So I know I’ve been slacking.
I moved to NY late August and began my first semester in University. All exciting, but nonetheless very time consuming. My goal is to post once a week but I will definitely be posting every other week…I promise.
Recently I was challenged to make a list of books that have most transformed my life. So, below I have listed, in no particular order, the books which have had the most impact on me so far:
- For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange:
- I was first introduced to this choreopoem in 2010 with the release of Tyler Perry’s adaptation of this work in his movie For Colored Girls. The second I got my hands on the book I was hooked. Within the last four years I have read over this text countless times and to this day am still brought to tears. Last year, I had the fabulous opportunity to produce, direct, and act in my own production of For Colored Girls as a senior project in high school. If you have not read the play do yourself a favor and get a copy. To this day, Shange’s masterpiece has a significant impact on my self identity as a black female but more importantly as a person.
- A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
- Released in 1992, this book is Williamson’s reflection on A Course In Miracles. Recommend to me by my mother who found the book transformative in her own life, I finally read it my junior year and the book had a similar effect on me. Reading A Return to Love was part of my ongoing self-love journey; the book taught me to free myself from my own self-inflected personal hell and to find heaven right here on earth.
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- I actually read this one for my Advanced Placement Literature course and completely fell in love with Morrison’s style of writing and her beautiful imagery. The Bluest Eye is a great novel exploring America’s obsession of beauty, the impact of white supremacy on the black community and the rampant transmission of self hatred from person to person, generation to generation.
- Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
- Written by the CEO of Facebook, Lean In is the 2014 version of The Feminine Mystique. Everyone needs to read this book. It is a great manifesto of the gender climate in the modern day American workforce and home. Lean In pushes women to take a stand and men to stand right alongside them to continue to advance social and political equality for the sexes.
- This Bridge Called My Back, Writings by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa
- I was given this feminist anthology by my high school dean in my junior year. Although I have yet to read all of the poems, essays and short memoirs in the anthology, I love the richness and intersectionality of the collection of work.
I do have a few posts I am currently working on: a “Why Am I a Feminist” video and a post about my transition to college. So look for those posts coming soon. Hope you enjoyed this one!
