Happy Monday, fellow book lovers! If you’re a lover of essay collections, today’s Get in My Kindle might be right up your alley. This book will also appeal to those seeking to add more diversity to their reading list. *Thus far, Get in My Kindle is not a sponsored post, and I haven’t been given an advance reader copy of the book featured. I’m simply sharing the books I’m interested in reading as soon as they come out.
Title: Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves
Author: Glory Edim
Release Date: October 30, 2018
Description: Remember that moment when you first encountered a character who seemed to be written just for you? That feeling of belonging remains with readers the rest of their lives—but not everyone regularly sees themselves on the pages of a book. In this timely anthology, Glory Edim brings together original essays by some of our best black women writers to shine a light on how important it is that we all—regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability—have the opportunity to find ourselves in literature.
Contributors include Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing), Lynn Nottage (Sweat), Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn), Gabourey Sidibe (This Is Just My Face), Morgan Jerkins (This Will Be My Undoing), Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish), and Barbara Smith (Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology)
Whether it’s learning about the complexities of femalehood from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, finding a new type of love in The Color Purple, or using mythology to craft an alternative black future, the subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club–turned–online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women’s writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselves.
Why I Can’t Wait to Read: I’ve been watching what the Well Read Black Girl brand has been doing for quite some time. As a well read black girl myself, I’ve loved using their website and book club to find books recommendations I wouldn’t have come across otherwise. I was very excited to see that founder Glory Edim was putting together a collection with many contemporary authors whose work I admire. When I learned the focus of the collection was on representation in literature and included stories of when these amazing authors first saw themselves in literature, I knew I had to get my hot little hands on it. I’m a reader who loves reading about when others fell in love with books and reading, when they first saw themselves in a story, and when they first became a reader or writer, and the fact that this collection includes stories of women of color gave it a special twist for me. I wonder if any of the books that changed me will make an appearance in the essays, and if my new favorite writers have a personal connection to the works of my favorite classic authors. I’m fascinated by other authors’ influences, so I’m counting the moments until I get to devour this one.
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Are you a fan of essay collections? Will Well Read Black Girl make your TBR pile? Any other essay collections or diverse literature you’re looking forward to this fall? Let me know in the comments section!
By Her Shelf 