50books_poc | Entries tagged with booklists

In 2016, Nisi Shawl wrote "an annotated list of 40 black science fiction works that are important to your understanding of its history" -- and now it's on the Carl Brandon Society blog.

I did not know W.E.B. Du Bois had written scifi!!!

brainwane

The ZORA Canon, our list of the 100 greatest books ever written by African American women, is one of a kind, yet it exists within a rich cultural tradition....

I believe the ones I've read are:

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861)
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1969)
Sula by Toni Morrison (1973)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993)
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (1998)
Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler (2005)
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (2010)

and I recommend all of them, except I read Sula and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl so long ago that I don't think I understood Sula and I don't remember any details from either.

And I'm grateful to this list of pointers which, among other things, reminds me that I want to read Passing by Nella Larsen (1929).

Which ones have you read? What do you recommend?

(Found via Jason Kottke)

hapex-legomena.livejournal.com

50books_poc Uncounted: Resource Pimping: Librivox

Because it's good to share.

Librivox.org, which is partnered with Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, is a non-profit organization that recruits volunteers to create public domain recordings of public domain works.

In layman's terms, free audiobooks. And if you ever wanted to make a techno remix of Shakespeare's sonnets but didn't know where to go in order to get samples, well now you do.

As you can imagine, Librivox is dominated by English-language works as written by white men. There are however works by people of color on the site. Some of the works I found include...

( Read more... )

sanguinity

A week ago I asked y'all to go chip in on Angry Black Woman's effort to compile a list of mindblowing science fiction by POC.

The final list in now published, over at Tor. Go have a look-see! (Not everyone on the list is a person of color, just so's you know -- white women were included in the round-up, since the "inspiring" anthology was both 100% male and 100% white.)

She also posted a commentary on her blog, expressing her thanks and giving her reasons for publishing it at Tor. She concludes:

When we’re confronted by people who claim that there just aren’t very many outstanding women or POC writers in the field, we can point to this and say: bullshit, bucko. Try again.

We have to be responsible for keeping track of and highlighting and celebrating and giving notice to our own and recording the accomplishments of our best. Because no one else is going to do it for us. If they’re not ignoring, they’re actively suppressing. Neither of which is acceptable.

Make lists, write reviews, pass on books, stories, and authors you love. Be heard.

sanguinity

Mindblowing Science Fiction by POC @ The Angry Black Woman

In comments, please list authors or stories or novels you would include in a list of mindblowing science fiction. If you’d like to include a bit on why you feel these choices are mindblowing, feel free. There is no restriction on time period, both modern and decades long past authors and fiction are desired. If someone has already mentioned an author, story, or book you were going to, co-sign.

The suggestions list is running shorter than I expected; anyone want to go chip in?

rootedinsong.livejournal.com

In contrast to my history on this community, I normally don't read a lot of fiction. I also don't read a lot of history books, ethnic studies books, or memoirs, which seems to constitute a lot of the nonfiction reviewed here. So I'm going to attempt to find some nonfiction books in disciplines I'm interested in.

First I'll try this with the discipline I'm planning on going into (any other aspiring therapists or practicing therapists on this community?) I am not actually familiar with any authors of color in the field off the top of my head; I've done a lot of reading, but following the usual trails leads one to a booklist that is really, really white.

( Read more... )

sanguinity

Hm. It seems the last time I did a delicious + recs extravaganza was, er, May, which must mean that you have a very lazy mod. Or something.

Interesting and/or useful things that we have been collecting at delicious:

Booklists
- People of Color in SF Wiki -- hosted by the Carl Brandon Society
- sparkymonster @ deadbrowalking: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors of African Descent
- Books Recommended by Friends of CoffeeandInk, @ LibraryThing, @ GoodReads -- compilation and index of the recs made in this 500-comment RaceFail post
- Books for our Times -- recommended books by African-American authors that "shed light on our times", offered as a corrective to a white-centric list published by Newsweek
- American Book Awards - Before Columbus Foundation -- (description of the award and foundation). Many authors are POC; despite the connotations of the name, award is multicultural-focused instead of Native-focused.
- (I know a BUNCH of booklists got posted during IBARW; I haven't yet had a chance to go through and compile them yet. It'll happen. If you want to help, do the "for:50books_poc" thing listed below, preferably including a short descrip of what we'd find at that link. Otherwise, I'll get to it when I can.)
Blogs
- Glyphs - The Language of the Black Comics Community Blog by Rich Watson, focusing on comics by or about people of color.
- American Indians in Children's Literature -- (had I seriously never collected this before? seriously?) reviews and discussions of kid's books about American Indians, written by Deb Reese of the Nambe Pueblo. Most reviews are of white-authored books that get it wrong, but some of the posts are about Native-authored books.
- Novel Spaces -- Group blog of 11 authors, mostly authors of color, in diverse genres: romance, SFF, horror, erotica, and mainstream.
- BronzeWord Latino Authors -- Latest Latin@ books, author resources, showcase for young authors.
- White Readers Meet Black Authors now has an LJ-feed, whitereadsblack
POC-centric publishers, booksellers, and advocacy orgs:
- Zubaan Books -- Indian feminist independent publishing house. "Some of the distinct lists that are being built in Zubaan are: Gender and Reproductive Health/Sexuality, Gender and Conflict, Gender and Architecture, Gender and Law, Gender and History/National Movement, Gender and Economics, The North East of India (including essays and fiction), Fiction in translation (mostly novels), Readers on the Women's Movement/Feminism, Biographies/Autobiographies/Memoirs"
- Black Science Fiction Store -- books, comics, ebooks, audiobooks
- African American Electronic Literary Network -- promotes African-American e-book authors, and educates urban communities on ebooks
- Black Author Showcase - Agents of Literary Change -- social networking site with blog, bookstore, author resources.
- Black Ink Press -- Community-based Indigenous writing, illustrating and publishing project based in North Queensland, with emphasis on children's books
- Jujurrpa Books Publishes the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and illustrators. Poetry, oral histories, children's biography, more.
- AIATSIS Aboriginal Studies Press -- Publisher of Indigenous Studies, part of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Not all authors are indigenous.
- Keeaira Press Publications Australia -- emphasis on photographs and art; not all authors are inidigenous.
- Black Words -- newsletter, etexts, publishers, and other resources. Some resources only available to subscribers.
Individual authors
- Caren Gussoff -- CC-released short stories by Romani spec-fic author Caren Gussoff.
- K Chronickles and (Th)ink -- website and blog of comic artist Keith Knight.
- Podcast interview with Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you have a link to add, either drop it in the comments here or:

Add 50books_poc to your del.icio.us network.
Save the link to your account with the tag "for:50books_poc".

And... on to the recs! If you're looking books in a particular genre or on a particular topic, or simply want to say, "Hey, I liked THIS book, what else would you recommend?" leave a comment. With luck, someone might have just the rec for you.

oyceter

I grabbed these from the bibliography of Kim Anderson's A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood (2000). Anderson is Cree/Métis. I took all the books with Native authors or co-authors, including ones with white editors that seemed to be majority-Native authors. For books with Native co-authors, I didn't exclude ones in which the Native co-authors are in the minority (ex. 2 non-Native authors, 1 Native) because I thought people could still use it to look up other books by the Native co-author. There are other women of color authors also in the bibliography, but I excluded them to keep the focus on Native authors.

( Giant list of books )

sumofparts.livejournal.com

I picked up these two randomly from the library. Our Twisted Hero was on the table promoting Asian Heritage Month at the library. Link here for reading suggestions. I Say a Little Prayer was on a shelf in the hardcover fiction section.

( Cut for length and potential spoilers )

Note about tagging: I've added a "translation" tag but haven't tagged the (white) translator although his name is noted in my post.

sanguinity

It's been nearly a month since the last one -- let's have another recs post!

First, a reminder that book club is coming up -- next weekend, April 19th, we're going to discuss Octavia Butler's Kindred. (Much thanks to

nightchik for organizing it!)

Second, we've been adding stuff to the 50books_poc del.icio.us. (Again. Still. More.) Here's a bunch of the new stuff:

Booklists
- Legal Defense Fund Book Corner -- book reviews and commentary from the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. (Not all authors may be POC.)
- The Root's Global Book List -- recommended recent books by black authors.
- Mixedfolks.com Library -- Books about mixed-race people. Many authors are mixed-race POC, but not all.
- Celebration of Women Writers -- both browsable and searchable by ethnicity and country. (They list "Muslim" as an ethnicity, which is kinda borked, but overall it's still got lots of good stuff.) Links to ebooks, too.
POC-centric publishers:
- Huia Publishers -- Māori books: novels, plays, histories, biographies, politics, and language; both adult and children.
- Magabala Books -- Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, "Australia's oldest independent indigenous publishing house."
- Indij Readers -- literacy materials for indigenous and non-indigenous Australian children learning to read and write.
- African Writers Series -- UK publishing imprint
- Peepal Tree Press -- Caribbean and Black British fiction, poetry, lit crit, memoirs, historical studies.
Awards (children and young adult):
- Baobab Prize -- African literature for children. Three categories: readers 8-11; readers 12-18; writers under 18.
- Children's Africana Book Awards -- children's books about Africa published in the U.S. (Not all authors are POC.)
- Noma Award for Publishing in Africa
- Tomás Rivera Book Award -- for books that authentically depict the lives of Mexican-Americans in the United States. (Not all authors are POC.)
- Américas Book Award -- "works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction" that "authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.""
- Carter G. Woodson Book Award -- social science books that depict ethnicity and/or race relations in the United States
Awards (adult):
- Fonlon-Nichols Award -- given by the African Literature Association, for "excellence in creating writing and contributions to the struggle for human rights and freedom of expression"
- Caine Prize for African Writing -- African literary prize for short stories. (Not all authors are POC.)
- Booker Prize -- best novel published in the British Commonwealth. (Not all authors are POC).
- Commonwealth Writers' Prize -- best book and best first book in the British Commonwealth. Finalists are selected by region, which makes the list of finalists for the past 20 years (pdf) pretty darn awesome. (Not all authors are POC.)
- Noma Award for Publishing in Africa -- awards for scholarly/academic, children's, and literature.
Online Literary Journals
- Sable -- for new writers of color; international. Mostly print, but occasional full-text stories and articles are published on the website.
- African Writing Online -- creative short fiction, essays, poetry, drama and art primarily from African writers and artists; published in the U.K.
- Meskot -- Ethiopian online literary journal.
- Kwani? -- Kenyan online literary magazine.
- Sea Breeze -- Liberian online literary magazine.
- One Ghana, One Voice -- blog for Ganaian poetry; new poem published every week.
Other Resources for African Writers
- BBC - Africa Beyond -- "African arts and culture in the UK and beyond." Includes regular features about writers and poets.
- African Philosophy Resources -- "philosophy which focuses on Africa, philosophy done in Africa, and philosophy that is part of the traditional conversation among African philosophers."
- African Children's Literature -- article about children's lit in Africa, includes bibliography (not all authors are POC)
- Gambian Writers
Publishing Industry
- WriteBlack -- "Welcome to WriteBlack, where I write about the vagaries of the publishing industry and occasionally praise, occasionally criticize and always pick the nits of books written by black authors — with special attention paid to genre writers. "
- GalleyCat - People of Color -- weekly column featuring people of color in the publishing industry: books, authors, agents, publicists, etc.
Other Stuff
- Literary Obama -- Books about the Obamas! Books by the Obamas! Books that inspire the Obamas! Books! Obamas! Books! (Not all authors are POC.)
- Crossroads - Over the Road -- Korean science fiction stories online (!)
- Color Online -- Blog focusing on young women of color. Book reviews, poetry, festivals, and more.
- Interntional Romani Writers' Association
- Destination: Salon Literary Guide to the World -- articles recommending books about various countries, takes a "virtual tourism" perspective. (At best, only half the authors in any given list are POC.)

In addition to the ebooks tag (which has new links as of April 3rd, not all of which are listed above), there's now an eshortworks tag. I added an academic tag because I know someone (sorry, I've forgotten who!) was looking for academic-voiced resources, and there's a poc-centric-booksellers tag for people who are trying to make conscious decisions about where they spend their money.

If you have a link to add, either drop it in the comments here or:

Add 50books_poc to your del.icio.us network.
Save the link to your account and tag it "for:50books_poc".

On to the recs! If you're looking books in a particular genre or on a particular topic -- or simply want to say, "Hey, I liked THIS book, what else would you recommend?" -- leave a comment. With luck, someone might have just the rec for you. ;-)

sophinisba

Last week I finished two novels that were well written but that I couldn't really get into. Maybe you would like them more than I did. :)

10. Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie

Shalimar the Clown is a big, international, multigenerational novel that starts out in Los Angeles in the 1990s with the assassination of the former US ambassador to India by a Kashmiri Muslim called Shalimar the clown. It goes back through a lot of history and family sagas through California, India, France, and England. I really liked the connections he made between these places at different times in history, particularly with the history of tense but usually peaceful coexistence of different cultures and religions, both between Jews and Christians and between French- and German-speakers in Strasbourg before WWII and between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir. The plot is complex and the prose is very…let's say skillful, but I always felt the narrator was a bit distant from the characters, more interested in being clever than in helping me connect with them. So in spite of all the loves and betrayals and horrible things happening to these characters I never cared all that much about them. ( The audiobook was read by Aasif Mandvi. )

11. Blind Faith by Sagarika Ghose, 2006

I hadn't heard of this book or author before I ran across it in the bookstore a couple months ago, but the cover looked interesting and I liked the first sentence, so I decided to give it a try. The first sentence is, "When the plane from Delhi to Goa exploded in mid-air and plummeted into the Arabian Sea, the sky wavered momentarily like a computer screen ribbed by static." Isn't that lovely? I really like Ghose's style, the way sentences would go in unexpected directions like that, and I liked knowing right away that this was set in contemporary India.

I also liked that the two main characters are women: there's Mia, a British journalist of Indian heritage, and Indi, an Indian civil servant who lives in Goa and is passionate about her career and refuses to give it up despite her progressive blindness. However I eventually started to get bored with the plot about Mia feeling torn between the two men in her life. She's married Indi's son Vik, a successful businessman, and moves to Delhi to be with him, but she also feels attracted to this mysterious religious fanatic named Karna who wants women to return to their traditional roles. And it's, you know, supposed to be about her choosing between these two men but also choosing between different ideas of what India is and what she's supposed to be, which I guess is interesting but it felt to me like it was done in a heavy-handed and repetitive way, so I was tired of the novel by the time I got through it, even though it wasn't all that long (about 270 pages) and the plot did eventually get more interesting.

The copy I have came with an interview with the author at the end and a list of ten works of Indian literature that she recommends. I thought I'd copy it here since I know a lot of us are always looking for more suggested reading. ( Sagarika Ghose recommends )

sanguinity

I have been adding a SLEW of links to the del.icio.us account -- it's doubled in size in the past few weeks. Some of these links have already shown up on the comm in various places, but a lot of them haven't.

So here, have a sampling of stuff that's been added to the link-list lately:

Children and Young Adult

African American Children's Book Writers and Illustrators -- association for up-and-coming children's writers and illustrators of color, includes reviews of new books.
Black Threads in Kid's Lit -- African-American kidlit-specific blog of Kyra E. Hicks
Coretta Scott King Book Awards -- Award for African American authors and illustrators for outstanding contributions to literature for children and young adults
Just Us Books -- publisher of Afro-centric children's books (list of featured Black authors)
The Brown Bookshelf -- YA and children's-lit blog written by African-American authors Paula Chase-Hyman, Varian Johnson, Don Tate, Kelly Starling Lyons, and Carla Sarratt.
Asian-American protagonists in YA fiction -- (not all authors are POC, but still a good jumping-off point)
Awesome Non-White Children's Lit: An Introduction -- by fox1013
Awesome Children's and Young Adult Books by Authors of Color and with Characters of Color -- by jadelennox
American Indian Youth Literature Awards -- from American Indian Library Association (not all authors are POC)

SF/F

Carl Brandon Society Awards -- Awards for spec-fic by or about POC (Parallax award winners are POC authors; Kindred award winners may not be)
Haikasoru -- Publishing imprint for Japanese SF/F translated into English (article announcing first four titles)
POC SFF Authors and Protagonists, from WisCon 2008 Panel -- (not all authors are POC)
World SF News Blog -- links and news about speculative fiction from around the world. Companion to The First Apex Book of World SF.
Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler

LGBT

Sistahs On The Shelf -- blog devoted to Black lesbian fiction
People of Color in Lesbian Fiction (not all authors are POC)
Redbone Press -- books by and about black lesbians and gay men

Multiracial

Loving Prize -- annual award for "outstanding artists, storytellers and community leaders for inspirational dedication to celebrating and illuminating the Mixed racial and cultural experience." Many past recipients are authors of mixed-race.
Halvsie - Half Japanese Wiki: Literature

Africa & Caribbean

Fahamu Books -- African publisher on topics of social justice
African and Caribbean Book Recs -- from livrelibre
South African Literature
New York Public Library: African and Caribbean Literature
Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century

Everything Else

Big List of Awesome Authors, Poets, Playwrights, and Scholars -- denim_queen's list, now 400+ books
Black American Free Thought Association - Suggested Reading List (not all authors are POC)
African American Commercial Reading, Writing, & Publishing -- blog collective of black readers and writers talking about commercial publishing
First Nation Communities Read Program -- library community leading program featuring books by or about First Nation, Métis, or Inuit (not all authors are POC)
Philippine Comics Art Museum -- scanned copies of classic comics by Filipino artists
News From Nowhere -- Liverpool bookseller with excellent selection of POC-authored books. Diverse sublists, including Romani, Asian LGBT, biracial kidlit, British slave trade, much more.
Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature -- large subsections on African, Caribbean, South African, and Singaporean post-colonial lit
OzLit's list of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers

If you have things you'd like to add to the del.icio.us collection, either drop a link here, or add "50books_poc" to your del.icio.us network, save the link to your del.icio.us account, and tag it "for:50books_poc".

One more thing. On the last links/recs post there is one request which hasn't yet been responded to: good/great historical fiction with a youngish protagonist; books about reservation life. Anyone got any suggestions?

helens78

Have you been looking around for lists of African-American-centric children's books? Oh my, have I got the lists for you.

Black Books Galore! Guide to Great African American Children's Books by Donna Rand, Toni Trent Parker, and Sheila Foster

(It also has a sequel: More Great African American Children's Books, plus one for girls and one for boys. I have all of those out from the library right now, but haven't read any of them yet!)

These lists were compiled by authors who had struggled to find children's books that showed positive portrayals of African-Americans -- especially African-American kids! -- and African-Americans doing different things in history:

[At an African American children's book festival, one] of the boys took a book, Reflections of a Black Cowboy, from one of our display tables and began to read it. After a while he looked up at Sheila, our founding partner, with an expression of surprise and disbelief. "There is no such thing as a black cowboy!" he said. "Oh, yes there is!" Sheila responded and handed him two other books about black cowboys, pioneers, and mountain men.

Even reading the book of recommendations will teach you things you never knew about African-American history, not to mention giving you lists of "must read" books (I wrote down 117 books by 93 different authors; I look forward to going to my library and just sitting down with a list sometime in the near future, seeing what I can find).

The book is incredibly well-organized, and there are indexes of titles, authors, illustrators, and topics. There are sidebars with many of the authors and illustrators, and an appendix listing the Coretta Scott King winners and honorees as well as listing Newbery and Caldecott award books with African-American/African themes and Reading Rainbow selections with African-American/African themes.

It was a little exhausting inhaling this particular book; reading 500 book reviews over two sittings has made my brain feel very, very full. XD (The other books contain 450, 360, and "over 350" recommendations, respectively; I don't yet know how much overlap they contain, although I gather there's none between the first and second.)

unusualmusic.livejournal.com

A different booklist is a bookstore that features loads of very diverse reading material by poc.

rydra_wong

In case anyone hasn't seen these --

fox1013: Awesome Non-White Children's Lit: An Introduction

jadelennox: awesome children's and young adult books by authors of color and with characters of color

Both also include some recs for books by white authors that feature good depictions of characters of colour, but they're categorized to make things easy for anyone who's looking specifically for POC authors.

sanguinity

carenejeans and I have been thinking of doing rec-posts monthly -- it hasn't been a month yet since the last one, but we have so many new people about, I think we could stand to have a new one.

First, though, we've been adding links to the del.icio.us account:

South Asian and South Asian Disapora authors
- poojamakhijani.com: children's lit, young adult, and more
- DesiLit: resources for Desi authors, but also lists of booklists!
Three more POC-centric booksellers:
- A Different Booklist: Toronto-based, features (but not exclusive to) African Diaspora authors
- Birchbark Books: Minnesota-based, specializing in Native American focused books, owned by Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich
- African American Literature Book Club: African American authors and poets
madam_silvertip's List of sff writers of color
...and a bunch of Wikipedia lists of authors of various ethnicities. (Note, please, that ethnicity =/= race; some of these lists are only starting points for finding authors.)

If you have links you'd like to add, please drop a comment here, or add "50books_poc" to your del.icio.us network and tag the link "for:50books_poc."

Now, on to the fun stuff! If you're looking books in a particular genre or on a particular topic -- or simply want to ask, "Hey, I liked THIS book, what else would you recommend?" -- leave a comment. With luck, someone might have just the rec for you.

nwhyte

I'm glad to have discovered this community, though a little worried about how long it will take me to reach 50 books!

I've been bookblogging since late 2003, and would like to contribute these ( 26 reviews )

More to come as I work through my shelves...

rydra_wong

For anyone looking for inspiration,

delux_vivens reminded me about a meme that went round last year.

In response to the Big Read meme, a list of great books by people of colour was compiled, featuring 262 books in its expanded version:

denim_queen: 180 expanded

And as people mention in the comments, that's just a fraction of what's out there.

sanguinity

Since there are, apparently, a number of new members who are looking for books to read, I thought I'd be hospitable and do an index to some of the resources the comm has already collected.

List of community tags, which indexes most posts by author/editor name. A very few books are tagged by topic. ETA: Many are now tagged by genre.
Note especially the comm's booklists tag, which collects, well, lists of books. Especially lists of links of lists. Because everyone loves meta.
Also, the comm has a del.icio.us account, which is used (currently) for booklists.

(Dunno who the mod for that account is, nor whether it's being maintained, but as a general note about how del.icio.us works: if you've got a great booklist that you'd like to suggest to the comm and you have a del.icio.us account, you can add the 50books_poc del.icio.us account to your network, then save the link to your own account under the tag "for:50books_poc," and it will be brought to the attention of the owner of the 50books_poc account. I am spelling this out because it sadly took me a very long time to learn that this is one of the things that del.icio.us is for.)

I've also recently run across the blog Diversity Rocks, which is about increasing diversity in your reading. Not POC-specific, but potentially useful.

And now I'm going to go re-tag a bunch of the booklists in my del.icio.us account with "for:50books_poc."

ETA: And wouldn't you know? I forgot that IBARW's del.icio.us account has a book recommendations tag, too: books.rec.

marydell.livejournal.com

Hi, I'm new to this challenge--I found this via

deepad's post about how to be an ally. As a starting point I went through my librarything catalog and tagged everything I currently own that's by a PoC author: Here's the list. And I found another thinger's "PoC author" tag list, and here are all books tagged "PoC" on LT.

I posted about this to the LT livejournal group, suggesting it as an idea for other people to try, and got schooled about how it's weird to consider "the color of a person's skin" and "I just read the books that interest me" and so forth, LOL. Which I suppose I should have expected! But a couple of the people who replied did get it, and may try it. We'll see.

Anyway, I'm posting the links here in case anyone wants to see the book lists, or in case there are other LT'ers here who want to point me toward their tags/book lists.