Bookmark the Blog


WHAT GOD IS HONORED HERE?

One of our recommended books for 2019 is What God Is Honored Here by Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang

What God Is Honored Here? is the first book of its kind—and urgently necessary. This is a literary collection of voices of Indigenous women and women of color who have undergone miscarriage and infant loss, experiences that disproportionately affect women who have often been cast toward the margins in the United States of America.

In its heartbreaking beauty, this book offers an integral perspective on how culture and religion, spirit and body, unite in the reproductive lives of women of color and Indigenous women as they bear witness to loss, search for what is not there,

read more

THINGS WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT WHEN I WAS A GIRL

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl by Jeannie Jeannie Vanasco

Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. She startles awake, saying his name. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her.

When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides―after fourteen years of silence―to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person. “It’s the least I can do,” he says.

Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and after the assault, asking the brave and urgent question: Is it possible for a good person to commit a terrible act?

read more

PRINCESS OF THE HITHER ISLES

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Princess of the Hither Isles by Adele Logan Alexander

A compelling reconstruction of the life of a black suffragist.

Born during the Civil War into a slave-holding family that included black, white, and Cherokee forebears, Adella Hunt Logan dedicated herself to advancing political and educational opportunities for the African American community. She taught at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, but also joined the segregated woman suffrage movement, passing for white in order to fight for the rights of people of color. As a wife, mother, scholar, and activist, Adella’s determination to challenge the draconian restraints of race and gender generated conflicts that precipitated her tragic demise.

Historian Adele Logan Alexander—Adella’s granddaughter—bridges the chasms that frustrate efforts to document the lives of those who traditionally have been silenced,

read more

999

One of our recommended books for 2019 is 999 by Heather Dune Macadam

From Heather Dune Macadam, the untold story of the 999 young, unmarried Jewish women who were tricked on March 25, 1942 into boarding the train that became the first official transport to Auschwitz. Timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees, 999 is an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months,

read more

MOTHERHOOD SO WHITE

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin

When Nefertiti Austin, a single African American woman, decided she wanted to adopt a Black baby boy out of the foster-care system, she was unprepared for the fact that there is no place for Black women in the “mommy wars.” Austin set off on her path without the ability to seek guidance from others who looked like her or shared her experience. She soon realized that she would not only have to navigate skepticism from the adoption community, who deal almost exclusively with white women, but surprisingly, from her own family and friends as well.

Motherhood So White is the story of Nefertiti’s fight to create the family she always knew she was meant to have and the story of motherhood that all American families need now.

read more

HERE WE ARE

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Here We Are by Aarti Namdev Shahani

A heartfelt memoir about the immigrant experience from NPR correspondent Aarti Shahani, Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares follows the lives of Aarti, the precocious scholarship kid at one of Manhattan’s most elite prep schools, and her dad, the shopkeeper who mistakenly sells watches and calculators to the notorious Cali drug cartel. Together, the two represent the extremes that coexist in our country, even within a single family, and a truth about immigrants that gets lost in the headlines. It isn’t a matter of good or evil; it’s complicated. Here We Are is a coming-of-age story,

read more