As a person who reads solely for pleasure regardless of research, I make it a mission while writing to read books I actually enjoy on topics I wanna learn more about. I chose the books on this list because I’m also a person who reads multiple books at once in various genres, it keeps me honest; aware of holes and discrepancies in my own work and pushes me towards some semblance of completion. All the writers on this list do multiple things at once and I admire their skill and risk in coupling creativity with clarity.
I wrote...
The Collection Plate: Poems
By
Kendra Allen
What is my book about?
Looping exultantly through the overlapping experiences of girlhood,
Blackness, sex, and personhood in America, award-winning essayist and
poet Kendra Allen braids together personal narrative and cultural
commentary, wrestling with the beauty and brutality to be found between
mothers and daughters, young women and the world, Black bodies and white
space, virginity and intrusion, prison and freedom, birth and death.
Most of all, The Collection Plate explores both how we collect
and erase the voices, lives, and innocence of underrepresented
bodies--and behold their pleasure, pain, and possibility
Both formally exciting and a delight to read, The Collection Plate
is a testament to Allen's place as the voice of a generation--and a
witness to how we come into being in the twenty-first century.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life
By
bell hooks
Why this book?
What bell hooks has shown me about the possibility of personal narrative and memoir writing is endless because she consistently shows that your story is never-ending. But mostly bell hooks likes to hurt me on purpose. This is my favorite memoir by her because it centers on two of my favorite topics: words and whirlwind romance that refuses to interfere with the words at stake, and I knew this book would be one I would return to in order to figure out my own priorities once I read, “I’m willing to give up everything I love if it means I won’t be crazy.”
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A Fortune for Your Disaster
By
Hanif Abdurraqib
Why this book?
Hanif Abdurraqib has a way of making you forget you’re reading poetry while also reminding you that nothing else could be as poetic as one of his poems. They always unravel in a way only his unique way of storytelling permits. It’s truly a skill that is mastered beautifully in this collection.
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Lima:: Limón
By
Natalie Scenters-Zapico
Why this book?
I had been wanting to read this book for a while. Then I read this book. Then I realized I needed to revise my book. Then I reread the book. Then I researched Natalie Scenters- Zapico because I think I fell in love.
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How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired
By
Dany Laferrière,
David Homel
Why this book?
Of course this title will catch anyone’s attention, but I’m including it here because of how mundane the plot is. It’s just people people’ing and therefore experiencing and learning. They just happen to be all the things they are. It’s a fun and funny ride living in a small Parisian apartment with these characters, eating their food, and laying with their friends.
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The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative
By
Vivian Gornick
Why this book?
Sometimes I need a book that will inspire me not to continue writing, but to start; kinda like when I binge watch YouTube book talks—that’s the feeling this book brings over me—inspired. It’s a book that helps me write anything because I’m a person who struggles with—yet craves the ability to— strip a piece as bare as possible. Strip a story of its fluff and dissect its roots. I need to know what to save for later, and Gornick expressing the difference between situation and story is something I always go back to in order to help declutter my work.
