7 BOOKS TO ADD TO YOUR TBR (TO BE READ) LIST…
Every month we bring you a selection of books to add to your reading list. This month we recommend:
Girl, Other, Woman by Bernardine Evaristo
Bernardine Evaristo’s latest novel Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends, and lovers, across the country and through the years. Having already created a bit of a buzz on social media, Girl, Other, Woman promises to be a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood.
Girl, Other, Woman is available to buy from all good bookshops and online book retailers now.
“I Will Not Be Erased”: Our Stories About Growing Up As People of Colour by gal-dem
gal-dem, the new media publication run entirely by women and non-binary people of colour have done much since their founding in 2015, to increase the visibility of women and non-binary people of colour across essays, opinion, news, arts, music, politics, and lifestyle content. Now the writers behind the magazine have produced a collection of thought-provoking, funny, life-affirming essays on growing up. The writers tackle subjects such as mental health, race, gender, and activism, making this collection essential reading for young people.
“I Will Not Be Erased”: Our Stories About Growing Up As People of Colour will be published in June 2019 and available from all good bookshops and online retailers.
Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri
Straightened. Stigmatised. ‘Tamed’. Celebrated. Erased. Managed. Appropriated. Forever misunderstood. Emma Dabiri explores the history and politics surrounding black hair, from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, Black Power, to today’s natural hair movement and cultural appropriation wars. This book seeks to explore and explain why black hair is never just hair!
Don’t Touch My Hair is available to buy from all good bookshops and online book retailers now.
Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L McFadden
Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, Bernice L. McFadden’s novel tells the story of nine-year-old Abebe Tsikata. Abebe’s idyllic life is shattered when her father places her in a religious shrine in the hopes that the sacrifice of his daughter will atone for his ancestors’ crimes. For 15 years Abebe suffers unspeakable horrors and when she is finally released she must learn to rebuild her life once more and reconcile her past.
Praise Song for the Butterflies is available to buy from all good bookshops and online book retailers now.
Character Breakdown by Zawe Ashton
Actress Zawe Ashton, best known for her roles in the Channel 4 comedies Fresh Meat and Not Safe for Work, takes a look at life, work and the absurdities of contemporary life. As an actress since the age of six, Ashton has learned to tread a fine line between life and art, keeping sight of where the character ends and the real person begins. Character Breakdown is a unique examination of her life and her art: the glamour, the horror, the absurdity, and asking questions like: is a life spent more on performance than reality any life at all?
Character Breakdown is available to buy from all good bookshops and online book retailers, now.
Ordinary People by Diana Evans
Diana Evans’ third novel has just been published in paperback and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019. Set in 2008 against the backdrop of President Obama’s historic election, Ordinary People tells the story of two couples, navigating the landscape of black and mixed-race middle-class domesticity, parenthood and the unravelling confines of the settled-for life.
Ordinary People is available to buy from all good bookshops and online book retailers now.
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah by Benjamin Zephaniah
Now out in paperback, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah tells the author and poet’s firebrand story for the first time. From the early 80s where his poetry could be heard at demonstrations, outside police stations and on the dancefloor to the present, Zephaniah’s mission has been to take poetry everywhere and to popularise it by bringing it to people who didn’t read books. Highlighting his early years as a protest poet to exploring his charitable work in South Africa, this is a truly extraordinary memoir that celebrates pushing the arts out of its boundaries.
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah is available to buy from all good bookshops and online book retailers now.