This month’s reads, all by Black authors, are brought to you by the richness of Black artists first and foremost, but also in part by a desire to thumb my nose at certain recent attempts to ban books, including many vital books by incredible Black writers. I think it’s important to be suspicious of all bans, but especially such blatantly targeted ones. Book bans, you say?
https://bsgeneralstore.com/products/read-banned-books-t-shirt (my awesome wife bought me this shirt, which is awesome)
P.S. The Bitter Southerner is an excellent publication; check out more here: https://bittersoutherner.com/
Anyway.
Below are the 10 books I read in February (okay, I finished the last one this morning, March 1st, so… 9.75 books?), a microview of each, and longer reviews of the 4 standouts.
I feel like I say some version of this each month, but if I had more time (i.e. if I hadn’t also had to submit Midterm Grades for my students today), I would’ve happily written longer reviews of all of these—all are deserving, five stars all around—but I’m already usually struggling to get these things out on time each month as it is (hey, you’re technically receiving this before midnight if you’re on the East Coast, which is a big win), so, just know I highly recommend all 10.
Note: starred entries below are reviewed in more detail later.
The Books, in the order I read them:
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs (2022) by Sidik Fofana - Short Stories (Literary Fiction)
An intricate and beautiful collection of interrelated short stories connecting the residents of an apartment building, exploring everything from creatively making rent as the end of the month looms, to doing hair, to trying to organize tenants against predatory rent hikes, to avoiding one’s past and one’s future simultaneously (and more).
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (2022) by Imani Perry - Nonfiction
Detailed, diverse, and fascinating account of what makes the South a central component in understanding the history of the U.S. as a nation, making its way through the different states and regions to present a full, rich portrait. For instance, in the chapter on Atlanta, Perry weaves together the disparate strands of Love and Hip-Hop Atlanta/The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Andre 3000 of Outkast saying “The South got something to say” at the 1995 Source Awards, Atlanta’s vibrant and exploding Music/Movie industry, its relative lack of public transit, the home/spiritual home of Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of Coca-Cola (although, my wife would like to add that Columbus, Georgia, is the true birthplace of Coke), etc. etc. Each chapter similarly reveals the multilayered past and present of cities, states, and regions within what is broadly known as the South.
*Fledgling (2005) by Octavia Butler - Novel (Literary Fiction/Sci-Fi)
Butler’s final published novel before her death, which she said in an interview that “she had written as a diversion after becoming overwhelmed by the grimness of her Parable series” (Wikipedia)--an enthralling vampire tale infused with race, an intriguing view of an alternate system of justice, and the clash between progress and tradition.
*Nobody’s Magic (2022) by Destiny O. Birdsong - Novel (Literary Fiction)
A novel that follows three distinct storylines of three Black women with albinism from Shreveport, Louisiana: incredibly interesting characters and engaging plots from a perspective that I was not super familiar with.
The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop (2022) by Jonathan Abrams - Nonfiction
If you are at all interested in hip-hop as a genre, or the history of music in general, this is an excellent dive into the origins of hip-hop from tapping into light poles to power turntables in the South Bronx, New York to the burgeoning East Coast-West Coast divide to the major players in all regions of the U.S. that developed and innovated the genre and its spread into diverse subgenres.
Nobody Knows My Name (1961) by James Baldwin - Nonfiction
A classic that I had not yet read from James Baldwin—whose nonfiction in The Fire Next Time (1963) and Notes of a Native Son (1955) is (or should be) required reading (add this to that list)—that feels in many ways like a follow up to Notes of a Native Son (especially given the subtitle, apparently omitted from some editions: “More Notes of a Native Son”), in which Baldwin journalistically reports on events, such as the 1956 Conference of Negro-African Writers and Artists in Paris, as well as reflecting on his return to New York City after being an expat in Europe, his first visit to the American South, and his sometimes fraught friendship with Richard Wright—the highly personal and moving portrait of their relationship is one of my favorite parts. Beautiful and relevant and incisive, as always.
Punch Me Up to the Gods (2021) by Brian Broome - Nonfiction
An essential memoir that discusses the construct of masculinity and Broome’s attempts as a burgeoning Black queer man to fit into a box he was not made for—or that was not made for him. Vibrant prose and an anchoring refrain of sections called “The Initiation of Tuan” that punctuate each chapter help this memoir soar.
*Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2015) by Angela Y. Davis - Nonfiction
A collection of interviews and speeches given by the amazing activist and thinker Angela Davis, which work to connect the struggles of oppressed peoples of color and Black liberation with women’s liberation and feminist movements, as well as class consciousness and labor movements—clearly illuminating these subjects and their import.
This Mournable Body (2018) by Tsitsi Dangarembga - Novel (Literary Fiction)
An engrossing novel from Zimbabwean writer Dangarembga (whose essay collection Black and Female, you may recall, is one of the 2023 books I’m excited to read and mentioned here), told in 2nd person, that chronicles a woman’s struggle to find work and housing and to survive in the aftermath of war, having a nervous breakdown, struggling back out it, only to find her path to stability is inseparable from unsavory colonialist claptrap.
*A Fortune for Your Disaster (2019) by Hanif Abdurraqib - Poetry
A gut-punch of a collection of poems—many of them prose-y in nature, blocks of gorgeously breathless run-on-sentences on the page—stylistically diverse, with a repeated refrain of poems all titled “How Can Black People Write about Flowers at a Time Like This,” in which Abdurraqib meditates on heartbreak, possibly racist dogs, grief, and music (among other things, of course).
My Top 4 (in no particular order):
Fledgling (2005) by Octavia Butler - Novel (Literary Fiction/Sci-Fi)
I found this novel to be fascinating, especially when I learned that Butler said that she wrote it partly to take a break from the heavy material of the Earthseed series (which I reviewed here and here, and yep, can confirm that they are very good by very dark) after having read some vampire novel or another for fun. The tone of Fledgling does in fact seem markedly different (I almost hesitate to say lighter, but it is lighter) in tone from Kindred or the Earthseed books. This has more adventure/thriller vibes in it—I finished it very quickly after starting—though it still deals with important ideas around race, racial mixing, relationships, the justice system, consent, etc. So in that way, this feels a bit more approachable, without sacrificing intriguing social commentary. The most interesting parts to me were around the relationships that the Ina (vampires) form with their familiars (I forget if there is a different word for them in the novel, but that’s the word that comes to mind—I may be watching What We Do in the Shadows currently). They need a group of about 4 or 5 people to feed off of without killing them by taking too much blood, and yet the bond they form is also based on chemical dependence: the familiars are essentially addicted to their vampires very shortly after their first encounter. There are intriguing parallels explicitly drawn between this relationship and slavery as well. And then the other part that most intrigued me was the sort of alternate justice system the Ina have, and the ways in which they disparage the many faults of the human justice system. The most difficult parts for me were surrounding the fact that the Ina have very long lifespans and the protagonist, while being in her 50s, is relatively young for her species and appears to be an 11-year-old girl, who has sexual relationships with human adults. Very uncomfortable. Altogether, definitely a book that sticks with you well after you finish it.
Good quote: “Let them see that you trust them and let them solve their own problems, make their own decisions. Do that and they will commit their lives to you. Bully them, control them out of fear or malice or just for your own convenience, and after a while you'll have to spend all your time thinking for them, controlling them, and stifling their resentment.”
Nobody’s Magic (2022) by Destiny O. Birdsong - Novel (Literary Fiction)
After I finished the first part of this novel and began the second part, I was at first pretty confused. I had forgotten that it was comprised of three storylines following three protagonists, and then, once that was clear, I guess I expected more of a direct relationship between the storylines/characters, but if they were there (which they could have been) I missed them, making this novel feel a bit more like three different novellas shoved together. Which probably has more to due with how the publisher decided to market the book than anything else, but I have digressed. The connections between them (again, unless I missed something, which is very possible) are simply that all three have a Black woman with albinism as their protagonist and each either lives or grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. But that is part of what makes this novel so memorable for me, too. These women are distinct and their stories each are profound, exploring an experience I have had little exposure to in eye-opening ways, and the fact that there are three wildly different Black women with albinism from one town in Louisiana is also saying something important. I really enjoyed this book and it has only grown in my estimation as I have continued to dwell on it afterward.
Good quote: “But she reserved her most seething but silent hatred for one person, Cathy, who made a point to excitedly greet each of the table members as they arrived on the first day. Cathy wore a T-shirt emblazoned with some blanket slogan designed to endear her to progressive folks while infuriating others—something banal like ‘DemSocialists are Lit’… ”
P.S. You can watch the recording of a Georgia Center for the Book event with Birdsong and Chantal James (author of None But the Righteous, which I read and loved and wrote a microview of, but didn’t do a longer review, here) below
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2015) by Angela Y. Davis - Nonfiction
I hadn’t actually read any Angela Davis prior to this one, and it definitely will not be the last. I love it when someone smarter than me just lays it out for me, and I get to just nod and say to myself, “oh, yes, that IS correct!” as she explains the things that in my heart of hearts I feel to be true but couldn’t have found the correct words for. That is how I felt throughout the hours spent reading this (i.e. listening to the audiobook of this, read by the author). It helps that it is all conversational to at least a slightly greater degree than a standard volume of prose, since these are interviews and speeches. One random but memorable part early on from an interview is just a response to the idea that Black History month happens to be the shortest month of the year, which could seem like a slight, but she pushes back against that idea, thinking about the reasons it was chosen—specifically Frederick Douglass’s (and Abraham Lincoln’s) birthday falling in February—but also noted that Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls in mid January, so we can basically tack on another half month as well, etc. I just love the way she is able to talk me through the ways in which she sees the world, so that I understand why prison abolition means so much to her (see the quote below). She is so good at defining feminism in a way that does not simply mean empowering women, but is in fact about justice for all genders, a much more expansive and radical idea than detractors usually want to engage with. Davis just has a way of expression that reaches me where I am and pushes me forward.
Good quote: “There are vast numbers of people behind bars in the United States—some two and a half million—and imprisonment is increasingly used as a strategy of deflection of the underlying social problems—racism, poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and so on. These issues are never seriously addressed. It is only a matter of time before people begin to realize that the prison is a false solution”
A Fortune for Your Disaster (2019) by Hanif Abdurraqib - Poetry
I read and loved Abdurraquib’s essay collection A Little Devil in America (2021), and saw him speak on a panel at 2020’s (suddenly) virtual Decatur Book Festival, alongside Camonghne Felix (whose Dyscalculia is also a 2023 book I’m excited to read), moderated by Eve L. Ewing, which was incredible. Anyway, I remember buying all the books I could get my hands on by all three of them, and yet I’ve somehow waited until now to break open this volume of Abdurraqib’s poetry. I know after having read it that I’m not going to fully be able to express what it is about these poems that I connected with so strongly. There is certainly an undeniable vulnerability to them, especially as he talks about heartbreak and grief. There is a humor, as he commiserates with a dog whose owner is saying “he isn’t usually like this.” There is such incisive commentary that you can’t quite help but see the world altered in front of you as you look up from the page. Some of my favorite poems are the breathless prose-y uncapitalized blocks of text that build phrase upon clause without any (or minimal) breaks or stoppages. I feel like I’m in Abdurraqib’s mind with him at certain points, which is just quite the feat. And the repeated variations on the themes give the collection a cohesion that sparkles: all the poems throughout with the same title “HOW CAN BLACK PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT FLOWERS AT A TIME LIKE THIS,” following different forms, offering different insights and altered moods; the continuous meditations on Marvin Gaye throughout the collection. It all feels purposeful and well-crafted and honed. Anyway, that’s probably the best I can do.
Good quote: “& when the stakes are most violent I suppose we all become what we resemble most & what I mean is that the men on the corner are only drunks until the cops come & then they are scholars”
In Case You Missed It:
I didn’t get around to any bonus posts this month, but Ally briefly mentioned our love of Gabrielle Union in her guest post from last month (linked below), and so I just wanted to highlight her and Dwayne Wade’s acceptance speech at the NAACP Image Awards this past Saturday, because it was incredible, and it’d be cool if you could take 5 minutes to watch it if you haven’t already:
Both Ally and I have read and loved both of Gabrielle Union’s essay collections, We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories that Are Funny, Complicated, and True (2017) and You Got Anything Stronger? (2021)—highly recommend (although content warnings for sexual assault in the first one and difficulties surrounding trying to conceive and pregnancy in the second one)!
Otherwise, if you missed January’s Newsletter, you can see it below, as well as my cool, readerly wife’s first guest post, in case you missed that. It was great!