Author: Erica Ezeifedi

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.

With Cultish, Montell promises to finally explain the appeal of cults for some people through language without jargon. She tackles everything from biological survival responses to society’s treatment of the word “cult” and how even that can be detrimental. She interviewed survivors of Jonestown, former members of the 3HO Foundation, and even covers certain fitness programs that have the us vs. them stance and sense of community that many cults have.

I’m not going to lie, this is a tome at around 800 pages. It’s definitely more than my struggle attention span can handle, but I know it’s worth pushing through. Jeffers tells a truer story of America, one that takes into account the mixing of cultures and its duality. This duality presents itself in many ways, one of which was first described at length by the books namesake. The duality Du Bois spoke of, or the “Double Consciousness,” has been inherent to many Black Americans, and isn’t lost on the book’s main character Ailey Pearl. Ailey is named after the famed Black choreographer Alvin Ailey, and her ancestor Pearl, who was a descendent of enslaved people. Ailey’s need to better understand her roots drives the story as she uncovers the truth of her ancestors— who they were, what they did, and what that means for her now— in this sweeping, elegant new American standard.

It’s curious how different parts of history are treated. Objectively, they’re all just what happened, and are no fault of those living now, but some people take offense at what certain parts of history imply. Take for instance, the guard in the Angola museum that Smith spoke to. When asked about what part Angola took in perpetuating slavery, the guide responded ” I can’t change that.” And so, books like this will always be necessary. The simple act of trying to arrive at a solid, undeniable truth is met with denial. Luckily, Smith’s quest to chronicle how specific locations— eight U.S. cities and one city in Senegal— reckon with their role in slavery is told with the grace of a poet.

Growing up, there was distance between Zauner’s mother and her brought about by her mother’s expectations of her, as well as her mother’s inherent otherness. This otherness is something that is commonly felt between the children of immigrants and their parents. With a new country comes a new way to grow up, while parents bring their own rearing from their home countries. The two experiences often clash. Despite this difference, Zauner and her mother bonded over food when they would visit her grandmother in Korea, and the food descriptions here might have you making some bad decisions at 10 p.m. on your food app of choice (jk, any time you’re able to order Korean food at 10 p.m., it’s a good decision).

Zauner is starting to come into her own as a musician just as she starts to feel the Korean aspects of her identity slip away. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, she seeks to reconnect with that part of herself, and by doing so, her mother. As disease began to ravage her mother’s body, she wished away parts of herself— the parts that had bonded with her mother through food— by not eating. This is a lyrical and honest look at grief and identity, generously peppered with mouthwatering descriptions of food.

This is the perfect story for lovers of stories, as it shows the power of tales told through time. And by time, I mean hundreds of years. It starts in 15th century Constantinople as Anna reads the story of Aethon— and how he hopes to be turned into a bird and fly to freedom— to her sister as the city is attacked.

The ’50s saw Zino, an ex-soldier now in Idaho, working on translating the manuscript that holds Aethon’s story from Greek. When he reaches his eighties, he leads a play that showcases the story, and is acted out by children. Unbeknownst to him, there’s a bomb that’s been planted by a misguided teenager nearby, its existence an ever constant threat throughout the book.

Finally, hidden away in a ship, Konstance, who has never been to Earth, is busy writing down the story of Aethon as her father told her. As these stories converge, and the story of Aethon ends, we see the impact that stories can have.

There’s a great conversation here about how this relates to religion. And how certain civilizations have religions with similar stories.

I’m tempted to say that this is a queer retelling of The Great Gatsby, but that isn’t exactly true, as the original was actually queer. It’s interesting how I don’t remember it being discussed when I first read it as a teenager, but it was very clear once I revisited it as an adult. Vo gives more flesh to characters from the original as she tells of Jordan Baker, the queer, adopted Vietnamese girl brought into the monied American social circles of the ’20s. Jordan is seen as exotic and somewhat like a pet among the white socialites. The familiar story unfolds, as Gatsby tries to regain the object of his obsession, but there is more still. Dark bargains and magic surface as Jordan begins to understand her place in society.

Sokcho is the border town between North and South Korea that attracts tourists during the warmer months. But it’s winter when a middle-aged French cartoonist begrudgingly comes into the unkempt inn that a young, half Korean woman is working at. The two form an awkward relationship, as he convinces her to show him around for an authentic experience, and she gets the chance to spend time with someone who reminds her of the French father she never met. This is a subtle exploration of identity, alienation, and the beauty of North and South Korea in the winter. It has also won the National Book Award for translated literature.

“Where am I?”

He shrugged. “Back of the north wind. The end of the world. Nowhere at all.” 

This book, y’all. I shut the world out and read this entire trilogy in a few days in December last year. It was that good. In it, we’re dropped in the dead of winter in the Russian wilderness where there are stories of Frost, the winter demon, and other spirits from Russian mythology that Vasilisa grows up hearing stories about. These spirits are respected, with some even being given tributes as house protectors, until Christianity comes and threatens to “kill” the spirits by forbidding people from worshipping them.

When Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father eventually remarries a devout Christian woman from the city who forbids the honoring of traditional spirits. General mess follows, and suddenly crops die and villagers go through it. There’s also an evil from the forest that seems to be creeping nearer and nearer. This actually had some really creepy/scary moments. You’ve been warned!

Book club bonus: We just had a fabulous conversation last night for our Insiders group read discussion of Elatsoe, and the topic of cultures’ deities and spirits came up. I think this book would lend itself well to that convo, so discuss themes of religious imperialism, and what it means for women.

This is the second book in a cozy mystery series that has quite a few unique elements. The first book introduced Gethsemane Brown, a Black American expatriate living in a haunted cottage in Ireland who starts to solve murder cases as an amateur sleuth… obviously.

In this book, her cottage is about to be sold by the landlord, her ghost friend has disappeared, and her brother-in-law shows up for Christmas only to be accused of stealing an expensive antique. So naturally, she goes undercover at a charity ball to find out the true thief, but unwittingly conjures the ghost of an eighteenth century sea captain and is accused of murdering the ball’s host. Also naturally: sis is pressedT.

Book club bonus: There’s a lot going on here. How do you think all of the elements complement each other, and do you think they would work better or worse in an American setting?