I was looking through my Instagram feed the other day and marveling over all of the new Bookstagram accounts popping up. It’s great to see that people are getting the reading bug and that they want to share what they’re reading with others. Openly sharing one’s reading journey is not always an easy thing to do. It’s like trying to jump onto a moving train in some cases. Yes I said it a moving train. You’re probably wondering why I’ve decided to use that analogy. We’re all trying to read the latest releases first so that we can gush like crazy over them before everyone else does. We don’t want to feel left out of the reading arena of new books that are flooding the market everyday. Well, while I was scrolling my feed and admiring all the lovely pics of the books; it struck me that the same books were being featured over and over. Most of them are either literary prize shortlists and longlists, or the newest releases. It’s easy to post about these types of books but I feel hearing about those backlist books is even more inspiring and important to our TBRs.
I’ve been wondering why backlist books haven’t been getting much love. So, here I am. I’ll be coming to you the next few months with backlist novels that I think you should check out. Not only are they backlist books, but they are also underrated in my opinion! So I’ll be taking time over the next few months to shine a spotlight on some books that frankly, I can’t begin to understand why more people aren’t raving about them, particularly authors that are being read lately because of their new releases while their backlist novels remain untouched.
The first novel I’m going to start the series with is Daughter by Asha Bandele. Daughter was originally published in 2003 by Scribner. This was Bandele’s third novel and I hope to try to get to The Prisoner’s Wife, Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother’s Story, and of course the newly released When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, which she co-wrote with Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Angela Y. Davis. Check out the video below where I review Daughter. I hope this series will get you motivated to look for some brilliant backlist books on your shelves to read, re-read, and to showcase on your social media accounts. And if you do decide to read and showcase any of these books please use #backlistbooks, so that maybe people will look at them a bit closer. Happy reading!
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http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading