I have a nice stack of books ready to read for Black History month. I’m going to list them here. Obviously, I won’t be able to read them all as I do have other reading commitments and blog tours to read for. If there are any here, you’d like to see me read and review please let me know and I’ll prioritize it. Thank you!
Currently Reading
MY OTHER BOOKS FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Which books should I read for Black History Month? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for the input.
320 pages St. Martins Press January 31,2023 publish date
About The Book
Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman.
It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting.
When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it’s not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils―and rewards―of putting her heart on the line.
Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George’s Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.
My Thoughts
“……… it’s easy to conflare being well-liked with being well-loved. There’s a misconception to be well-loved, the love has to come from multiple sources, when truthfully, one or two people can love you with the strength of ten.”
Maame means woman or little mother in Twi. She received this nickname as a child. This nickname has been okay, but she now feels the weight of it suffocating her and she has been going by Maddie.
The caretaker of her father she was forced to grow up fast. Her brother is busy with his life and doesn’t have time for their father. Living in London she is the daughter of Ghanaian immigrant parents. Her mother who is frequently gone, living in Ghana helping her brother run a hostel. Her mother is usually gone for a year at a time or more and Maddie has had to be the responsible one, forced to be mature and raise herself. Their family is private, and she has no one to speak with about her cares and concerns. As her father’s health deteriorates, he depends on her more and they become closer in a way they had not been when he was well.
She must suppress a lot including depression and anxiety. She feels like she is being held back socially as she has always put others needs ahead of her own.
Thrilled when her mother returns home she is ready to take charge and live her life including getting her own flat and starting to seriously date.
Maddie experiences many first and starts to come into her own.
The author handles grief, loss and racism in a way that will make you want to examine the way you handle these. This book vividly brings to life the culture and ideals of the mother land. Heartbreaking and healing this book is emotional and poignant. There are a lot of tough subjects that the author deals with in a respectful way.
Pub Date 31 Jan 2023
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.
Grab A Copy Here
About The Author
Jessica George was born and raised in London to Ghanaian parents and studied English Literature at the University of Sheffield. After working at a literary agency and a theatre, she landed a job in the editorial department of a publishing house. She now lives in south west London with an incontrovertible sweet tooth and the knowledge that she can consume half a cake by herself if left to her own devices. Jessica’s debut novel, Maame, will be published as a lead hardback in 2023 by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and by St Martin’s Press in the US.
Thank you for visiting today. May your day be fufilling.
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at That Artsy Reader Girl and this week’s topic is a freebie. I have a lot of books on my to be read list so I thought it would be a great month to try to read some of my books I want to get to for black history month. I hope to get to all of them, but I do have blog tour books and author review books to read as well so we shall see.
A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
In an early twentieth-century America roiling with racial injustice, class divides, and WWI, two women fight for their dreams in a galvanizing novel by the bestselling author of Golden Poppies.
The author of the award-winning Sally Hemings now brings to life Hannah Elias, one of the richest black women in America in the early 1900s, in this mesmerizing novel swirling with atmosphere and steeped in history.
From award-winning author Robin W. Pearson comes a new Southern family drama about one family who discovers their history is only skin-deep and that God’s love is the only family tie that binds.
Set in 1920s New York, an addictively readable, thoroughly entertaining historical novel involving sex and secrets, race and redemption, and power and privilege—based on a sensational real-life case that made international headlines—in which the marriage between a working-class black woman and the scion of one of America’s most powerful white families ends in a scandalous annulment lawsuit.
Four generations of women experience love, loss, war, and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this sweeping novel from the bestselling author of the “timely must-read” (People) The German Girl.
Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.
Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.
Running from Bondage tells the compelling stories of enslaved women, who comprised one-third of all runaways, and the ways in which they fled or attempted to flee bondage during and after the Revolutionary War.
Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace—a.k.a “Momma Grace” will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be “gifted” various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirate’s ward, acting as both a spy and a translator.
Set in the Deep South pre Gone with the Wind and the Civil War, The Wedding Gift is a compelling and powerful story of slavery, abuse and passion. Perfect for fans of The Help.
In a deeply emotional novel of family, cultural heritage, and forgiveness, estranged sisters wrestle with the choices they’ve made and confront circumstances beyond their control.
Which book do you think I should start reading first? Have you read any of these titles? What were your thoughts on them?
Have a wonderful day. Thank you for stopping in today.
About The Book
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Real Simple, Goodreads, AARP, Boston.com, BookBub and BookRiot
Rare. Moving. Powerful. This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery is a remarkable debut.
Her search begins with an ending.…
The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children—the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children…and her freedom.
Grab A Copy Here
My Thoughts
Reading is knowledge. Reading is power and this is a very powerful book, one that makes you sit up and draws your attention. It has an important story in it. It’s about love. The ultimate love. A love story between a mother and her children. Her children that are no longer with her. Children she carried within her body for nine months and then they were stolen from her in the aftermath of slavery. Some stayed with her longer than others, none loved any less because of the time they stayed with her. The day after the King declares all slaves are free, the Emancipation Act of 1834 in Barbados goes into effect. We follow one woman’s journey to find her children as she and her companion’s trek across the Caribbean. A child’s pain becomes the mothers. Will she be able to find all of her children, or will she be caught by the slave catchers for a reward?
Memorable! Once you read this it will stay with you!
Pub Date 31 Jan 2023
I was given a complimentary copy of this book.
All opinions expressed are my own.
Is this book on your to be read list?
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