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Bookish Life•Resources

A Collection of Resources from Non-Experts

February 8, 2021

The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Without a clear monster or enemy attacking the land, it’s hard to know who is trying to squash dreams of a better world into nightmares of the past.  Join us for our next Virtual Book Club on Friday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m. CST, as we discuss the ways in which Hybern, what the princess of carrion should have done differently, and perhaps even a bit of our dreams of a better world.  The night will be dark and full of terrors spoilers as we chat about Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series and refresh in preparation to read A Court of Silver Flames starting next week.  Sign up here to receive all the details!

Let’s be clear about a few things dear readers.  We are not experts.  We read books, lots of them, and we value the ways books let us view perspectives and experiences we will never be able to understand in real life.  We value diverse books, and seek to incorporate more diverse books, authors, and voices in our lives.  Reading books isn’t an end, but a beginning, a window that gives you a peek into the experiences of others, a start to real change, if we treat it as only the start it is.  As we celebrate Black authors, we’re also bringing you a round of up resources with a focus on Black characters, Black authors, and Black voices who have taken on the burden of educating others who are not like them.  

Resources about Books:

Since we all love books, let’s also chat about Black owned businesses, bookstores specifically.  Condé Nast has done a great job in creating a list of Black owned bookstores you can shop online, including a list by state and of online-only shops as well as some of their reading guides.  For a more complete list, check out African American Literature Book Club (note – some shops listed do not sell online) and their booklist too.  

We Need Diverse Books is an organization that supports the production and promotion of books that “reflect and honor the lives of all young people.”  They have reading lists, resources for writers and illustrators, parents and educators, and even publishing professionals.  They’re also a nonprofit organization you can support with your charitable gifts.  

Kara Brown has been inviting us all to read a book with her each month and then join in a conversation about it with her and friends after.  We were inspired by her first selection and aspire to get back into the habit of joining Kara monthly and invite you to join us as we ReadaBook!withKara

Books at least one of us has read and recommends:

Fiction:

Nonfiction:

*Denotes a favorite or honorable mention for the year we read it.

Authors / Books on our TBR list:

Amazon also created a quick link to Black stories and books available on their website, specifically ones that are currently available on KindleUnlimited.

There are also a ton of on screen ways to spend your time if you’re looking for a movie to watch with your Valentine.  At Nikki’s house, the adults watched The Free State of Jones a few weeks ago (check out this article from the Smithsonian on the true story behind the movie), and there’s always a favorite of Ashley’s, Black Panther.  She also had a LOT of feelings about Just Mercy that did not center around looking at Michael B. Jordan for 2 hours – and would not suggest watching it for good feels.

And if you’re a podcast person, Nikki is learning so much from The Promise and also highly recommends Mike Kelsey’s Episodes on That Sounds Fun (#223 with Annie F. Downs,  #231 with Jemar Tisby, Q&A with friends, and What do we do now).  

For you audiophiles out there, the ACLU had some of their Black staffers curate a playlist of Black music through the decades called Lift Every Voice. You can find it here on Spotify. 300 songs, 20+ hours. It’s an education in American music.

There are a ton of books to read and teachers who are putting out great lessons to those who are willing to learn and engage, and we hope you find something new here.  We’d also love to learn from the books and teachers who’ve guided you.  

What are your favorite titles by Black authors?  

Who are some Black voices we need to welcome into our lives?

~Ashley and Nikki

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Book Review

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

February 4, 2021

The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

As we are quickly approaching our next Virtual Book Club on Friday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m. CST, I am loving my latest adventure through Prythian (and also still questioning if I’m going to get through a full reread before book club).  Some days, let’s be real, most days, I wish I could stroll through the streets of Velaris and experience the vibrant, joyful nature of that beautiful city.  During this season of the virus that shall not be named, I find my (introverted) self longing for a similar experience, to feel again what it’s like to be lost in a crowd, one among many, yet I’m trapped in the house in pursuit of protection (and also warmth, as winter in the mortal world is more brutal than the north of Prythian).  If you, like me, feel the need to be among people more, sign up here to join us as we have a spoilery discussion of  Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series and prepare our readerly hearts to receive the gift that I’m convinced A Court of Silver Flames will be.  

Sometimes we make plans ages in advance and they turn into happy little accidents.  The alignment of the stars and plots are with us, as last week Jane Re was a nanny, and this week Emira is.  Both women are minorities who find themselves working for affluent white families, and both are young women seeking to find their place in the world, something they can do to pay their way and bring them joy, and both love their little charges so very much.  Both books are debut novels, and I am HERE. FOR. THESE. AUTHORS.  In Re Jane, Patricia Park teaches readers about Korean culture, and the experiences of families who immigrate and their children.  In Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid teaches us (read me) about intersecting  cultures, perceptions, and how nothing is as simple as it seems.  

On the surface, Such a Fun Age is the tale of two women, Emira is a young Black woman who is trying to find her place in the world, one that includes health insurance and enough money to live comfortably, without wondering where her next meal and rent check will come from.  She has close friends who love her and support her, but, to her at least, they seem more successful, or at least they have comfortable jobs and don’t have to worry about money.  Alix is a bit older, a married mother of two young girls, a small business owner who’s made her mark on the world and is trying to stay relevant even though she’s no longer living in the city that inspires her and she’s struggling to find new friends since her family moved from NYC.  As with many a book, there is so, SO very much more to this story!  

I want to say so much about Such a Fun Age, but also, I don’t want to spoil this gem of a book.  The journey of Emira and Alix is an interesting one, and Reid’s writing brings both to light in a gorgeous way as we shift back and forth from on perspective to another seamlessly.  Here’s what I do want to say though, Emira gets it, she understands the way the world works and we see her code switching, becoming who she needs to be as the situation changes, and also trying to find what brings her joy and pays her bills, and y’all, isn’t that the dream!  Alix only sees part of the truth.  She doesn’t understand Emira, and even as much as she wants to be friends with her, I don’t think she really wants to know her as much as she wants to be known herself, and that doesn’t really feel like friendship to me.  Also, Alix only sees what she knows, she doesn’t understand how to translate that to a larger context or how to consider a perspective other than her own.  Such a Fun Age brings to the forefront issues of privilege, understanding, and perspective as well as friendship, transactional relationships, and domestic help.  As usual, I wanted to dive deeper into these issues and this story, but readers, while I’d love to spend more time with these characters, especially Emira, I didn’t want more epilogue.  Reid’s ending was perfect.  I’d love to chat with you more about this book in the comments if you’ve read it.  I’m likely to reread this four-star title and I’m looking forward to learning more from Reid as she continues to find herself, and hopefully writes many more books so readers can grow with her.  

~Nikki

Kiley Reid from KileyReid.com

Such a Fun Age is a debut novel with style, wit, and poignant clarity on the lines between race, wealth, and gender in society.  There is also a dearth of information on the author excepting that Kiley Reid began writing the novel in 2015 while working on her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop, was recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship, and currently lives in Philadelphia, the setting of the novel. The book was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, debuted at number three on The New York Times Hardcover Best-Sellers List, and was Reese’s Bookclub Pick for January 2020. I know I had been playing the holds game since then because I was HERE. FOR. IT. I am also here for anything else Reid publishes and can’t wait for more laugh out loud moments equally interspersed with groans of frustration at the easily understood and yet often-terrible decisions each character makes. 

As Nikki mentioned above, Such a Fun Age is more than a story about race. It is also the story about the privilege of wealth and gender. The story opens with Emira being called by her employers, the Chamberlains, as she is out celebrating a friend’s birthday. She’s in her mid-twenties, living it up, and is asked to take 2-year-old Briar out to the grocery store for double pay while the cops are at the Chamberlain house to investigate a broken window. Emira explains that she is not dressed for babysitting but can be there in just a few minutes to which Alix Chamberlain agrees. Briar and Emira are walking around the grocery store, doing the same things that entertain the 2-year-old during the daytime hours, but this time it’s after 11pm and a white, female customer involves the security guard by saying she thinks Emira kidnapped Briar. The altercation is filmed by a white male customer, from the beginning of the security officer speaking to Emira and through Emira calling Peter Chamberlain and his subsequent arrival to prove Emira’s innocence and collect his daughter. Emira allows the videographer to email her the video but makes him delete it from his phone. She’s too shaken up to make a decision on what she wants to do about it at the moment. This entire incident sets the stage, introduces the characters, and prepares us for an awkward story that could be experienced by most any of us from one character’s point of view or another’s. My inherent bias as a middle-class white woman makes experiencing this incident through Emira’s point of view as an eye-opener. What have I been complicit in thinking/assuming about people because of how they look in any given situation? And how can I check myself in the future from allowing it to happen again? We’re reading fiction to be entertained, yes, but there’s always the benefit of becoming more socially and relationally aware of how other people – especially those who don’t look or act like us – move around in the world.

What I really loved about Reid’s writing, however, is her ability to make me laugh out loud at something I’ve totally thought or said to my friends but would feel awkward if it were said in public, or when reading it in a book. And then on the next page make me cry in frustration at how these characters can have a miscommunication so life-altering you want to smack them over the head. According to Goodreads, I read it in a day. I’m not ashamed or proud of that fact, it’s just a testament of how amazing of a book this is on every level. Such a Fun Age is a 4.5 star rounded up to 5 for me, and I want to discuss more but it would end up being spoilery. So, go and read some fiction and learn yourself something about other people’s struggles.

~Ashley

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First Monday

Celebrating Black Authors

February 1, 2021

The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

There’s something really special about stepping out of the cold, wet darkness of January into February with all its promises of spring and love for all.  It makes me wonder if it’s a bit like waking up in a new body, or maybe realizing you’re the wolf not the mouse.  Join us Friday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m. CST to chat about what those things might be like and so much more as spoilers will abound for all of Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series.  Sign up here to make your predictions about who the wolf is in A Court of Silver Flames as we shift from counting weeks to counting days until it hits our kindles and mailboxes.  

And if you’re looking for something a bit more grounded than an amazing fantasy series, March’s Virtual Book Club title, Anne Bogel’s latest book – Don’t Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy To Your Life might be just the title for you.  We’ll discuss it on Friday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. CST and would love for you to join us.  

Oh dear readers, January was dark and full of terrors and I am ready to emerge into the light!  February has exploded onto my dining room table / school table / craft zone as I’m still over here trying to reacclimate from the holidays.  For me, I’m trying to focus on kindness and the many ways that can manifest this month.  I have Girl Scout cookies and I’m ready to show some love!  How are we showing bookish love this month?  Well, through a little Galentine’s celebration aka Virtual Book Club (dudes are welcome, too) and the titles we bring to you this month.  In addition to February’s focus on love and Valentine’s, it’s also Black History Month.  We’re showing our love for our Black friends and neighbors, but also for ourselves and our world, through bringing you books by Black authors all month, and most of them were published in 2020, so they’re newish too.  

I want to dig in a bit about diverse authors though, so stay with me while I pull up a soap box.  I read mostly books by white women.  If I don’t purposefully incorporate diverse authors into my reading life, which is one of my reading goals, then I do not have diverse voices speaking into my life through books.  As a person who seeks to love my neighbors (meaning all individuals I come in contact with) well, I need to seek to understand their perspectives, and books are one of several ways I can do that.  When a bookish friend who doesn’t look like me said that she and her people haven’t read Harry Potter and aren’t really interested because none of the characters look like them, I took that to heart and asked myself what I’d read recently where people do look like her.  I didn’t like the answer, so I started searching out books by authors who don’t look like me.  Sometimes that means going back to the classics that weren’t in my curriculum in high school and reading authors like Zora Neale Hurston, (which is only improved by listening to Kara Brown and friends discuss).  Other times it means I have to look in different places than usual (like last month when I Googled “diverse Jane Eyre retelling” because I was not going to start 2021 off without a diverse author on the list), but always it means I learn something about my friends and neighbors, and also about myself.  (I wish I was kidding about Googling, but readers, it’s only stupid if it doesn’t work.)

Last week, Patricia Park shared with us so much about Korean culture and the experience of a family of first generation immigrants through the eyes of Jane Re.  Because she made the choice to share those pieces of her with the world, I now have a greater understanding of a friend who is Korean, and her family.  Everything Park says in Re Jane won’t translate to my friend, but Park decided to share those pieces with the world and my friend gets to decide which pieces she shares and if and when she takes on sharing those pieces of herself with her white friends.  

To me, reading the work of authors who don’t look like me speaks directly to the idea of me, as a white person, NOT asking my friends who are Black or people of color to take on the responsibility of teaching me what I need to know about race.  There are authors and teachers who have signed up for this work, who choose when and where to engage in it, and my friends, and all people of any color, deserve the same choice.  While I listen with focus and careful attention any time one of my friends who doesn’t look like me shares a part of him or herself, suggests a book or a resource, or otherwise chooses to be a part of my education, I try very hard to receive it with grace and honor and only ask questions once the subject has been broached with me.  Do I mess up sometimes?  Most definitely I do.  I hope to mess up less as I learn more.  As a reader, learning more means purposefully adding authors and titles my friends suggest to my TBR list, and engaging with those texts in a meaningful way.  As a person who prefers fiction to nonfiction, it means digging into those texts and soaking in the lessons those authors laid out for me, for you, and for the world.  I will never know what it’s like to be a Black or brown person or to be a man or transgender individual, but I can read about the experiences, real and imagined, from people who do have that knowledge, and I can learn from those words.  I can let them shape and mold me into someone who is kinder, more compassionate, and more prepared to stand up for and with people who don’t look like me.  

If you’re looking for specific resources on reading books from diverse authors, check out We Need Diverse Books.  If you’re looking to add more diverse authors to your reading lists, I’d encourage you to seek them out, and let us know if you need help or ideas.  Personally, I check up on my month’s reading on Goodreads often to confirm that I’m keeping up with reading at least one non-fiction book a month, trying to incorporate more male authors (something else I struggle with), and reading books by diverse authors with different lived experiences than mine.

If you’re reading this and don’t understand why it’s a big deal, I suggest you read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (which I shared back in July and is currently available via Kindle Unlimited).  Yes, I’m suggesting a book by a white man to explain how ingrained segregation is in our society and the role the (US) government at all levels has played in keeping our country segregated.  Know of a title that does this by a Black author or author of color?  I’d love to read it and suggest that instead next time!  If you’re more of a podcast person, listen to The Promise.  I listened to season one and am working on season two.  If you have feelings, let’s chat, because I most definitely have feelings as someone who grew up passing the James Cayce homes to visit her great-grandmother in the house her grandmother grew up in, which is smack between Lockeland and Warner Elementary Schools in East Nashville.

But just get to it you say, tell us what titles you picked for February….ok, here we go.  

We are playing some holds games, so here are five titles we’re trying to get for you.  The one we don’t get to now, will go back on the list for a later date (but maybe not too much later, depending on how things shake out).  

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles

An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole

Which titles have you already read?  What are you excited to discuss or learn more about?  

~Nikki 

By the time we get down to my little section of the intro post, I feel like all I really have to say is: Ditto. Nikki has covered the main reasons why we make including diverse authors and characters a monthly goal not only in our reading life but on the blog as well. In addition to wanting to grow our own understanding, we want you, our dear reader, to see people who look like you represented here on Heart.Wants.Books. We want you to know that we take this seriously by admitting we’re not perfect, but we are trying, and that we’re open to more education in, constructive criticism of, and discussion about the way we include BIPOC and LGBTQ+ authors and characters. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we also appreciate a monthly theme and sometimes that makes it difficult to include the diversity we see in our (reading) lives represented on the blog.  We hope you will continue to extend us grace and help us find the books needed to continue our self-directed diversity education.

It might come as a bit of a surprise, but I am not a consumer of news media. Paying attention to national and international situations that I can not control, and that rarely affect my daily life (I a thousand percent realize the privilege in that statement), ratchets up my anxiety to unbearable levels. I consider it an act of self-care to not engage with all the what-ifs that hound my brain regarding things that I have no control over. I manage it when it becomes an issue for my daily life, and including the perspectives of other people so that I can learn from and understand their opinions and struggles IS an issue for my daily life. Because that’s how I show the world I value being a person with compassion. And then I take action to better myself and the world around me, because it actually is NOT all about me. Except this blog, it is totally all about what I want to read, so, sorry for that disappointment. 😉 Ok, fine, Nikki gets a say, too, so that statement is false. 

What books, themes, or authors can we bring to you that will help you (and us!) learn of the world from a different perspective?

~Ashley

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Book Review•Jane in January

Re Jane by Patricia Park

January 28, 2021

The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

As we’ve been digging into the story of Jane Eyre this month, I’ve been hanging out in my feels about family of all kinds, blood and found, seasonal and lasting.  Jane, and Bertha too, have an adventure with family, ups and downs included, and so does Feyre darling.  She’s both the savior and the black sheep, so she doesn’t know where she fits in her family, and then in the world.   Sign up here to join us Friday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m. CST for an evening of spoilers and conversation about Feyre and all of her family as we discuss Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series.  We might even hazard some predictions about the combination of Feyre’s found and blood families as the tale continues in A Court of Silver Flames in a few short, yet oh so long, weeks.  

If you’re looking for a book that might leave you with more than a desire to have a life of reading and workouts, join us Friday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. when we’ll discuss blog favorite Anne Bogel’s latest book – Don’t Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy To Your Life, AND (as of this writing) is STILL on sale!  Registration to come.  

Speaking of different types of families, oh dear readers, Re Jane by Patricia Park is the book I didn’t know I needed this month!  It’s the book we almost didn’t read, but thanks to our documented goal of including diverse authors and characters, and making an effort to stick with it, we did, and Reader, I loved it!  

I want to talk about what Re Jane is and is not because I read some reviews and it seems like readers either love or hate this book.  Published in 2016, Re Jane is a modern re-imagining of the story of Jane Eyre.  In this book, Park considers the coming of age of darling Jane with the lens of a modern, half-Korean woman who lives in New York City.  Does Park seek to mirror the events of the classic?  More or less, but not identically like Sarah Shoemaker does in Mr. Rochester.  Park has taken the spirit of the original and overlaid the concept of her Jane over it.  There are pieces of the original that don’t translate well to modern New York, like escaping over the moors and begging at a stranger’s door, a stranger who happens to be your cousin, and Park has an answer and it works perfectly with her story.  I could have read this without the context of the original, and I would have found it a delightful story of insight into life in New York City and Korean culture.  Because I’m one who enjoys adaptations, retellings, and re-imaginings, I adored this book.  If you don’t appreciate a little tweak and change, then maybe skip this.  

Do you remember how I always want more epilogue?  As much as I’d love another few hundred pages of what Jane is up to after the close of Re Jane, I really liked the ending.  This Jane’s Rochester is named Ed, and as much as I struggle with him and his wife, Beth, their challenges and blind spots are easy to see.  Jane Re knows what she’s getting into with Ed in ways that Jane Eyre doesn’t, so I don’t have the same issues with Ed as with Rochester (different issues because of Ed’s aforementioned wife though).  Also, Jane Re is very aware by the end of her story, both of herself and of her relationships, in ways that maybe just weren’t typically accessed 175 years ago the same way they are now.  

I have just one more thing to add dear readers, a trigger warning.  I confess, I only skimmed the marketing copy before reading Re Jane, but I went looking for it later, and it wasn’t there.  It was on the first page, and I missed it, so I’m going to spell it out for you.  This book opens in the late summer of 2000 and takes place over about two years.  It’s set in New York City.  That means that September 11, 2001 happens during this book.  The story didn’t have to include this date in the time frame, but it does, and as someone who didn’t realize it would be a thing until the World Trade Center towers kept being mentioned.  Then, I turned a page and the next chapter was titled “9/12” so at least then I knew what was coming, but barely.  On the page, the events of 9/11 were experienced through brief news coverage, and then how the trauma stayed with New Yorkers.  Still, as someone who has distinct memories of that day and those that followed, I want others to see this coming, too.  

Remember how I said I loved Re Jane? I did, and I do.  It was a fun, interesting book that featured a twist on a familiar story and was full of interesting insights into Korean culture.  Even with the tap-tap-hae (“overwhelming discomfort pressing down on you physically, psychologically”) of 9/11, it was a four star read, and reader, I might read it again.  Jane Re felt like such a real person, one I’d like to hang out with and get to know, that I might just get to know her a bit more.

What’s a book that was an unexpected joy to you?

~Nikki

Patricia Park from Amazon

Readers, I read consumed Re Jane in two days. Patricia Park reimagined Jane Eyre and this debut novel was named Editor’s Choice by The New York Times Book Review, a Best Books of 2015 nominee by the American Library Association, and an NPR “Fresh Air” pick among other accolades. Besides writing engrossing fiction and essays, Park is assistant professor of creative writing at American University. She was raised in Queens and lives in Brooklyn and you can feel her love of NYC in every word she poured into Re Jane. Also of note about the author, is the love story of her and her husband, found here in the New York Time’s Vow’s Column. They were married in May 2019, when weddings were still allowed to be a big deal thing, but I found out more than just their match.com story from the article, like: Re Jane is in development to be a television series and Park’s parents own a supermarket in Brooklyn!

Image from Best of Korea

The almost 350 pages of pure Korean-American prose grabbed me from the second paragraph where Jane describes how the Korean inhabitants of Flushing, Queens, have trouble pronouncing the F sound: “The adults at church would go Hoo before they could form the word, as if cooling it off their tongue. My uncle and aunt’s rendition: Poo, Rushing. It could’ve been poetry.” Throughout the novel, the cultural descriptions are honest but not irreverent. I think the best example of cultural differences and the difficulty of having nunchi – the ability to read a situation and anticipate how you were expected to behave – is when Jane peels pears. The first time is with her aunt and uncle at their home in Flushing. They are first generation immigrants from Korea who require the pear to be peeled with the thinnest of peels removed, no white flesh should be left to waste.  The second pear peeling incident is during Jane’s first morning as a nanny where she peels the pear as she was taught and is then told her new household eats the skin because that is where all the nutritional value is found, as well as the fact the pear is expensive organic produce. If you thought that the Mazer-Farleys are a slightly hippie, academically if not actually feminist, and vegan household living in Brooklyn, you, dear reader, would be right. Then, finally, when Jane is living with her family in Seoul she peels the pear again the same way she was taught and is chastised for how lumpy the fruit looks rather than how there is no flesh left on the peel. Her family states that no Korean man would want to marry a woman who didn’t know the proper way to peel a pear. By this point, Jane must realize that the proper way to peel a pear depends on a lot of factors she can not anticipate or predict from her past experience, nunchi can not always be had. Sometimes you don’t know how to act until you’ve already messed up! And that’s relatable no matter who you are or where you’re from.

I give Re Jane a very solid 4 stars, bordering on 4.5, but because I don’t see myself re-reading this title in the future I don’t want to round up to 5 stars. It is, however, THAT good and I might reconsider that decision later. I am 100% here for Park’s forthcoming novel, El Chino, about the Koreans in Argentina during the Dirty War. I have also enjoyed skimming several of Park’s online essays whose links are found on her website.

Reader, I challenge you to find a re-imagining of a favorite classic told within the confines of another culture then tell us about it!

~Ashley

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