Summer Reading List
We closed our eyes and next thing you know: September is less than a week away. We look forward to summer all year (for those of us in the East Coast) and boom- it goes just as quick as it arrives! Let’s enjoy the next few weeks as much as possible.
As part of my hot-girl long term goals, I am dedicated to my growth + committed to feeding my mind nourishment that inspires my creative dreams into reality. So with that in mind, I am sharing my reading list!
Here is what I’ve read so far:
“You and I have ... have never been a family of tuck-ins and bedtime stories any more than we’ve been a family of consistent bill money, pantries, full refrigerators, washers and dryers. We have always been a bent black southern family of laughter, outrageous lies, and books.... your insistence I read, reread, write, and revise in those books, made it so I would never be intimidated ... by words, punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and white space. You gave me a black southern laboratory to work with words.”
HEAVY by Kiese Laymon.
This memoir-as the title references- is heavy on the heart. The author takes us through painful childhood memories tying his personal story with one of identity and loss, drawing parallels to our history as Americans to bury the truth only for it to creep up in all aspects of our daily living.
Is blackness a burden? If so, how do we carry it without breaking our backs?
Blackness, in and of itself, isn’t a burden at all. In this nation, we all carry the immense burden of being human, but our backs are sore as hell because white Americans have failed to compassionately reckon with the worst of white folks. They tried to destroy us intellectually, psychologically, emotionally, economically, and we helped them out quite a bit. When people with more access to healthy choices and second chances obsessively want, and really need, you to have even less access to healthy choices and second chances, your back and your heart will tend to break. The wonder is that we’re not broken. We’re not broken. The wonder is that we’re still here creating, still willing ourselves into generative kinds of human being even though we’re really, really, really, tired. — Excerpt from The Nation Interview w/ Kiese Laymon
“The reality is, no matter where you come from, no matter how big your dreams are, you already are more than enough, even if you are a work in progress”
MORE THAN ENOUGH by Elaine Welteroth.
Elaine Welteroth is dope AF. First, she killed it as the First African-American woman to hold top office at Teen Vogue. Then, she made an even more bad-azz move and LEFT- carving her own path, her own way. More Than Enough is a great reminder to all of us that every step along our journey matters. The challenges, pitfalls, and perceived setbacks all lead us to exactly where we need to be. All the Universe asks of us is to trust that we are- yes- more than enough.
“To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves”
WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
This book is magical realness with a feminist twist. The folk tales throughout the book are a testament of the female spirit to love, to be free, and to live without restrictions. I highly recommend for any one fighting to find their voice in a world that tells us to be silent.
“Liberated relationships are one of the ways we actually create abundant justice, the understand that there is enough attention, care, resource, and connection for all of us to access belonging, to be in our dignity, and to be safe in community”
PLEASURE ACTIVISM by adrienne marie brown.
I just started reading this gem which has already made me not want to put it down. Every page is filled with a reminder that life is not about pain + struggle- life is about pleasure. The revolutionary act of living our lives through the pursuit of pleasure is the author’s call to action for all of us- activists, parents, youth, leaders, and all in between. This is a must read for anyone doing the hard work of resistance in these times of dire need for compassion and unity.
“Pleasure is the point. Feeling good is not frivolous, it is freedom”
What have you read so far this summer?