Here are 100 books that Insignificant Things fans have personally recommended if you like
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I'm a historian of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade who was trained with a PhD in History and a PhD in Art History, and who's interested in how slavery is memorialized in the public space as well as in the visual and material culture of slavery. I was born and raised in Brazil, the country where the largest number of enslaved Africans were introduced in the era of the Atlantic slave trade and that still today is the country with the largest Black population after Nigeria, the most populous African country. I believe that studying the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery helps us to remedy the legacies of anti-Black racism today.
Toby Green’s book is a magisterial history of West Africa and West Central Africa during the era of the Atlantic slave trade.
Exploring a large array of sources from three continents the book tells the history of African societies such as the kingdoms of Kongo and Dahomey, by showing how Africa was connected to the rest of the world earlier before Europeans reached the Atlantic coasts of the continent.
With the rise of the Atlantic slave trade Africa exported currencies such as gold, whose great value persisted over time, but kept importing cloth, cowries, iron, and copper, whose value decreased over time.
The book helps us to understand the roots of the inequalities among Africa and the Global North and shows us that these unbalanced economic and diplomatic exchanges were tied to cultural, religious, and artistic dimensions, in which material culture also played a central role.
By the time the "Scramble for Africa" among European colonial powers began in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally connected for centuries. Its gold had fueled the economies of Europe and the Islamic world for nearly a millennium, and the sophisticated kingdoms spanning its west coast had traded with Europeans since the fifteenth century. Until at least 1650, this was a trade of equals, using a variety of currencies-most importantly, cowrie shells imported from the Maldives and nzimbu shells imported from Brazil. But, as the slave trade grew, African kingdoms began to lose prominence in the growing…
I'm a historian of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade who was trained with a PhD in History and a PhD in Art History, and who's interested in how slavery is memorialized in the public space as well as in the visual and material culture of slavery. I was born and raised in Brazil, the country where the largest number of enslaved Africans were introduced in the era of the Atlantic slave trade and that still today is the country with the largest Black population after Nigeria, the most populous African country. I believe that studying the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery helps us to remedy the legacies of anti-Black racism today.
Colleen Kriger illuminates the commercial exchanges between European and Africans in the Upper Guinea Coast, a region covering present-day Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, between 1680 and 1715.
Explaining how these economic exchanges relied on existing West African trading routes, Kriger examines the role of England’s Royal African Company which lead the trade of enslaved Africans in the region.
West African commodity currencies such as bar iron, cloth, and cowry shells were carefully organized in bundles that became unities of measure and exchange in the Upper Guinea trade external trade in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
She underscores the cultural norms underlying economic exchanges. For example, exchanging gifts to start and continue the trade was a central protocol. Kriger’s book ultimately shows that the trade in people was shaped by the creation and exchange of things.
A new era in world history began when Atlantic maritime trade among Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas opened up in the fifteenth century, setting the stage for massive economic and cultural change. In Making Money, Colleen Kriger examines the influence of the global trade on the Upper Guinea Coast two hundred years later-a place and time whose study, in her hands, imparts profound insights into Anglo-African commerce and its wider milieu.
A stunning variety of people lived in this coastal society, struggling to work together across deep cultural divides and in the process creating a dynamic creole culture. Kriger…
I'm a historian of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade who was trained with a PhD in History and a PhD in Art History, and who's interested in how slavery is memorialized in the public space as well as in the visual and material culture of slavery. I was born and raised in Brazil, the country where the largest number of enslaved Africans were introduced in the era of the Atlantic slave trade and that still today is the country with the largest Black population after Nigeria, the most populous African country. I believe that studying the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery helps us to remedy the legacies of anti-Black racism today.
Mariana Candido’s book brings to light the importance of land ownership among West Central Africans, by contesting the work of historians who up to here have basically agreed with the claims of European conquerors and colonizers who stated that West Central African land was plentiful and empty, therefore available to be occupied by the newcomers.
Drawing on detailed archival research, the book also us how West Central African men and women acquired and owned land and movable property. Candido brings to light how West Central African communities were consumers of European and Asian goods, and therefore connected to other parts of the world.
The book shows how men and women in Angola accumulated wealth, and also how during the rise of colonialism they were deprived of this wealth.
Exploring the multifaceted history of dispossession, consumption, and inequality in West Central Africa, Mariana P. Candido presents a bold revisionist history of Angola from the sixteenth century until the Berlin Conference of 1884-5. Synthesising disparate strands of scholarship, including the histories of slavery, land tenure, and gender in West Central Africa, Candido makes a significant contribution to ongoing historical debates. She demonstrates how ideas about dominion and land rights eventually came to inform the appropriation and enslavement of free people and their labour. By centring the experiences of West Central Africans, and especially African women, this book challenges dominant historical…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I'm a historian of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade who was trained with a PhD in History and a PhD in Art History, and who's interested in how slavery is memorialized in the public space as well as in the visual and material culture of slavery. I was born and raised in Brazil, the country where the largest number of enslaved Africans were introduced in the era of the Atlantic slave trade and that still today is the country with the largest Black population after Nigeria, the most populous African country. I believe that studying the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery helps us to remedy the legacies of anti-Black racism today.
The Art of Conversion by art historian Cécile Fromont provides us with a rich overview of visual images and material objects witnessing the first contacts between African men and women in the Kingdom of Kongo and European conquerors and missionaries starting in the late fifteenth century.
Richly illustrated with color images of paintings, objects, and artifacts of Christian devotion, this book shows how these early encounters that led to the rise of the Atlantic slave trade in the region of present-day Angola in West Central Africa were marked by the mutual exchanges of valuable objects.
These exchanges were also immortalized in paintings, watercolors, and engravings that help us to understand these first encounters between Africans and Europeans that were so important for the development of the trade in enslaved Africans.
I loved graphic novels even before I became an author/illustrator. But because I create for young readers, I also read a lot of graphic novels aimed at them. I am also a big believer that books with female protagonists are important for all readers: male, female, and non-binary. All of the books I’ve recommended are books I plucked off my own bookshelf, and that I’ve read several times and I think are exceptional in some way.
Amulet is a masterwork of story, imagination, and art.
Tragic circumstances lead to Emily, her younger brother, and her mother having to move into the run-down home of a relative. While cleaning, Emily uncovers an amulet, which almost seems to be meant for her.
That night, her mother is kidnapped by a monster and in order to rescue her, Emily and her brother rush through a portal into another world. And that’s just the beginning!
Emily is a strong young woman who makes bold choices and fiercely defends her family. This adventure story is epic!
Graphic novel star Kazu Kibuishi creates a world of terrible, man-eating demons, a mechanical rabbit, a giant robot---and two ordinary children on a life-or-death mission. After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather, but the strange house proves to be dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures the kids' mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals. Eventually, they enlist the help of a small mechanical rabbit…
I came to discover the healing power of art, nature, and ritual while I was grieving the loss of my father a decade ago. I would go to the park and make impermanent and symmetrical art from found twigs, flowers, pine cones, berries, and leaves as a way to ground, heal my broken heart, and make sense of a chaotic time. Since then, I‘ve made over a thousand nature altars, written a book about it (Morning Altars), and have taught tens of thousands of people around the world to make meaning in their lives through a creative collaboration with the natural world. It still amazes me that something so simple and impermanent can bring such wonder and resilience.
A wise man once said to me, “if you can say it, you can see it." This magical book of art, poetry, and nature is a response to the removal of nature words such as “acorn,” “wren,” and “dandelion,” from a children’s dictionary. His gorgeous writing encourages us to wonder at the forgotten and to behold the ordinary by uttering nature words as a conjuring thing. During a time of environmental loss, grief, and forgetting, McFarlane lets us fall in love again with the greater-than-human world through language and therefore, to renew our capacity to marvel at the living landscape and our own inner landscape.
Beautiful books make unforgettable gifts. This pocket-sized treasure is the perfect gift for fans of nature, language and rich artwork, adult and child alike!
Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.
Each "spell" conjures an animal, bird, tree or flower -- from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw -- with which we share our lives and landscapes. Moving, joyful and funny, The Lost Spells above all…
I struggled a lot with reading as a kid, I would not call myself a natural reader at all. When I was young, fantasy and magic stories were one of the few genres that could grip me enough to make me actually focus and attempt to read but I always hated the ones that took themselves too seriously (they always felt impossibly long to get through). Now, as a children’s author, myself, it’s my hope and passion to serve fellow young-readers-who-don’t-consider-themselves-readers with fun accessible stories. I hope you enjoy!
A school drama with a dash of Greek Mythology when Helen of Troy’s amulet gets into a young girl's hands.
Juliet is suddenly doused with attention and does her best to navigate it. The story is very funny and lighthearted, this was another one of my favorite school reads.
Juliet Dove is a girl who doesn't like to be noticed. But though she may be shy, she has a wickedly sharp wit. Whenever someone does take notice of her, she tears into the person with a savagery that's earned her the nickname Killer. Juliet ends up leaving Mr. Elives' magic shop with Helen of Troy's amulet--that is, a virtual man magnet. Juliet doesn't know what she's got, but the boys in her class do--they start to notice her. Soon every boy in town is swoony for her. Yet, much as she'd like to lose all the unwanted attention, she…
I'd like to claim that my expertise in these matters stems from the fact that I am a supernatural entity—and a funny one at that. But my origin’s more mundane; when I was growing up on a corn & soybean farm miles outside of a rural village, I became a voracious reader. I was always intrigued by writers who could explore a world outside the bounds of reality and do it with style. Over the years, I’ve been a short-order cook, a corn detasseler, a summer camp counselor, a college professor, and a middle-grade author, and I’ve learned that you can find a little magic anywhere if you look hard enough.
Twelve-year-old Freddie Ruiz believes he is the victim of a multi-generational family curse: whenever the pressure’s on, he’s likely to stumble, fall, or embarrass himself.
When he finds an old amulet in the garage, he unwittingly releases the ghost of his great-granduncle, and now the curse gets worse: Freddie has just seven days to reverse it if he wants to survive!
A winner of the Sid Fleischman Humor Award, this book also makes powerful references to Filipino history that help ground the fantasy events in the real world. It’s full of nice moments—I giggled when I saw that Chapter 13 was crossed out (“too unlucky!”) and replaced with Chapter 14—and there’s great warmth in the scenes between Freddie and his various family members.
In this thrilling and hilarious middle grade adventure, a young Filipino-American boy must team up with his ancestor to break the curse that's haunted their family for generations . . . or be trapped in an amulet forever.
Freddie Ruiz is cursed.
While other people may have bad days, Freddie and his family have had bad generations: from bird poop splatting on him during picture day to the many tumbles and trips that earned him the nickname Faceplant Freddie. He's learned to lay low and keep himself out of trouble-which means:
From the time I was very young, Witchcraft and the supernatural have always fascinated me. I can remember staying up late to watch horror movies or reading an Edgar Allen Poe book under the sheets with a flashlight when I was supposed to be asleep. I knew this was never a phase or something I would “outgrow”; the spell had been cast and I was forever in its power. I’ve tried to read everything I could on Witchcraft, its history and practice and anything regarding the occult. It was all of this reading and research that really helped me to write Widdershins and everything that came after. Enjoy the list!
This was the first occult book I ever bought, so it holds a special place in my heart. The title alone, drew me to it and I was not disappointed. The book is full of all kinds of spells and information on herbs, amulets and talismans, ceremonial magic, Satanism & Witchcraft, potions, and many other wicked goodies. I love old occult books and this one, first published in 1970, started my occult library which has continued to grow.
The Complete Book of Black Magic and Witchcraft is a mainstay for both beginners and advanced seekers into genuine occult methods because it is the first instruction manual to systematise the techniques and aims of Ritual Magic. Including how to prepare for rituals of exorcism and purging, and the rites and mysteries of sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy. This was achieved this by years of research pooling information from rare manuscripts on these subjects and comparing the various sub-sections of each to find the central methods of Ceremonial Magic. While crucially informing the readers of the differences so they can experiment…
Radical Friend highlights the remarkable life of Amy Kirby Post, a nineteenth-century abolitionist and women's rights activist who created deep friendships across the color line to promote social justice. Her relationships with Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, William C. Nell, and other Black activists from the 1840s to the…
As an African speculative fiction writer who had long hoped to see the development of African speculative fiction being embraced by the larger SFF community, it was a joy to see all these anthologies showcasing the works of Africans and platforming them for a larger audience to see. And it's been a joy as well to contribute to this growth both as an award-winning writer and editor of African speculative short fiction.
Omenana to Infinity is an anthology of collected works formerly published in Omenana Magazine. The anthology is edited by Mazi Nwonwu and Chinelo Onwualu, like the magazine its stories are culled from. The duo also founded and edited the magazine which is the first African, exclusively speculative fiction magazine. It's important to me because it contains some of the earliest works of speculative short fiction by African writers I would read as an issue of a magazine and did a great lot in platforming speculative fiction writers on the continent.