Books

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

For a more complete view of our nation’s history, here are a (very) few resources from my library:

  • A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
  • The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
  • The American Revolution: A History by Gordon S. Wood
  • The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
  • The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
  • Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis
  • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
  • Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
  • White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
  • American Civil War at History.com (videos)
  • World War II at History.com (videos)
  • The American Experience series on PBS
  • 15 Unsung Moments From American History That Historians Say You Should Know About

Black Veterans Killed in Fight for Democracy in U.S.

We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. — W. E. B. Du Bois

Below is a collection of stories about African American veterans who fought in various wars and upon their return to the U.S., were murdered in the fight for democracy and human rights. As the Equal Justice Institute notes in the Introduction to their report on these atrocities,

Between the end of Reconstruction and the years following World War II, thousands of Black veterans were accosted, assaulted, and attacked, and many were lynched. Black veterans died at the hands of mobs and persons acting under the color of official authority; many survived near-lynchings; and countless others suffered severe assaults and social humiliation. Documenting these atrocities is vital to understanding the incongruity of our country’s professed ideals of freedom and democracy while tolerating ongoing violence against people of color within our own borders.The stories below are only a few of countless examples. Here are a few texts to learn more.

Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans by the Equal Justice Initiative

Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South by Christopher Parker. Introduction online

“The Tragic and Ignored History of Black Veterans” by James Clark in Task and Purpose

“We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity” Introduction by  Lonnie G. Bunch III. Edited by Kinshasha Holman Conwill. Watch video of talk about the book and exhibit at NMAAHC.

On my list for Summer 2025

  • On Character: Choices that Define a Life by Gen. Stanley McChrystal
  • Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
  • Beach Fever: A Novel by Carl Hiaasen
  • The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 
  • The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaoudad
  • The Bookclub for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
  • Dog Songs: Poems by Mary Oliver
  • Water, Water by Billy Collins
  • And Still I Rise: A Book of Poems by Maya Angelou
  • There Will Be Bodies: A Flavia Albia Novel by Lindsey Davis
  • An Inside Job by Daniel Silva
  • In Too Deep by Lee Child

Books By Black Women Everyone Should Read (in my opinion)

  1. Angie Thomas- The Hate You Give
  2. Phoebe Robinson- You Can’t Touch My Hair And Other Things I Still Have To Explain
  3. Terry McMillan – Waiting to Exhale
  4. Nonviolent Bulawayo – We Need New Names
  5. Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
  6. Issa Rae- Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
  7. Tiffany Haddish – The Last Black Unicorn
  8. Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
  9. Francesca Ramsey – Well, That Escalated Quickly
  10. Octavia E Butler -The Parable of the Sower
  11. Jesmyn Ward – Sing, Unburied, Sing
  12. Toni Tipton-Martin – The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks
  13. Gloria Naylor – Mama Day
  14. Imani Perry – South to America

Read more here and here.

Juicy–a young, queer, Southern man, who is grappling with questions of identity–is visited by the ghost of his father (Pap) at his mother’s wedding/family barbecue. Pap demands that Juicy avenge his recent murder. How will Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man, trying to break a cycle of trauma and toxic masculinity, avenge his father’s premature death? Fat Ham reinvents Shakespeare’s masterpiece in startling and hilarious ways amidst the backdrop of a family barbeque in the American South.

My book club just finished Clear by Carys Davies. It was not what I expected, and that’s a good thing. I enjoyed the book. It kept me reading late at night. The characters – there are 3 main characters – are well drawn and behave in surprising ways. Worth your time.

From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life’s biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.

In The Book of Alchemy, Suleika explores the art of journaling and shares everything she’s learned about how this life-altering practice can help us tap into that mystical trait that exists in every human: creativity. She has gathered wisdom from one hundred writers, artists, and thinkers in the form of essays and writing prompts. Their insights invite us to inhabit a more inspired life.

A companion through challenging times, The Book of Alchemy is broken into themes ranging from new beginnings to love, loss, and rebuilding. Whether you’re a lifelong journaler or new to the practice, this book gives you the tools, direction, and encouragement to engage with discomfort, ask questions, peel back the layers, dream daringly, uncover your truest self—and in doing so, to learn to hold the unbearably brutal and astonishingly beautiful facts of life in the same palm. (Amazon.com)

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.”

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade―told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. (Amazon.com)

Buy your books from an independent (or less dependent) bookseller. Here are leads to a few bookstores that ship, are good for a road trip, or are brick-and-mortar:

We’ve seen thought become criminalized in dystopian fiction like:

  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  • We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
  • Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (2-book series)

Here are some good books and blogs for recipes for one or two:

  • The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen
  • Taste of Home’s Dinner Ideas for Two
  • One Dish Kitchen (blog)
  • Healthy Cookbook for Two: 175 Simple, Delicious Recipes to Enjoy Cooking for Two by Michelle Anderson
  • Good Housekeeping Dishes For Two: 125 Easy Small-Batch Recipes for Weeknight Meals & Special Celebrations
  • The Essential Air Fryer Cookbook for Two: Perfectly Portioned Recipes for Healthier Fried Favorites by Gina Kleinworth
  • Table for Two (blog)
  • Fix-It and Forget-It Cooking for Two: 150 Small-Batch Slow Cooker Recipes by Hope Comerford and Bonnie Matthews
  • The Heart Healthy Cookbook for Two: 125 Perfectly Portioned Low Sodium, Low Fat Recipes by Jennifer Koslo and Sarah Samaan
  • Baking for Two: 200+ Small-Batch Recipes, from Lazy Bakes to Layer Cakes by America’s Test Kitchen
  • Our Favorite Recipes for One or Two by Gooseberry Patch
  • 101 Cooking for Two (blog)
  • All-Time Best Dinners for Two by America’s Test Kitchen 
  • Cornbread Recipe For One or Two by Lynda Self
  • Chocolate Cobbler by Christina Lane
  • The Ultimate Cooking for One Cookbook: 175 Super Easy Recipes Made Just for You by Joanie Zisk
  • 10 small-batch recipes perfect for two from King Arthur Baking
  • Cooking for Two from The Spruce Eats

Picture Books for Children (and adults)

No Place for This In My Cookbook Collection

I was looking at cookbooks and came across Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices: A Cookbook edited by Katherine Alford, a former vice president at Food Network, and Kathy Gunst of NPR’s Here and Now, This collection of recipes and stories was published in 2020, and I vaguely remembered some controversy about it. Ah-ha. Blogger and baker Tangerine Jones published an essay on Medium titled “The Privilege of Rage,” outlining how she coined the phrase “rage baking” back in 2015, and watched as Alford and Gunst’s book was published to great acclaim as her work went unacknowledged (taken from Jaya Saxena writing for Eater.com). Saxena continues, “It’s not hard to find instances of black people, specifically black women, being erased from their own work. One has to simply look at all the work activist Tarana Burke has had to do to remind the world she coined the phrase #MeToo. Or the erasure of black trans women from an art exhibit about HIV/AIDS. Or how Mark Bittman was called out for ripping off the name and design of a feminist magazine, Salty, for his Medium publication, which has since been rebranded to Heated. Jones never claims to have invented the phrase “rage baking,” but her post taps into this history.”

Books on my Reading Table January 2025

  • The Frozen River – Ariel Lawhon
  • At the Scene of the Crime – Dana Stabenow
  • When Southern Women Cook – Toni Tipton-Martin & America’s Test Kitchen
  • Death on the Tiber – Lindsey Davis
  • A Death in Cornwall – Daniel Silva
  • The Last One – Rachel Howzell Hall
  • Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute – Talia Hibbert
  • The Grey Wolf – Louise Penny

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)


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