Welcome to our Reading List! Find new recommended reads here every month, find spotlights and recommendations for our book world friends, and shop with us!
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September and October 2024 Reading Recommendations
Bookshop List
Monthly reading lists curated by our phenomenal Communications Fellow, Carissa Villagomez!
*use the links to buy via The Word's Bookshop - proceeds from each sale will be donated to support our cultural equity programs!
See and purchase all the books HERE!
​​We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People by Nemonte Nenquimo, Mitch Anderson
Genre: Memoir
Blurb: From a fearless, internationally acclaimed activist comes an impassioned memoir about an indigenous childhood, a clash of cultures, and the fight to save the Amazon rainforest. —Bookshop.org
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Badass Bonita: Break the Silence, Become a Revolution, Unearth Your Inner Guerrera by Kim Guerra
Genre: Self-help
Blurb: From the creator of Brown Badass Bonita comes a "powerful and necessary guide toward self-discovery and metamorphosis" (Dr. Mariel Buqué) that can help transform not only your life but the lives of everyone in your community. —Bookshop.org
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Rage: On Being Queer, Black, Brilliant… and Completely Over It by Lester Fabian Brathwaite
Genre: Nonfiction
Blurb: A debut book from Entertainment Weekly writer and former Out magazine editor Lester Fabian Brathwaite, Rage is a darkly comedic exploration of Blackness, queerness, and the American Dream, at a time when creative anger feels like the best response to inequality. —Bookshop.org
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A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
Genre: Short story collection
Blurb: Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez's stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. —Bookshop.org
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This Book Kills by Ravena Kaur Guron
Genre: YA thriller
Blurb: I'll make it clear from the start: I did not kill Hugh Henry Van Boren. I didn't even help...Well, not intentionally. —Bookshop.org
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A Second Chance on Earth by Juan Vidal
Genre: YA novel-in-verse
Blurb: A father, a friend, and a favorite book help a teen boy understand love and loss in this moving and vivid YA novel in verse.
—Bookshop.org
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For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga
Genre: Fantasy
Blurb: A sweeping, Pakistani romantic fantasy reimagining of The Count of Monte Cristo, where one girl seeks revenge against those who betrayed her--including the boy she used to love. —Bookshop.org
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The Witches of El Paso by Luis Jaramillo
Genre: Fantasy
Blurb: A lawyer and her elderly great-aunt use their supernatural gifts to find a lost child in this richly imagined and empowering story of motherhood, magic, and legacy in the vein of The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina and La Hacienda. —Bookshop.org
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This Motherless Land by Nikki May
Genre: Literary fiction
Blurb: From the acclaimed author of Wahala, a "vibrant" (Charmaine Wilkerson) decolonial retelling of Mansfield Park, exploring identity, culture, race, and love. —Bookshop.org
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Giddy Barber Explodes in 11 by Dina Havranek
Genre: YA fiction
Blurb: The hilarious and heartening story of a teen girl who makes several astonishingly terrible decisions in an effort to find the support she needs. —Bookshop.org
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This Cursed House by Del Sandeen
Genre: Horror
Blurb: In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: They're under a curse, and they think she can break it. —Bookshop.org
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Genre: YA mystery
Blurb: The INDIES INTRODUCE and INDIE NEXT debut YA novel about blood and family that is both history and mystery.
—Bookshop.org
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Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me by Glory Edim
Genre: Memoir
Blurb: An inspiring memoir of family, community, and resilience, and an ode to the power of books to help us understand ourselves, from the renowned founder of Well-Read Black Girl. —Bookshop.org
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The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai and Jesse Kirkwood
Genre: Mystery
Blurb: We all hold lost recipes in our hearts. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them… —Bookshop.org
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A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
Genre: Fantasy
Blurb: Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, A Song to Drown Rivers is an epic novel steeped in myth about womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love against all odds as the fate of two kingdoms hangs in a delicate balance.
—Bookshop.org
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Red in Tooth and Claw by Lish McBride
Genre: YA horror
Blurb: A dark young adult Western fantasy about a teen in a remote settlement full of monsters and secrets. —Bookshop.org
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The Plan: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius by Kendra J. Adachi
Genre: Self-help
Blurb: The New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way brings her signature Kind Big Sister Energy to a practical time management book for people weary of productivity but eager to live a good life. —Bookshop.org
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Because Fat Girl by Lauren Marie Fleming
Genre: Romance
Blurb: For everyone who's ever felt too big, too weird, too queer--or just too much--comes a happily ever after for the rest of us.
—Bookshop.org
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LIZA'S HEALING
READS
The Healing Reads List is a reading list that goes beyond anti-racism books. This list is all about healing and uplifting within and across communities.
Liza Michelle Bevams is a writer and multimedia artist exploring life in the Rocky Mountains. She is currently working on her first novel.
Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems
by Sonia Sanchez
Poetry
"[Sanchez] looks deeply into that most dangerous of places-the heart."
—Quarterly Black Review
I Can't Talk about the Trees Without the Blood
by Tiana Clark
Poetry
"Clark bridges a Tennessee landscape's past and present in her stellar debut, evincing a potent mix of history, injury, and divided identity."
—Publishers Weekly
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems
by Joy Harjo
Poetry
"In these poems, the joys and struggles of the everyday are played against the grinding politics of being human."
—Bookshop.org
Directed by Desire
by June Jordan
Poetry
"Directed by Desire . . . is a powerful addition to the entire canon of American poetry."
—Booklist
“I must become the action of my fate”
—June Jordan in “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies”
Soft Science
by Franny Choi
Poetry
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"Choi creates an exhilarating matrix of poetry, science, and technology."
—Publishers Weekly
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American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
by Terrance Hayes
Poetry
“Overwhelming in every sense. Overwhelming in its brilliance, yes, but also overwhelming in its pacing, its style . . . The book, despite its breadth and clever turns, is a confrontation . . . His poems are like the slow and steady picking of a lock, until the door handle clicks."
—Hanif Abdurraqib, Poets and Writers
The New Testament
by Jericho Brown
Poetry
“To read Jericho Brown's poems is to encounter devastating genius."
—Claudia Rankine
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Fiction
“An extraordinarily powerful and very different kind of physical and psychological migration story."
—Edwidge Danticat, The New Yorker
The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting a Writer’s Life in Prison
Edited by Caits Meissner, Pen America
Nonfiction
“This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read.” —Liza
Questions for Ada
by Ijeoma Umebinyuo
Poetry
“These poems trace a path of healing full of power and vulnerability that resonates long after reading them."
—Liza
Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
Nonfiction
"A real eye opener . . . It unpacks the seemingly 'universal' lessons we learn about what makes fiction good to reveal how whiteness and maleness have shaped those values." -Kumari Devarajan, Code Switch, NPR
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Nonfiction Essays
"The delights he extols here (music, laughter, generosity, poetry, lots of nature) are bulwarks against casual cruelties. As such they feel purposeful and imperative as well as contagious in their joy." -The New York Times Book Review
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Nonfiction
“A masterpiece.” -Liza Bevams
Wounds of Passions: A Writing Life by bell hooks
Nonfiction
“This book speaks to the heart.” -Liza Bevams
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Sci-fi/Fantasy
“A prophetic and transformative novel.”
-Liza Bevams
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
Autobiographical Novel
“This book is a gift of radical love that keeps unfolding and unfolding.” -Liza Bevams
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The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Nonfiction
"This book took my breath away. It's an unexpected and urgent embrace of truth." --Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Dare to Lead
The Magic My Body Becomes: Poems by Jess Rizkallah
Poetry
"The Magic My Body Becomes is an extraordinary collection that captures the beauty and complexities of identity." —Liza
Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought- Briona Simone Jones (Editor)
Nonfiction
"This collection of multi-generational writing is a demonstration of how radical and transformative love, self-love, can be." —Liza
George M. Johnson- All Boys Aren't Blue
YA Nonfiction
"An absolute necessity . . . the personal stories and the healing and reconciliation of self in this title are all undeniably honest and relatable--a reminder of our shared imperfection and humanity." -Booklist
Bernardine Evaristo- Girl, Woman, Other
Fiction
"Girl, Woman, Other, the intermingling stories of generations of black British women told in a gloriously rich and readable free verse, will surely be seen as a landmark in British fiction."
-The Guardian
Natalie Diaz- Postcolonial Love Poem
Poetry
"Diaz's collection is no doubt one of the most important poetry releases in years, one to applaud for its considerable demonstration of skill, its resistance to dominant perspectives and its light wrought of desire."- The New York Times Book Review
Leslie Marmon Silko- Storyteller
Fiction and Poetry
"A source of healing, inspiration, and community." -Liza
Kiese Laymon- Heavy: An American Memoir
Nonfiction
"Reading this book gave me a new perspective on writing, love, forgiveness, and facing things that are difficult and uncomfortable to acknowledge. Kiese Laymon is a brilliant wordsmith." -Liza
Toi Derricotte- The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey
Nonfiction
"This is an insightful, courageous, and vibrant book. Derricotte's words linger and touch your soul." -Liza
Key Ballah- Preparing My Daughter For Rain
Poetry
"There is so much forgiveness and freedom in this book."- Liza
Toni Morrison- The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
Nonfiction
"Morrison is more than the standard bearer of American literature. She is our greatest singer. And this book is perhaps her most important song" -The New York Times
Ibi Zoboi- My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich
Middle Grade
"Highlights the importance of imagination and learning to celebrate what it means to be different in a world that demands conformity."- Horn Book
Upile Chisala- Nectar
Poetry
These poems celebrate, encourage, and offer the reader a new perspective on hope and self-love.
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Black Imagination - Curated by Natasha Marin
Anthology
"(D)on't think for one minute that Black Imagination is easy. As you will read here, it is hard-earned and sometimes dangerous, but it's necessary, and radical, to claim and work towards. Listening to my people in this book gave me so much life, and I'm pretty sure, dear reader, you're in for the same."- from the Foreword by Steven Dunn
Yrsa Daley-Ward- bone
Poetry
Yrsa Daley-Ward's collection bone captures desire, vulnerability, and joy beautifully. This book is a place to find solace..