Books

Think before you speak. Read before you think. – Fran Lebowitz

Best New Cookbooks on My Shelf

  • Sweet Tooth: 100 Desserts to Save Room For (A Baking Book) by Sarah Fennell
  • Our South: Black Food Through My Lens by Ashleigh Shanti
  • The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread: 125+ Recipes for Every Baker (A Cookbook)
  • My Egypt: Cooking from My Roots (A Cookbook) by Michael Mina
  • An African American Cookbook: Exploring Black History and Culture Through Traditional Foods by Phoebe Bailey
  • The American Beach Cookbook by Marsha Dean Phelts
  • The Cake Bible, 35th Anniversary Edition by Rose Levy Beranbaum& Woody Wolston (I have the original, and it is fabulous)

Banned Books Week 2024


A few good newsletters to subscribe to:

End of Summer 2024 Reading List

  • bel canto by Ann Patchett
  • Truth Be Told by Patricia Raybon
  • Everyone Who Is Gone Here: The United States, Central America, And The Making Of A Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer
  • The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
  • People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
  • The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley
  • The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
  • Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House by Jared Cohen
  • Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South by Kate Medley

THANK YOU PLEASE COME AGAIN is the documentation of Kate Medley’s many road trips across the South photographing our service stations, convenience stores, and quick stops. Along the way, Kate pulls over for tamales, fried fish, and banh mi, but her images uncover the people and landmarks that supply far more than food and gas.

Raw and real. Honest and powerful. Funny, at times. Darrin Bell brings us into his world through his evocative words and drawings. The Talk – every parent of a black child should know what it is – is the skeleton on which Bell hangs his work. He chronicles his evolution from being a naive 6-year-old to being the father of a 6-year-old. The idea that he couldn’t have a more realistic water pistol because police wouldn’t see him as a little boy but as something else; an adult thug, a criminal, someone to be stopped, harassed, even assaulted resonated with me. I remember Bobbi Wilson, the 9-year-old who was spraying lanternflies and had the police called on her. Her white neighbor who called the police said, “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees on Elizabeth and Florence,” Lawshe told the dispatcher, according to October 2022 audio obtained by outlets. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.” She was 9. Nine. I am buying copies for my younger friends and grands.

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital’s entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives. (Amazon.com)

“This quote falls in line with the major themes Phillips explores throughout the novel: the human cost of war, trauma, PTSD, mental health, and healing.” writes Darren Orf.

A Great Disorder is a bold, urgent work that helps us make sense of today’s culture wars through a brilliant reconsideration of America’s foundational myths and their use in contemporary politics. Famous for his trilogy on the Myth of the Frontier, Richard Slotkin identifies five myths, born of different eras, that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (which he breaks into two opposing camps, Emancipation, and the Lost Cause), and the Good War, embodied by the multiethnic platoon fighting for freedom. He argues that while Trump and his MAGA followers have played up a frontier-inspired hostility to the federal government and rallied around Confederate symbols to champion a racially exclusive definition of American nationality, Blue America, taking its cue from the protest movements of the 1960s, envisions a limitlessly pluralistic country in which the federal government is the ultimate enforcer of rights and opportunities. American history―and the foundations of our democracy―have become a battleground. It is not clear at this time which vision will prevail. (Amazon.com)

On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner arrived in Moscow ready to spend the WNBA offseason playing for the Russian women’s basketball team where she had been the centerpiece of previous championship seasons. Instead, a security checkpoint became her gateway to hell when she was arrested for mistakenly carrying under one gram of medically prescribed hash oil. Brittney’s world was violently upended in a crisis she has never spoken in detail about publicly—until now. (Amazon.com)

What amazes me is WNBA players continue to play in Russia during the off-season! I can’t imagine feeling at all safe these days. – Kintsugi

I’m reading The Collector, the 23rd installment of the Gabriel Allon series. As usual, the writing is crisp and the story grabs you from the first chapter. I enjoy Gabriel’s exploits, even though I hold my breath hoping but never quite sure that he will prevail over death one more time. Gabriel has “retired” from spycraft and works as an art restorer in Venice, living with his wife and their twins. Along comes a problem he is uniquely suited to tackle, and he does. The top story is about the missing art, and the base story is about right now geopolitics. Silva has his perspective, which comes through in each book. I am always fascinated by his stories. This book is available on Amazon kindle for free today! The next book in the series, A Death in Cornwall, is due in July 2024. I can’t wait. —WCW

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. (amazon.com)

At a time when the very foundations of democracy seem under threat, the lessons of the past offer a roadmap for navigating a moment of political crisis. In Democracy Awakening, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the tumultuous journey of American democracy, revealing how the roots of Donald Trump’s “authoritarian experiment” can be traced back through the earliest days of the republic. She examines the historical forces that have led to the current political climate, showing how modern conservatism has preyed upon a disaffected population, weaponizing language and promoting false history to consolidate power. Richardson wrangles a chaotic news feed into a coherent story that singles out what we should pay attention to and what possible paths lie ahead. Her command of history and trademark plainspoken prose allow her to pivot effortlessly from the Founders to the abolitionists to Reconstruction to Nixon to the January 6 insurrection, highlighting the political legacies of the New Deal, the lingering fears of socialism, the death of the liberal consensus, and the birth of “movement conservatism.”  (amazon.com) Worth every minute of reading time.

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