Category: In The Club

This is considered to be thee most successful Ukrainian novel of the ’90s. Zabuzhko is a poet, foremost, and tells the story of another poet in a winding stream of conscious style. The narrator visits Harvard as a professor of Slavic studies and is forever changed. Suddenly, being back in Ukraine feels stifling and she beings to question her culture’s conventions. A parallel is drawn between her own subjugation at the hands of her lover and her country’s through history. There was a lot of controversy when this book came out, but that helped keep it on the bestseller’s list for more than ten years.

Book Club Bonus: Zabuzhko contends with her attraction to a domineering lover. Discuss what drew her to this subjugation.

Side note: I just wanted to say that the author did not have to call me out so early in the book on the subject of house plants: “Now both plants have the appearance of having been watered with sulfuric acid for the last three weeks.” Ma’am.

Argentinian Ocampo has had everyone from Jorge Luis Borges to Helen Oyeyemi singing her praises on her skill with short stories and novellas. Her stories tend to include the unsettling and grotesque, like a house of sugar that leads to possession, talking horse statues, and children locking away their mothers. She studied painting and other various forms of surrealist art, which no doubt had influence on her very original stories.

Book Club Bonus: Borges was friends with Ocampo’s husband and a great admirer of her work. He once made observations on her “strange taste for a certain kind of an innocent and oblique cruelty. I attribute this to the interest, the astonished interest, that evil inspires in a noble soul.” She grew up in a privileged household, and was, as a result, a “lady.” Discuss this need of Borges to define her often dark stories. Do you think he’s on to something, or is this an unwillingness on his part to fully identify someone like Ocampo with her stories?

Miaojin was Taiwan’s first openly lesbian writer, being active in the late ’80s/early ’90s. She was studying clinical psychology and feminism with French philosopher Hélène Cixous when she met a tragic end at 26. The award-winning Notes of a Crocodile was released at the height of Taiwanese media’s unhealthy obsession with lesbians. It’s about a group of queer students at a prestigious college after Taiwan came out of martial-law. The narrator Lazi (which is a slang term for “lesbian”) details the goings-on of her crew who do everything but studying with a mix of vignettes and observations on life. She’s attracted to an older women who is ambivalent towards her, but is still reveling in her new freedom and romantic ideals.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss the analogies contained within Miaojin’s crocodile fable where, once it got back from work, the crocodile “removed the sweat-soaked human suit clinging to its body.”

This collection of poems is essential for a list like this. As I mentioned before, Walker came up with the label “Affrilachia” to give visibility to Black people from the region. With this collection, Walker distills his experiences as a creative growing up Black and male in Kentucky, thorough the medium of poetry, shining a light on another corner of the Black American experience.

Book Club Bonus: If you’ve read other poetry collections by Black people that are about their lives, how does this one differ? Everyone has different experiences, and we’re all our own people, but based on this collection, how do you think growing up in the region changes Black childhoods?

In response to Catte’s title, I say “a lot.” Catte read Hillbilly Elegy and felt some type of way, and with good reason. In this book, the East Tennessean historian shouts down the harmful stereotypes— like the idea that the region consists solely of white people with supremacist ideologies— espoused in J.D. Vance’s book. She counters Vance’s stereotypical portrayal of the area by showing how diverse it is, and even how many of the people leading the area’s progress are young minorities (while its problems are perpetuated by corporations). She also highlights the region’s activism and how there was great support for political candidates like Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential election. (She’s not Black, but I included her here because she’s a native of the region and talks about its diversity.)

Book Club Bonus: If anyone in your book club read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, this would be a great opportunity to discuss Catte’s criticisms of it. Also, how do Catte’s descriptions of the area make you feel about it? Why do you think stereotypical views of it are so persistent?

Wilkinson drops us into a fictional town called Opulence located in the mountains of Kentucky. There, we follow several generations of women from two families as they struggle with mental illness, secrets, coming of age, womanhood, sexuality, and assault. We also see how the town both is both blessed and cursed by its mountainous surroundings. The writing is lyrical and poetic, as can be expected from a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets group and Kentucky’s Poet Laureate since 2021.

TW: s*xual assault

Book Club Bonus: I’ve seen the question asked before about why some Black people stayed in the South during the Great Migration, while around 6 million others moved north. How does this book answer that question?

bell! The late iconic feminist writer bell hooks offers vignettes on what it was like growing up in the ’50s as a Black girl in the South. She tells how she realized at an early age the difference in gender roles, and how colorism and racism were enforced. She describes living in a household with a distant and sometimes physically abusive Father where she’s grappled with her own identity in relation to “… a rich magical world of southern black culture that was sometimes paradisiacal and at other times terrifying.” As a child, she was a loner but found solace in books, which, same Auntie bell, same. hooks also has a poetry collection titled Appalachian Elegy.

Book Club Bonus: bell alternates between first and third person for this book, which some might find to be odd. Discuss the choice of using third person for a memoir. What does it add and what does it take away? Do you think it’s a way to detach from the story or simply an artistic choice?

What a life! Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little in 1925, went from being the son of a preacher to a petty criminal to being a civil rights icon. Les Payne started writing this biography in the ’90s with the intention of painting an accurate picture of X that dispelled all the myths that seem to attach themselves to Black American leaders. The result is this tome, which follows X from his birth to his assassination in 1965. It shows how he was a bookish kid, set up a meeting with the KKK, and even how his death might have been connected to the CIA and FBI.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what shocked you about Malcolm X’s life? How different is what you learned in this book from what you previously knew about him?

The Combahee River Collective was a group of Black feminist socialists that met in Boston in the mid ’70s. Their primary focus was to advocate for the rights of Black women (especially queer Black women), whose needs were not being met by the Civil Rights movement or the feminist movement because of what would later be called “intersectionality,” or the amplifying of marginalizing factors that work against the individual. This book has the organization’s major text, The Combahee River Collective Statement, interviews with founding members as well as more contemporary Black activist leaders. The focus of the book is the state of Black activism and Black feminism/womanism today compared to how it was when the Collective was first started, as well as capitalism’s role in all of this

Book Club Bonus: Discuss how do the white patriarchy and capitalism complement each other. Is it possible to have one and not the other? Specifically, is it possible to still have capitalism after having done away with sexism, racism, and classism?

Ever wondered where the women were during slave revolts? Rebecca Hall did, too. Here, she shows just how involved Black women were in rebelling against enslavement, often participating in and even leading revolts. Through research, Hall fleshes out the stories of these warrior women alongside her own story of fighting the system as a tenant rights attorney. The beautiful black and white illustrations really strengthen the text.

Book Club Bonus: There are two revolts led by women that took place in New York City that are shown here. Discuss misconceptions this graphic novel does away with concerning how the South vs. the North are perceived in terms of each region’s handling of slavery and the overall treatment of Black people.

It’ll be a little while before this one is out, but I thought it was too perfect not to include now as something to look forward to. Wong mentions how the title of the book and its release came as a result of “deliberate manifestation” and “big cat energy.” In it, Wong, the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, shares a collection of everything from essays to graphics and art commissioned by disabled Asian American artists to show what her life has been like as a disability advocate. With humor and insight, she explores pop culture, her Asian American identity, and the various consequences of ableism.

This novella is the second in the The Singing Hills series that started with The Empress of Salt and Fortune (one of my favorites of 2020). We find ourselves back with cleric Chih and their companion in the fantasictal world Vo has created that has elements of Asian mythology. The monk and the young lady are at the mercy of a trio of shapeshifting tiger sisters, and must tell them the legendary story of a tiger and her scholar lover. Correctly, lest they be eaten. It’s a love story within a story and features a majority of female characters who take lovers and live as fiercely as they please.

TW: s*exual assault

This may seem like it doesn’t fit, but I think it perfectly embodies the spirit of fierceness, bravery, and exorcising demons that the year of the tiger symbolizes. It’s the memoir of the woman that was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner on Stanford’s campus. Her victim impact statement went viral, and was viewed by over 11 million people within a matter of days and read on the Congress floor. Despite never shying away from the label of being a victim, she also doesn’t let it define her, instead offering a nuanced way of viewing victimhood and assault. She’s the epitome of bravery and resilience, in other words.

Journalist Kian Andrews hadn’t heard from his wealthy ex Hudson Rivers for months when he suddenly hit Kian up, pressing him to meet up at a café. Kian thought Hudson was trying to slide back in, but turns out, he just wants a dinner date for his parents showing up in town. Kian agrees, but that agreement turns into him going to the wedding of the season in Georgia. Now, being able to hobnob with wedding guests will certainly boost Kian’s fledgling career, but he and Hudson are going to need to reevaluate somethings. I haven’t read this one yet, but it promises to be a fun and sweet rom-com, and I’m always down for more M/M romances!

Book Riot’s very own Jessica P. Pryde just released this wonderful collection of essays (🎉!) that explore this aspect of Black life that has not yet gotten its due in the media. The last 400 years of Black history as it relates to romantic love are explored, with many of the writers enhancing said history with personal accounts. This combination of the personal with the academic makes this collection such a wonderfully complex and fully realized examination of a topic that has been so central to a lot of human experiences since our existance, but that Black people have largely not been presented within the context of: love.

Cherisse has sworn off men on account of her f-boi cheating musician boyfriend. Now, she’s channeling her energy into running her pastry chef business. Minding my business has always worked for me, but Cherisse’s mom isn’t having it as far as her daughter is concerned, and insists on trying to match her up with someone. And, unfortunately, Cherisse’s little sister getting married isn’t providing the distraction for her mom she thought it would. Then she starts coming into contact with the always aggravating Keiran King, who’s best friends with the man her sister is marrying. Keiran and Charisse have never seen it for each other, but things are different now. This has the added benefit of taking place in Trinidad, and features a sensitive male lead. We stan a sensitive (Keiran) King!

*whispers* also, the steamy scenes are A++ *ahem*

Y’all. I did not know I’d love this series as much as I do. It’s about Chloe, a computer whiz who suffers from chronic pain and has become determined to start experiencing life for real once she almost kinda dies. She moves out of her parents’ house and is trying to cross things off her get-a-life list when she comes into contact with her building’s super, Redford, who she doesn’t really vibe with at first. As they come to be around each other more, she learns more about why he isn’t as active in the art world any more, and he learns about the issues she’s had with relationships— both platonic and romantic— in the past. The lady who plays Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, Adjoa Andoh, narrates the audiobook. And with some of the scenes here being so… zesty… let’s just say that I’ll be reminded of things every time Lady Danbury speaks on season two of Bridgerton.

Okay, so I’m already cheating, as this isn’t quite a memoir. It’s technically listed as a cookbook and features Gullah Geechee recipes. The Gullah people are the descendants of enslaved Africans brought to America, and hail from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Their language is a West African-based creole called “Geechee.”

Raiford inherited his grandmother’s Georgia farm in 2010. The farm had been passed down the family line starting in 1874 when his formerly enslaved great-great-great grandfather bought the land. Raiford decided to return to this farm and tend to it, thereby reconnecting with his ancestral home. I’ve included this cookbook in a list about memoirs be because Raiford tells the tale of his family, and the Gullah people, connecting them all to the more than 100 recipes within. There are 100 photos of recipes as well as important Raiford family pictures that really serve to anchor the food to history and the Black American experience.

Book Club Bonus: I think it’d be cool to make a recipe from the book and bring it to a bookclub meet-up (or have it handy for virtual discussions). Discuss if you think many see Black American cuisine as quintessentially American and how food has reflected Black American history, making sure to discuss both bondage and African roots.

This is a dual memoir by Black chef Bailey from Queens and white investor Morisano from Staten Island who opened a restaurant in Savannah, GA. The restaurant, The Grey, was converted from a formerly segregated Greyhound bus station and is highly acclaimed. This memoir shows how their partnership (they didn’t really know each other initially) and the restaurant came to be. There is humor, honesty, and insight throughout as it tackles topics like business, bias, food, and racism.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what you think of the authors’ decision on whether to keep the “Colored Waiting Room” sign. What do you think that decision added to or took away from the overall experience?

Hamilton didn’t start off wanting to open a restaurant. She had gotten an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, even. But, the twenty years of self-discovery that had found her learning about hospitality from people all over the world, learning her lesson from crimes committed in her youth, and trying to escape a broken family led her to eventually opening a successful restaurant that has grossed $2 million within a year. Anthony Bourdain once called this the best chef memoir ever.

Book Club Bonus: Hamilton talks about how she finds a new family in the one she gains through marriage. She also mentioned how food and hosting parties were mostly pleasant experiences growing up, but thought of having a career in food to mean having a career without meaning. Discuss the role food and hospitality played in her upbringing, and subsequently how she viewed it as an adult.

Ok, so we’ve all heard of the whole African prince scam by now. I have certain feelings about it as it seemed to me that it was yet another negative thing westerners latched onto concerning Africans, but that’s another conversation. Here, Naledi Smith is an “all my life I had to fight” type of girl, having grown up in foster care, so she doesn’t believe emails saying she’s meant to marry an African prince. When Prince Thabiso finds his betrothed, Naledi doesn’t immediately clock him as royalty, and the Prince sees this as an opportunity to live life like a regular. You already know romance ensues! It’s definitely a fun ride.

Book Club Bonus: I like when different facets of Black life are shown, so I appreciate African royalty being represented in books. But, there is still apart of me that wonders how good royalty in any land is truly beneficial for the majority of people there. Usually, royalty has meant some kind of absolute rule. Discuss both sides of this.

Anne Glenconner was a close friend and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. She befriended Queen Elizabeth II when she was young, and was born into a titled family herself— her father was the 5th Earl of Leicester— but could not inherit a title as she was the wrong gender. Let me tell y’all how much drama was in her life. Phew! She dealt with the backstabbing nature of the royal court, a 54-year old marriage to an abusive, cheating man (who left his fortune to a servant when he died. Again, I say Whew!), and two of her adult sons passing away. Through all of this, she was privy to intimate moments of the royal family. I do have to side eye her for “… developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch, and many other politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities.” On first read, that detail is giving gentrification, but maybe that’s just me. Nonetheless, Glenconner offers the most personal look into royal life without being a part of the British royal family herself.

Book Club Bonus: Anne Glenconner’s life had many great moments, but many tragic ones as well. How do you think her proximity to the royal family ultimately influenced this?

And then there are the people who would rather leave the royal family all together. Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand are reporters that cover the royal family, and here they have built a case for why Meghan and Harry decided to leave royalty behind. The book promises to dispel untrue rumors and give a fair look. Prince Harry is supposed to have a memoir coming out later this year. We’ll see what other tea is spilled there.

Book Club Bonus: This obviously flies in the face of the idea that royalty is the end all, be all. Do you think they should have kept the power and influence that came with the royal titles? Or, are they not really losing anything since they have power and influence from their fame alone?

Where better to start understanding Dr. King than here? This is a first-hand account by King himself that details his thoughts on the movement he had become the face of, as well as how he balanced time with his family, his views on religion, and other aspects of his life. It also includes some of his famous speeches, like “I Have a Dream,” “Give Us the Ballot,” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what you learned here about Dr. King that you didn’t know before. How does what you knew about him and the civil rights movement from years prior (like what you learned in school) compare with what you read about him here?

Sometimes learning about certain topics in the context of school can make us desensitized to whatever gravity they may hold. Do you feel that recent events (like the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, as well as other recent protests) have made what Dr. King writes about here feel more real than they did when you first learned about them?

Rustin was MLK’s right-hand man who has been referred to as the civil right movement’s “lost prophet.” He organized the March on Washington in 1963, which was the largest demonstration for human rights in United States history at the time. Despite his importance within the movement, he was largely kept in the shadows because he was an out gay man during a fiercely homophobic time.

Book Club Bonus: As I mentioned before, the Black church at the time (like many other churches of the time) was not accepting of queerness. Discuss why you think this was the case? Was it because of the then perceived idea that Christianity was not compatible with all human identities, or was it a result of respectability politics?

This biography of Constance Baker Motley is the first of its kind, and where I start to branch off from Dr. King’s close circle a bit, as she wasn’t close to him. She did, however, defend him in Birmingham. She was also one of the first Black women to practice law in the U.S., having graduated from Columbia Law school in 1944. She went on to be the first Black woman to do quite a few things, including the first to try a Supreme Court case and to help argue Brown vs. The Board of Education. She was also a gay rights ally.

Book Club Bonus: Have you ever heard of Constance Baker Motley? If not, why do you think she isn’t mentioned as often as other important figures of the time?

First of all, BETTY! How many universally loved people are there in the world, really? She was definitely one of them, which was interesting because I feel like she didn’t pander and was honest. In this memoir, Betty speaks on the many different aspects of her life —love, friendships, aging, television, as well as her love for animals. You can, of course, expect her trademark humor throughout. *cues up Golden Girls on Hulu*

The title of this book is something I resonate with on a spiritual level. Irby also has a newsletter called bitchesgottaeat, so you already know she’s funny. Here, she talks about the new things going on in her life— like leaving her veterinary clinic job, leaving Chicago for a small, white and Republican city, and life with her wife— as her fortieth birthday messes with her body and self-esteem.

“Hello, 911? I’ve been lying awake for an hour each night, reliving a two-second awkward experience I had in front of a casual acquaintance three years ago, for eight months.”

Can relate.

Thomas is the author of Elle Magazine’s “Eric Reads the News,” and brings the same wit and humor to his essays. There are recurring themes of otherness throughout, with him trying to reconcile his religion with his sexuality, as well as trying to navigate being one of the few Black people at his suburban high school and later Ivy League college. His essays are funny, heartfelt, and relatable.

Reese has managed to become the trans woman she always wanted to be. For her this means that she has a loving partner, a pretty chill job, and is fairly content. That is, until her partner detransitions, going from being the trans woman Amy to the man Ames. Now Reese is trying to pick up the pieces, but does so by hooking up with married men (because mess). Meanwhile, Ames gets his boss/boo thang Katrina pregnant and invites Reese to coparent with them because he knows a baby is something she always wanted. She agrees to the arrangement because she has always felt that having a baby would be gender confirming. Despite inviting Reese into this potential little family, he doesn’t even want to be a father himself (more mess). The characters here offer a witty, engaging and real look at gender norms, motherhood, and how complicated we all are.

tw: s*xual assault

Between growing up poor, Black, and a girl with a tenuous relationship with her mother, Ford needed something to remain tethered to hope instead of despair. The idea of her father, born from doting letters he wrote her over the years, provided that grounding. By imagining her father as someone who might be like her, and as someone to look up to, she found solace in knowing he was out there in the world despite him being incarcerated for reasons unknown to her. As she grows a little older, she gets into a relationship with a boy who ends up sexually assaulting her. She’s still dealing with the secret of this when she finds out why her father is in prison.

This coming of age memoir with fully formed supporting characters has been likened to An American Marriage and Educated.

The 18th century poem from an Irish noblewoman lamenting her husbands violent, untimely death takes root in Ghríofa, anchoring itself in her throat and later other parts of her life. The precarious balancing act of young motherhood brings Ghríofa to see parallels between herself and this other female writer who drank her husband’s blood upon his death. The journey she sets out on in order to flesh out the other writer’s life brings her to a monastery, the town of Derrynane, and a tattoo parlor in this unique and lyrical blend of auto fiction, history, and memoir.

“I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,” 

Josephine Baker said these words in her fifties as she returned to America, having fled the country for France earlier in her life. Abdurraqib sets out to give Black America its flowers for its large contribution to American culture, and let’s be honest, world culture. He highlights the beauty, pain, and grace of Black American performers through the ages with fitting lyricism. Throughout the book— even when he examines his own experiences with grief and performance— he incorporates humor and thoughtfulness.

Books made the time Tookie, an Ojibwe woman, spent locked up more tolerable, so it’s only natural that she work at a bookstore upon her release. When one of her most annoying customers, Flora, dies on All Souls’ Day with a book beside her, her ghost starts to haunt Birchbark Books (where Tookie works and a real place in Minneapolis owned by Erdrich). Tookie tries to figure out why Flora’s ghost haunts the bookstore as COVID-19 and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder looms large over the town and the rest of the country. Told with humor and profundity, this novel explores America’s ghosts, large and small, and especially as they relate to its history of the abuse of Indigenous and Black people.