
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
“As a biracial (half-Black, half-white) woman, I found Oluo gave me language to better convey my experiences and beliefs, and insight into how to engage others who have differing viewpoints from my own.” – Titi Harley, CEO, Harley Consulting Group
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
“I recommend it because Wilkerson's prose is excellent and her perspective on race and its history in the United States is profound. It couldn't be more topical for the state of our country right now. All should read it.” – Tyeise Huntley, Manager, Office of Access & Enrollment at Chicago Public School
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
“This book provides insight into the history of why there is a racial wealth gap in America and why the disparity for African Americans continues. I’m interested in designing solutions that will help close the racial wealth gap, the reason for this read.” – Keitha Pansy, Managing Director, Women of the World Endowment
Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams
“This book breaks down how ambition, fear, money, and failure impact our leadership. Although during Black History Month it’s vital to know how we’ve gotten here, it’s also important to unlearn harmful behaviors and pick up tools that help us use our leadership positions for good.” – Johanna Key, Product Marketing Management
The above quotes were originally published by Forbes in the article What Black Women Leaders Are Reading.
Beloved By Toni Morrison, Our February #BookOfTheMonth
This classic was inspired by the true-life incident of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave from Kentucky who fled to the free state of Ohio in 1856. She was captured in a cabin where she and her husband had barricaded themselves. Later, it was found that she had killed her two-year-old daughter and was attempting to kill her other children to spare them from being returned to slavery.
Morrison's approach to the story provides an ample landscape where complex subjects become clear, even for readers not yet familiar with the freedom genre. Sit down and let yourself float down the river of sorrow that floods Sethe’s life, and that extends to her loved ones, leaving a washed-out sense of happiness for the book’s characters. Through their voices, we get to grasp the experience of surviving slavery and healing oneself while reflecting on life before and after freedom.
The masterfully crafted narrative touches the subjects of memory... remembering and disremembering; the process of mourning, guilt, rebirth; and the transition from a sordid period of history that has tainted social fabric and the concept of self for millions of people.
A quote:
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another”.
Book specs:
324 pages - 12 hours read approx.
Set in Ohio (United States) in the mid-1800s.
Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and was a finalist for the 1987 National Book Award.
Adapted as a 1998 movie of the same name, starring Oprah Winfrey.
A survey of writers and literary critics compiled by The New York Times ranked it as the best work of American fiction from 1981 to 2006.
Will you be adding Beloved to your reading list? Don’t be shy, drop a comment below and let us know what you are reading this month.
Bonus: A Short Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
If you haven’t read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie you’re missing out BIG TIME. The Nigerian writer took the world by storm in 2006 with her novel Half of the Yellow Sun; did it again with the best-seller Americanah (currently being made into a TV series); and yet again with her essay/ TED Talk We should all be feminists.
We’ll definitely do a more extensive piece on her magnificent writing, but for now, be delighted with her latest short story Apollo, published in The New Yorker back in 2015, and now available online.
Read it here.
If you haven’t done so yet, tell your friends about 12 BOOKS CLUB and help them stay on track with their reading goals for 2021!