she lit is starting a book club reserved for women and devoted to reading fiction and nonfiction works of the past and present by authors who identify as women of color. The inaugural selection will be Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood by the Black feminist writing extraordinaire bell hooks whose December passing sparked a collective mourning among readers.
We will meet virtually on Saturday, Jan. 29 at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST. The goal is to hold a virtual book club meeting the last Saturday of the month for members everywhere and hold additional in-person meetings like visiting indie bookstores and attending author events in the Washington, D.C. metro area after the Covid-19 pandemic cools down.
Information on our first virtual book club meeting discussing Bone Black can be found here.
As a member of some awesome book clubs only for Black women and/or women of color over the years, I’ve been itching to start my own because there are so many books that I already own or want to have on my bookshelf that I haven’t read yet. And these are well-known works that also may have been buried on your bookshelves as well.
Book bloggers and influencers have to keep up with the latest books, but then your reading list extends beyond its means, your bookshelves are stuffed to the gills, your Kindle library is running out of memory. I want to take a step back and revisit works that I wished I read years ago that had gotten lost in the mix.
When bell hooks transitioned into ancestorhood on Dec. 15, it was the perfect opportunity to learn about her girlhood upbringing in rural Kentucky. Black girlhood highlighted the most recent Well-Read Black Girl conference in October, so the idea of girlhood, especially through the eyes of a Black girl in the 1950s and 1960s, intrigued me as an aspect I still want to explore more with my book selections.
If you’re a woman interested in discussing this book and other books by women of color, please join the free book club on Meetup.com.