Tag: Photo Challenge

ReadSoulLit 2020

Black History month is nearing and I’m writing today to let you know about what I have planned to celebrate it literarily.  Of course I’ll be hosting the 2020 #ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge over on Instagram.  Get your books and picture ideas ready.  This is one of the best moments to get book recommendations of black American authors.  It’s a blast and it promises to be very Lit!  Check out the monthly challenge below.  If you don’t have Instagram don’t worry you can follow what I post over there here on the blog as well.

 

ReadSoulLit2020

 

Next I want to mention the ReadSoulLit 2020 Readalong.  This February we’ll have the honor of reading The Last Thing I Surrender by Leonard Pitts, Jr.  I can’t wait!  I’ve wanted to check out a book by this author for a while now.  It’s great giving attention to an author that seems to have been unnoticed by the book blogger community.   the lastHopefully this read along will get people interested in Leonard Pitts, Jr’s backlist.  If you’re interested in reading with us you can join the Goodreads reading group, under the rubric Community, called ReadSoulLit Readalong 2020 – The Last Thing You Surrender.  You just have to request to join and I’ll confirm you.

There’s also another group you can join over on Goodreads called ReadSoulLit 2020.  This group operates all year long where people can exchange over books from the diaspora. #ReadSoulLit focuses on black American authors in February, black British writers in October, and the entire diaspora the rest of the year.

Hopefully this February you’ll enjoy the videos, photo challenge, and discussions in the reading groups on books by African-American authors.  There will surely be more surprises so I urge to follow me closely on here, on YouTube, and Instagram.   Let’s have fun!

#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 26 Book and Music

Here’s another book that is on my 2018 TBR by an African-American writer called Jedah Mayberry.  It’s a coming of age story. “It’s a lushly told reflection on a young man’s passage into manhood.” (back of The Unheralded King of Preston Plains Middle)  Check out the video below with an interview with Jedah Mayberry talking about the inspiration he had for this book.

 

The Unheralded King of Preston Plains Middle – Jedah Mayberry, paperback, 315 pages (River Grove Books)

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

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#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 21 Published in you 21st year

 

    

I was 21 years old in 1987 when this great American literary novel was written, Beloved.  I read it for the first time in 1988 in a black women writers class.  All I can say is unbelievably well written and unforgettable.  I should definitely reread it sooner than later.  Who knows maybe this year?  I’m anxious to see if I’ll love Beloved even more than the first time I read it.  Thank you @tonimorrison__ 👑 for continuing to write books that inform us but most of all make us reflect on the human condition.  Oh and this is the beautiful @foliosociety edition I invested in a few years ago. It’s beautiful! 😍

Beloved – Toni Morrison, hardcover, 304 pages (Folio Society)

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

 

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#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 18 Selfie and a Book

Wakanda Forever! This is Book One of the Black Panther series written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Check it out and also check out the film. It’s a feast for the sens!

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

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#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 17 Must Read Mystery

I had to choose Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series. It starts in 1948 Los Angeles. Easy Rawlins is the main character. He’s a nice fair man with good intentions. He’s also very seductive too. Even though, he can sometimes get himself in quite a lot of mess. You’ll be routing for Easy right from the beginning and until the end. Another important part of these books is the way Mosley writes about race relations between whites and black. This adds to the realism of the books. The setting always gives a particular unsettling feeling, with a mystery to crack. When the story gets really good, Mouse appears. Mouse is Easy’s crazy good friend. I’ve read the first 2 of this series – Devil in a Blue Dress and A Red Death. They were both excellent! I can’t wait to get to White Butterfly next! Have you got any mystery books or series to recommend? Drop them below.

The books in the picture above are the Washington Square Press Series edition.

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

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#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 13 “Food” for Thought

Had to go with this amazing book, 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro.  I’ve started reading since Saturday. 100 Amazing Facts About The Negro is the newly published (2017) nonfiction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which is based on the first edition from 1957 by Joel Augustus Rogers entitled « A Negro Believe It Or Not ». This book goes African diaspora and African-American History. You’ll find out Did Lincoln really free the slaves? Who were Africa’s first Ambassadors to Europe? or Why did free black people living in the South before the end of the Civil War stay there?

100 Amazing Facts About the Negro by Henry Louis Gates Jr. – hardcover, 496 pages (Pantheon Books)

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

 

#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 10 Book Spine Poetry

Buffalo Dance The Journey of York – Frank X Walker

Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime – J. California Cooper

He Never Came Home – Regina R. Robertson

Lost in the City – Edward P. Jones

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere – ZZ Packer

Nowhere is a Place – Bernice L. McFadden

A Kind of Freedom – Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

 

 

#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 9 Want to Reread

There are so many novels that I’d like to reread but the one that comes to mind from an African-American author is Native Son.  I first read Native Son in college for a third year literary course.  I was blown away by the precision in Richard Wright’s writing style.  You will literally go through all emotions while reading this tragic and infuriating novel, which show cases Bigger Thomas one of the most intriguing main characters in an American modern classic.  Native son has to be one of the greatest American classics and should be read by all.  Have you read it?  Were you blown away by it?

“Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright’s powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.” (Native Son, description from Goodreads)

Native Son – Richard Wright, paperback, 454 pages (Vintage Classics)

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

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#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 7 – Fave Secondary Character

Mawu was the character that broke the sanity of the beginning if this novel. Slave women that accompany their masters on a retreat to Tawawa House. The seediness of this novel made me so mad, but the arrival of Mawu made the other slave women think of freedom for the first time.  She was strong and fearless. This story saddened me but I enjoyed the texture that Mawu added to the dynamic of the story.  It is definitely a must read for the uniqueness of the story.  You can click Wench to see my review.  Have you read this one? What did you think?

“Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It’s their open secret.

Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don’t bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory–but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change.” (Goodreads description, Wench)

Wench – Dolen Perkins-Valdez, paperback, 290 pages (Amistad)

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

#ReadSoulLit Photo Challenge Day 4 – Sign of the Times (Non-Fic)

I decided to go with Another Day in the Death of America because it’s on my 2018 TBR.  It’d a book hat I’m hesitant about reading because of the tragedy it contains.  However, I realize and accept that these stories need to be told. Sadly, gun control is something we still can’t seem to tackle properly in the US. Let’s hope we won’t wait until the number of dead rises far beyond its current number.  “Saturday, 23 November 2013, ten children and teens were shot dead.  The youngest was nine; the oldest was nineteen.  White, black, and Latino, they fell in suburbs, hamlets, and ghettos.  None made the national news. There was no outrage about their passing.  It was just another day in the death of America, where on average seven children and teens are killed by guns daily.” (Inside flap of Another Day in the Death of America) “24 hours. 8 states. 10 young lives lost to gun violence.”

I’m an affiliate for The Book Depository. It would be much appreciated to click the link below if you’re interested in picking up any of my recommendations. It will help fund my incessant book buying, reading, and reviewing.
http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=browngirlreading

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