Recently: Essays on Feminism, Gender, Race, and Identity

Without realizing it at the time, I've been on a bit of a kick with essay collections lately--especially those related to feminism, gender identity, and race--and particularly the intersection of the three.

Week in Reading: February 6, 2017

It's been an unsurprisingly light week in the reading world over here. Work's work, but my spare time has been spent almost exclusively visiting a sick family member and running myself into the ground--not necessarily in that order. Luckily, getting to these visits means plenty of time for audiobooks, and my long run this weekend--my longest to date!--went well and didn't kill me. So, small things. Focus on the small things.

Chronicle of a Last Summer: Coming of Age in Political Riptides

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

A nuanced story of one girl's coming of age set against decades of political ferment in Cairo, Egypt.

Chronicle of a Last Summer is a nuanced coming-of-age story set in politically charged Cairo. Opening in 1984, Yasmine El Rashidi's novel focuses on a young girl whose father has just left. Her Baba's disappearance sparks the first of her many questions: Why did he leave, where did he go, will he come back?

Here Comes the Sun: Nicole Dennis-Benn's Stunning Debut

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

In her debut novel, Here Comes the Sun, Nicole Dennis-Benn captures the lushness and devastation of Jamaica and its changing landscape. She brings both island and people to life with grace and beauty, complete with strong dichotomies: the verdant landscape and the rough edges of its poorest towns; its idyllic seas and dangerous tides; its thriving tourism and the ways that industry threatens the island way of life.

Contemporary Nigerian Voices

This piece originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers.

Until recently, I'm ashamed to admit, my reading of Nigerian authors was limited to the works of Chinua Achebe (which are certainly worth reading, if you haven't already). I had been overlooking a host of more recent fiction from Nigerian voices, all of which work to highlight the complex and often misunderstood history and culture of this unusual country.

Book Pairing: On the Desegregation of Virginia Public Schools

Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County is part history, part memoir. Written by Kristen Green, who was raised in Prince Edward County, Virginia, and attended Prince Edward Academy (a private school that did not accept black students until the 1980s--yes, you read that right, 80s). Green started poking around her town's local history and was startled to learn not only that her county protested desegregation by closing schools to all children (and using state funds for education to support the founding of Prince Edward Academy), but that her family was intimately involved in the fight against desegregation. It's an eye-opening read, to say the least.

Reading Diversely: Recently Read & Recommended

Over the past several years, I've been making more and more of an effort to read more diversely. Translation: less books by and about straight, white, cisgendered men. It's been an incredible journey, made all the easier (and more collective) by groups like We Need Diverse Books and the efforts of bloggers and writers to acknowledge and write about and highlight a lack of diversity in many, many publishing lists, reviews, and bestseller groupings.

So far this year, I'm counting 32% of the books I've read as by or about diverse authors, of varying races, sexualities, abilities. Here are some recent highlights: