Tag: noname

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Black Women Are Transforming the Literary Scene in Los Angeles

For a 2021 literary lookback, we noticed Los Angeles is evolving into a haven for Black female-run literary ventures amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. But the evolution started years ago for many of the women taking up space physically and consciously in the LA literary scene.

California’s most populous city only had one renowned Black-owned bookstore with Eso Won Books founded by James Fugate and Tom Hamilton in 1990. The bookstore, located in the Leimert Park Village, recently had a cameo along with The Vanishing Half author Brit Bennett in HBO’s Insecure since star Issa Rae is a producer of the upcoming book-to-TV series for the network.

Years of Black women building safe, conscious spaces for readers of color and allies came into fruition in 2021 through indie bookstores, libraries, and book club festivals.

Issa Rae and Amber Dancy, holding The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, outside Eso Won Books in “Growth, Okay?!” episode.

The new Black woman-run bookstore in the greater LA area is The Salt Eaters Bookshop that had a soft opening earlier this month. Named after Toni Cade Bambara’s 1980 novel, the bookstore was funded through GoFundMe after the George Floyd protests erupted nationwide. One of the main conversations that came out of the 2020 protests were the lack of Black-owned bookstores to supply anti-racist and diverse reading material to local communities and beyond.

Asha Grant, director of The Free Black Women’s Library LA chapter, started the fund online in July 2020 and has since raised $84,500 out of her $65,000 goal to renovate a brick-and-mortar and maintain it for a year. The bookstore is located in downtown Inglewood on Queen Street.

“We did it, ya’ll,” reads the bookstore’s Instagram post after the Dec. 18 and Dec. 19 opening. “There aren’t enough words to describe how blissful this opening weekend was with you all. It was so incredible meeting SO many of you who donated to help make the dream a reality and have been following us and rooting us on from jump. We thank you for your support, all the shared stories, laughs, tears, and sweet messages.”

Already serving the LA area, Reparations Club doubles as a cultural space and a bookstore. Jazzi McGilbert opened the space in 2019 near the Crenshaw area. This year, the bookstore debuted on its new block in the same neighborhood. Reparations Club even hosted socially distanced, in-person Noname Book Club meetings in the last year.

Reparations Club

Indie rapper and literary activist Noname aka Fatimah Warner unveiled the Radical Hood Library in October under her namesake book club. The mission of the library is to make rare works by authors of color available to interested readers. It correlates with the mission of the book club to bring works by underrepresented authors to readers via social media and to incarcerated readers advocating for books. 

Two of the largest Black female book clubs center around LA with growing virtually beyond the city during the pandemic. Well-Read Black Girl, known for its New York roots, has more of a bicoastal presence with founder Glory Edim spending time in LA. Based in Inglewood and founded by Alysia Allen, Mocha Girls Read boasts over 9,000 members via Meetup.com across 14 chapters nationwide.  

WRBG hosted its fifth annual book festival virtually in late October exploring the theme of Black girlhood to complement Glory’s new anthology On Girlhood. The festival featured a message from former First Lady Michelle Obama and a keynote conversation with Gabrielle Union who recently released her second collection of autobiographical essays in You Got Anything Stronger?: Stories.

Glory will headline a podcast with producer Pushkin Industries debuting in February 2022.

Marking a decade of existence in 2021, the original LA book club for Black women celebrated its milestone with a conference also held on the last weekend of October. Mocha Girls Read co-hosted its first Black Readers Conference with Black Men Read that featured authors Kalynn Bayron, Christina Hammonds Reed, and Kimberly Latrice Jones.

The book club is looking for book reviewers in the new year.

With so many developments happening in the last year, LA will be a place to watch for the bookish community in 2022.

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Singer Solange’s Saint Heron Curates Rare Black Books With New Library

Another artist has created an online library featuring rare works by Black and Brown authors. Two weeks after indie rapper Noname announced the opening of her book club’s Radical Hood Library, singer and songwriter Solange Knowles’ platform opened the Saint Heron Community Library on Monday.

The library will have a guest curator per season with Rosa Duffy, the founder of Atlanta-based For Keeps Books, handpicking the first round of works. This season’s selections include Audre Lorde’s 1976 poetry collection Coal, Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry collection Children Coming Home, Ntozake Shange’s poetry collection A Daughter’s Geography, Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi novel Clay’s Ark, and Rita Dove’s story collection Fifth Sunday.

“The digital Library will spark new conversations about the breadth of rich artistic expression and the impact of black identity in creative innovation throughout history,” reads a post on Solange’s Instagram account.  

In an interview with Saint Heron Community Library’s editorial manager Shantel Aurora-Pass, Rosa said she took particular interest in elevating the access to books that have become less and less accessible to Black readers.

“When people ask the purpose or mission of the space, it’s true accessibility because all of this stuff has existed for all of these years, it didn’t just pop up out of nowhere,” she said. “But the truth is that it’s either hoarded, or we just don’t know much about it. The folks that know its value sometimes are the ones that are keeping it from the people that it’s made for.”

The library went live via Saint Heron’s website on Oct. 18. As of Oct. 19, all 50 books are unavailable. Books are free to be borrowed by U.S. residents for a maximum of 45 days. Physical books are being sent to borrowers via Worldnet, which will provide shipping and return postage costs, according to Saint Heron’s Instagram.

Earlier this month, Noname announced the opening of Radical Hood Library, a brick and mortar in Los Angeles with a mostly rare collection of books by Black and Brown authors that’s also available for online borrowing through the library catalog app Libib.

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Noname Celebrates Opening of the Radical Hood Library

Book Club Headquarters - Radical Hood Library / Instagram

Indie rapper and book club innovator Noname announced the opening of Book Club Headquarters: Radical Hood Library in Los Angeles Saturday.

In a flyer, the library asked for donations of new and used books preferably written by Black and Brown authors, especially novels and children’s books. The library is a “black led organization that was created to service black/brown folks,” according to its book.clubhq Instagram account. Online, books can be checked out through the library’s Libib account.

The opening was an RSVP’d event. The library’s address has yet to be revealed publicly.

The daughter of a Black-owned bookstore owner, Noname started the Noname Book Club in 2019 to highlight “reading material for the homies” by exposing Black and Brown readers to books of today and yesterday that explore intersectionality. The book club now has 12 metro chapters across the U.S. and a prison program that delivers book club selections to incarcerated peoples.

Every month, Noname picks a book and a book club member aka “homie” picks one. Socially distanced in-person and virtual meetings are ongoing this month for September’s books: Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’shaun L. Harrison, Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon, and The Skin I’m in by Sharon G. Flake.

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Two Books at a Time: August 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

More book clubs are selecting a second book for the month as some continue their promise of reading works by authors of color in the wake of the latest anti-racism protests.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

“Jones is unflinching in his exploration of vengeance and justice, the realities of living and growing up Native today, as well as community and where tradition fits into the modern world,” Amerie wrote on the book club’s Instagram profile. “At turns poignant and difficult to digest, I found the story brimming with despair, anger, and, despite everything, hope.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

Luster by Raven Leilani

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club with Karah Preiss have taken the two-book route this month for the first time.

“Loving #luster 💖 are you?” Emma shared on Instagram in a selfie with the book.

GMA BOOK CLUB

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

“It’s set at the New York Public Library and it’s about a family that lives in an apartment deep inside the building, an apartment that actually existed,” the author told Good Morning America. “It’s about the magic of the written word and the power of women’s voices, and it’s dedicated to some of my favorite people: librarians.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Teen supermodel Kaia Gerber selects several books throughout the month, and she has chosen a summer book club favorite. She also hosted author Brit Bennett on Instagram Live.

NONAME BOOK CLUB

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison

Indie rapper Noname is celebrating the first anniversary of her book club that focuses on social science books for readers of color. This month the book club made its two selections: The Vanishing Half from Noname and Playing in the Dark as the homie pick.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

“It explains why we are where we are in terms of racial injustice and inequality,” Oprah said on her book club website, “and it show us how to rebuild a world in which all are truly equal and free.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

The Comeback by Ella Berman

Here For It by R. Eric Thomas

Jenna Bush Hager, Today Show correspondent and presidential daughter, selected two books for August for the first time in the 2-year-old book club’s history.

“This beautifully written and compulsively readable book broke me from my pandemic blockage,” she said of The Comeback on Instagram.

Jenna partnered with Noelle Santos, the owner of The Bronx-based indie bookstore The Lit Bar, to pick Here For It.

“I just loved how she was bringing a new face to literature and I loved her passion for it,” Jenna said about Noelle in Today.

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Recently Emmy-nominated producer for the Hulu miniseries based on the novel Little Fires Everywhere, Reese Witherspoon named the latest short story collection by Edwidge Danticat as the monthly pick for her book club.

“#EverythingInside is a collection of short stories anchored in Haitian culture about love, love loss and love of country,” the book club posted on Instagram. “#EdwidgeDanticat encourages you to find rays of hope in each story and to take moments in between to let the narratives sink in.⁠”

Reese’s Book Club also announced last week its young adult version, which chose You Should See Me in a Crown as its inaugural selection. Now, the book club will choose a novel for adult readers and another novel for the YA audience each month.

“I’ve been reading so many incredible, diverse stories in the YA genre and can’t wait to share them with you each month as an additional pick,” Reese said in the announcement of Reese’s Book Club YA.

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Beach Reads, Memoirs Dominate the Summer: July 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

With the impact of the anti-Black racism protests last month, some of the celebrity-founded book clubs kept the focus on Black stories as others chose the top books of the summer including reads perfect for the beach (if it’s open) and texts exploring gender and sexual identity.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

The debut novel features a Palestinian American girl who is yelled at by a group of men for showing her legs on a trip to Bethlehem. The experience eventually allows her to tell her mother she’s queer as she moves to different spaces to find her true self.

“I rooted for her and hurt for her as she tried to find her way through one bad decision after another,” Amerie wrote on Instagram. “The main character, whose name is never revealed, stayed with me long after I closed the book, as did her hope for yet another shot at love.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

The Dragons, The Giant, The Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore

The author of She Would Be King and founder of nonprofit One Moore Book has a new memoir about her experience living through the civil war in Liberia. At five years old, she’s waiting to be reunited with her mother, who’s studying in New York, then her world is turned upside down with the war. Her family flees on foot from their home and get smuggled across the border of Sierra Leone, where they get a chance to fly to the U.S.

Belletrist, founded by actress Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, also chose the Black woman-owned Semicolon Bookstore in Chicago as its indie bookstore of the month.

GMA BOOK CLUB

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

The Crazy Rich Asians series creator’s new book takes place on the island of Capri with a half-Chinese, half-White woman trying to fall for the well-off White man her family likes while avoiding another man, who is Chinese, she keeps suppressing her feelings for.

“It’s a summer escape full of travel, food, fun and fashion,” Kevin told Good Morning America. “The outrageous characters will make your crazy families seem almost normal.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

Darling Days: A Memoir by iO Tillett Wright

Born female, the author comes of age in downtown New York with a young widowed mother and adopts the persona of a boy amid the 1980s “intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art.”
“In talking to him about his experience publishing this book, he taught me that writers who happen to be queer too often are dismissed as ‘queer writers’ and their books, regardless of the topics they cover, end up exclusively stocked on ‘LGBT author’ shelves,” Kaia wrote in an Instagram post. “Darling Days goes far beyond this—it is a story about neglect, creativity, internalized homophobia, and the beauty you can make out of pain. it is a New York story of growing up and out of the life you are born into.” 

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

Rapper Noname picks Are Prisons Obsolete?, a book that calls for the abolition of prisons and how it will benefit society as a whole. The homie pick, Captive Genders, comes from Che Gossett. It studies trans and gender-queer people in prison with the most recent version including a foreword from CeCe MacDonald, who was imprisoned for killing a transphobic attacker, and an essay by Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier who transitioned amid getting sentenced for espionage.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

This novel tells the story of a church deacon who shoots the neighborhood drug dealer point blank range in front of the community and the aftermath.

“In naming Deacon King Kong my latest Oprah’s Book Club selection, I am hoping readers will find in it what I did: sorrow, joy, resilience, humanity, and an understanding that while we struggle with pain and trauma, we can find shelter in one another—just as the characters in the Cause housing project in McBride’s Brooklyn do,” Oprah wrote in the Instagram announcement. 

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan

Jenna Bush Hager’s book club via her Today Show gig is one of the hottest books of the season. The main character is a new mother who hires a college senior as a baby-sitter. As they grow close, the baby-sitter’s relationship with the mother’s father-in-law leads to a betrayal.

“I wanted to explore American life in the pre-Trump years and sort of how we got here,” the author said in an article introducing the book club pick. “The book very much digs into the gig economy, the shrinking safety net and the notion that privilege takes many different forms.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

After the book club delayed its selection announcement in June, actress Reese Witherspoon directed her book club to make two selections—a first to recognize current events. Both books will be read over June and July.

“Elevating women’s stories is at the core of Reese’s Book Club. I love how this community champions the narrative for women and we are just getting started,” the book club placed in a graphic on Instagram. “Unity and understanding through the lens of storytelling is how we will continue these meaningful conversations.”

Readers expressed their disappointment in the comments over the book club adding a book by a Black woman author last minute and not pushing back the book by a White woman author to another month.

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Recognizing Racial Injustice Delays and Defines Announcements: June 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

The deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd and the subsequent worldwide protests to combat racial injustice affected the celebrity book clubs with many delaying their monthly book selection announcements.

Most book clubs make the official announcement on social media the first week of the month, but some news on the latest picks came the second week of June and highlighted works by black women authors.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers

“In his unapologetically emotional memoir, CNN analyst @BakariSellers shares what it is to grow up “Black, country, and proud,” Amerie wrote in the book club’s Instagram announcement. “From the tragic event that helped to shape his life though it occurred before his birth, to his rise in politics while pursuing his education, to his dedication to not allowing those in his rural South Carolina community to be forgotten, to his personal experiences with anxiety, Bakari Sellers’ story left me amazed while also leaving me to wonder just how he managed to fit so much life into such a short time.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

GMA BOOK CLUB

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club and Good Morning America‘s book club chose the same book again this month along with other major national book clubs. For May, both book clubs chose The Book of V. by Anna Solomon.

Belletrist shared that it delayed its announcement due to the civil unrest.

“We know we’re about a week later than usual, but we wanted to spend last week thinking about the ways in which we, as an online community, will be moving forward as we approach this seismic shift in our collective consciousness.”

“We have loved Brit’s book since we first got it a few months ago and are very excited to finally announce,” Belletrist stated in its message on Instagram. “Please stay tuned as we will have a more in depth conversation with Brit towards the end of the month, and look out for our weekly quotes, which are curated this month by this month’s author!”

“It’s a compelling read about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds: one black, and one white,” Good Morning America‘s book club wrote in its post. “It’s a powerful story about family, compassion, identity and roots.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

Kaia Gerber shares book selections every week for her book club on Instagram, but she decided to give her friend Janaya Future Khan, international ambassador for Black Lives Matter, a platform on her account with over 5.6 million followers. She bookstagrammed a pile including Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Danielle Allen’s Cuz: An American Tragedy, which follows the author’s journey in trying to rescue her younger cousin who dies after incarceration for a crime he commits as a teenager.

 

“in lieu of book club this week, i am honored that my friend and international ambassador of @blklivesmatter @janayathefuture will be going live on my page. they have been such a leader and powerful voice,” she wrote in her post. “they helped educate me on understanding the weight of privilege and the importance of these protests—and they have continuously and tirelessly worked to give people an understanding of what the mission of Black Lives Matter means for this country and for this world.”

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Blood in My Eye by George L. Jackson

Race Music: From Bebop to Hip-Hop by Guthrie Ramsey

Rapper Noname’s book club had selected one book last month, a change from its two-books-a-month template, but the book club returned to two books due to what’s going on in the world now.

“I felt it was important to go back to our old routine of picking two books a month,” Noname said on the book club’s Instagram profile. “In addition to reading Race Music I chose Blood In My Eye by George Jackson. Books about revolutionary action and resistance are vital during this time.” 

Blood In My Eye was written by George Jackson, who died days after completing the book in 1971 at the hands of San Quentin State Prison guards during an alleged escape attempt. He was serving a sentence for stealing $70 from a gas station.

The homie pick, Race Music: From Bebop to Hip-Hop, is from the book club’s project manager Shakira in honor of June being Black Music Month.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

Oprah is finishing up Hidden Valley Road, according to her book club’s schedule though it may have been pushed back with giving space online for the current civil unrest. The book club has posted about anti-racism books to read for kids and young adults.

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

A Burning by Megha Majumdar

The debut novel surrounds an ambitious Muslim girl from the slums who is accused of executing a terrorist attack because of a careless Facebook comment.

“I think books are a tool for empathy,” Jenna said in her announcement. “And now when we are stuck at home—and I definitely won’t be traveling to India this summer—this is a tool for all of us to learn more about the plight of people all over the world.”

“I started writing from a place of alarm and anger,” Majumdar told Today in the article. “India has been changing in frightening ways and growing more intolerant of minority communities, more extremist. I definitely hope that readers will see resonances in the U.S. as well.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

After the book club delayed its selection announcement, actress Reese Witherspoon directed her book club to make two selections—a first to recognize current events. Both books will be read over June and July.

“Elevating women’s stories is at the core of Reese’s Book Club. I love how this community champions the narrative for women and we are just getting started,” the book club placed in a graphic on Instagram. Unity and understanding through the lens of storytelling is how we will continue these meaningful conversations.”

Readers expressed their disappointment in the comments over the book club adding a book by a black woman author last minute and not pushing back the book by a white woman author to another month.

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May 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

Singer and author Amerie will read Deacon King Kong by James McBride with her book club.

“James McBride tackles trauma, the Black migration, community, racism (of both Southern and Northern variety), and the perils of Growing Up While Black with subtlety and humor,” she wrote in her Instagram announcement. “In his deft hands, the exploration of such themes within a premise in which a perpetually drunk deacon shoots a teen drug dealer is not depressing or gratuitous, but intimate, funny, and full of hope.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

GMA BOOK CLUB

Emma Roberts, the actress and book connoisseur of Belletrist, and Good Morning America crowned The Book of V. by Anna Solomon as their monthly book club pick.

The book describes the intersecting story between a struggling writer in Brooklyn balancing motherhood and being a second wife, a  political wife who receives a humiliating favor from her husband, and an independent young woman in ancient Persia who may have become a sacrifice to the king in order to save her people.

“I think a lot of readers will find some part of themselves in this book,” the author tells GMA. Whether you relate most to the headstrong Esther, who does not want to become queen to Vivian Barr, a senator’s wife torn between following conventions and breaking free or to Lily, a contemporary mother of two struggling to figure out what she even wants, you’ll recognize and root for the characters in this book.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

 

Rising teen supermodel and the daughter of legend Cindy Crawford, Kaia Gerber started a weekly book club in March. This week, she announced to her Instagram followers that she’s reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

She will discuss the book on Friday, May 15 with her mother on Instagram Live at 5 p.m. PST.

Since her book selection changes every week with Instagram Live interviews with authors and others in the literary realm, check out her social media channel to keep up with selections for the rest of the month.

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Busy revolutionizing the book club model, indie rapper Noname’s book club usually selects two books each month particularly for readers of color. She chooses a book, which this month has yet to be announced, and the homie pick, the classic black revolutionary memoir Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur, which comes from Blake and Delency, the founders of People’s Breakfast Oakland.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker is still Oprah Winfrey’s book club pick, which was named at the beginning of April.

The biography of a family where six out of 12 of the children were born with schizophrenia and became a major source of research for scientists working to understand the genetics behind the devastating mental illness.

“This is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey,” Oprah announced in a video. “It reveals the shame, denial, shock, confusion and misunderstanding of mental illness at a time when no one was really sure what schizophrenia was or how to treat it.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Through her Today Show correspondent gig, former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager chose All Adults Here by Emma Straub for her May selection.

“I loved it because I thought, on one hand, it was light and funny,” Jenna said in an article. “On the other, Emma Straub has the capability of writing in a way that explores these themes that are important and interesting.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon picked The Henna Artist by Indian-born author Alka Joshi for her monthly book club.

This debut novel surrounds a teenager in India who escapes an abusive marriage and ends up in 1950s Jaipur where she rises as a prominent henna artist and confidante to the wealthy women of the upper class who could never know her secret.

“This vivid story is so rich and complex… reading about Lakshmi’s journey from escaping an abusive marriage to becoming one of the most sought-after henna artists in Jaipur captivated me from the first chapter to the final page,” Reese shared on her book club website.

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April 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Singer-turned-writer Amerie chose Kevin Wilson’s New York Times best-seller and former Read With Jenna book club pick for her April book.

“An outrageous yet grounded read that had me laughing out loud and tearing up in the same paragraph, Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here explores parenthood and found family, while also addressing the very frightening phenomena of spontaneous combustion, of which, like the author, I grew up scared to death,” Amerie wrote in her Instagram post announcing the book selection.

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

 

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club chose Lily King’s new novel. The book was also a March selection for the Today Show’s Read With Jenna book club.

 

In an Instagram post on her personal account, Emma said, “So excited to read along with you guys and discuss!”

 

GMA BOOK CLUB

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Good Morning America‘s book club named Margarita Montimore’s debut novel. In the U.K., the same book is titled The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart. Both have abstract covers of Oona’s face with the GMA book club reposting some of their favorites from readers.

“I’m so grateful ‘GMA’ has chosen my novel ‘Oona Out of Order’ as its latest book club pick,” Margarita told GMA in its story on the book club pick. “I know the whole world feels like it’s out of order right now, and social distancing is tough, but join ‘GMA’s’ Book Club and we’ll all feel less isolated as we get lost in this uplifting story.”

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Mean by Myriam Gurba

War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony by Nelson A. Denis

Indie rapper Noname’s book club usually selects two books each month, with Noname picking one and someone else naming the “homie pick.” Noname chose Mean by Myriam Gurba and Yahdon Israel, founder of Brooklyn-based @literaryswagbookclub, chose War Against All Puerto Ricans.

The book club says it stands in solidarity with the prisoners who participate in the book club over demanding more protection such as masks during the coronavirus COVID-19 forced quarantine. After announcing it had to cancel all in-person meetings due the pandemic, the book club recently started its own newspaper, Out of Print, for Patreon members.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

After the controversy around her last book club pick American Dirt, Oprah Winfrey chose the biography of a family where six out of 12 of the children were born with schizophrenia and became a major source of research for scientists working to understand the genetics behind the devastating mental illness.

“This is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey,” Oprah announced in a video. “It reveals the shame, denial, shock, confusion and misunderstanding of mental illness at a time when no one was really sure what schizophrenia was or how to treat it.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Former first daughter and Today Show co-host Jenna Bush Hager picked Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel that publisher Harper Collins describes as “explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s.”

“Elizabeth really developed these characters that I felt like I knew,” Jenna said about the debut novel on Today’s website. “I found myself missing them when the story was over. The women are complicated. They are a lot of things at once.”

As a native Texan, Jenna added that Elizabeth portrays Texas life just right in Valentine.

“I spent a good portion of my childhood eavesdropping on my mother and her girlfriends as they sat out on the back porch after dinner, and I listened to them telling stories,” Elizabeth told Today. “They would sit out there with their cigarettes and mix drinks because it was the ’70s, and I listened to them rehashing their days.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Rising book club queen Reese Witherspoon, who’s currently starring in Little Fires Everywhere based on Celeste Ng’s novel, has chosen well-known memoirist Glennon Doyle’s latest book, Untamed.

 

“It’s an absolute joy to announce Glennon Doyle’s UNTAMED as my April book pick,” Reese wrote at the top of her Hello Sunshine announcement email. “This memoir is so packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today, what it means to be “good,” and what woman will do in order to be loved. I swear I highlighted something in EVERY chapter. This book really spoke to me in so many ways!”

 

Glennon also wrote an essay about her writing process on Hello Sunshine’s website.
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March 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

New Waves by Kevin Nguyen

R&B singer and author Amerie selected the debut novel that publisher Penguin Random House calls “wry and edgy” with a focus on “race and startup culture, secrecy and surveillance, social media and friendship.”

On Instagram, Amerie said, “New Waves had me questioning who we are, who we think we are, and what we leave behind. How do we grieve someone whose online footprint looms large? And really, can any of us live up to the terrifying hyper-optimism of tech culture (and this is coming from an extreme optimist)?”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card

The book club helmed by actress Emma Roberts has chosen a novel being called one of the most anticipated debuts of the year. It’s also introducing the sale of the book via Bookshop.org, a new e-commerce outlet where proceeds go to indie bookstores.

GMA BOOK CLUB

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

In partnership with Fab Fit Fun’s book club, Good Morning America picked this novel its publisher Simon & Schuster categorized between Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You and David Nicholls’ One Day.

“Rebecca Serle’s novel is being hailed as a standout pick for spring,” the national morning program wrote in its article.

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation by Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson

Keeping in line with choosing two books, Noname selected As Black As Resistance while her homie’s pick Love With Accountability came from Dawud, the facilitator for SCI Coal Township Prison Chapter. Both books were published by AK Press, which describes itself as a “worker-run collective that publishes and distributes radical books and other media to expand minds and change worlds.”

The up-and-coming rapper’s book club serving readers of color has grown exponentially since last summer, including the partnerships with black-owned bookstores, local libraries, and recently prison book clubs.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

The book club is finishing its latest controversial book, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. The media maven promised to hold a conversation in front of the cameras, which dropped March 6 at midnight on Apple TV as a two-part interview with the author and critics dissecting the book and its alleged divisiveness.

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Partnering with Book of the Month subscription service, Today Show correspondent Jenna Bush Hager said in an article that she never chosen a book like Writers & Lovers.

“I chose ‘Writers and Lovers’ because I don’t think I’ve chosen a book like this,” said Jenna. “Lily King really explores different themes that our book club hasn’t explored.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward

“Are you ready to set sail on a literary adventure, y’all? This month, I’m reading The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward! I love the sense of adventure in this story—it’s about a disconnected family that reunites on a cruise ship traveling through Europe,” actress and producer Reese Witherspoon wrote in the announcement to her book club. “If you’re packing for Spring Break, be sure to include a copy of this fun read and follow along with Reese’s Book Club!”

Like with each of her book club’s selections, the author wrote a companion essay.
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February 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

Little Gods by Meng Jin

Singer-turned-book YouTuber Amerie plans to host the author at the end of the month on Instagram Live to discuss the novel.

“Quantum physics meets motherhood, love, and identity in this haunting portrayal of a daughter’s desperation to be seen and a mother’s desperation to disappear,” she wrote in the book club’s post. “@mengjinwrites creates characters who are at once vulnerable, caring, self-absorbed, and despicable, and through it all, utterly real. I rooted for them just as I was repelled by them; always, though, Ms. Jin put me so firmly in their heads, I couldn’t help but feel empathetic, even as I cringed.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan

“An exhilarating novel about a group of students who take revenge on a wunderkind professor after she destroys one of their own—a story of collective drive to create, sabotage, and ultimately, to love,” the book club copied from publisher Penguin Random House in its announcement email and on Instagram.  ⠀

GMA BOOK CLUB

Good Morning America’s book club hasn’t named its February title yet. It’s celebrating Black History Month with a Feb. 19 appearance by Tomi Adeyemi of Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance fame; Kiley Reid of Such a Fun Age; and award-winning young adult novelist Jason Reynolds.

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Magical Negro by Morgan Parker

“I’m so excited to start black history month by honoring two incredible black women. trust me you definitely want to read with us for the month of february!” rapper Noname tweeted when quote tweeting her book club’s two picks. She also reminded her followers to shop local bookstores, preferably black-owned, and avoid Amazon.com.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

The book club is finishing its controversial January book, American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which added a spark to the conversation around diversity in publishing.

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré

“It’s about this young girl, Adunni, whose voice, from the time she is born, is strong, loud and clear but because of where she is born and the circumstances of her life, she doesn’t yet know how to use it,” said Today Show correspondent Jenna Bush Hager in an article.

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister

“The story centers around Emmeline, a young girl who lives on a remote island with her father and uncovers secrets of the natural world through her senses,” Hollywood bookwoman Reese Witherspoon’s book club explained on Instagram. “As she gets older, she becomes even more curious about the scents in the drawers of their cabin.”

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Noname’s Book Club Has Declared National Fuck Amazon Day

Amazon.com has developed a reputation in the book industry as a monstrous e-retailer sapping profits for indie bookstores. Consumers can’t help but get addicted to the effortless ordering and two-day shipping, but the socially conscious Noname’s Book Club is celebrating National Fuck Amazon Day aka Library Card Registration Day—a day to support the free literary resources such as libraries already in our communities.

Today on Jan. 11, readers of color are encouraged to sign up for library cards to access free books in their communities. Some libraries may charge $1 for a card, but users can access a number of books for usually three weeks in person or on their e-readers. Some people are even canceling their Amazon memberships since the corporation has long had a reputation for snatching business away from indie bookstores, including those owned by entrepreneurs of color in communities of color.

Noname says it’s not only about supporting local libraries and indie bookstores but really a “stance against corporate greed.”

With more literary groups, especially those serving communities of color, joining the fight against Amazon, 2020 could be a year of readers looking for alternative ways to access books without supporting the corporation.

If you’ve given up on Amazon in the name of books, then let us know in the comments.

Personally, I’m not ready to forfeit my Amazon membership. I like my two-day shipping on my specialized beauty products and vitamins that are hard to find in brick-and-mortar stores. Also, in college, Amazon was a godsend for many students looking for cheaper textbooks. It’ll be difficult to check out necessary textbooks from libraries for an entire semester and pay full price when a lower price with shipping is available on Amazon. But Amazon probably bought out the smaller used textbook sellers long ago, so there’s another example of corporate takeover.

The top book publishers could be considered as corporations. Libraries pay authors for their books, and publishers are getting a cut of that check.

MIXED BAG OF PLACES TO BUY BOOKS

Years ago, I had already changed my bookish spending habits by buying most new books from indie bookstores such as The Ripped Bodice and Skylight Books in Los Angeles and Vroman’s in Pasadena. I bought a few from Amazon via used book outfits who work with Amazon to make a profit online.

Some self-published authors I meet in the field want you to buy their books on Amazon because of the chunk of sales the corporation promises them. Amazon has improved its self-publishing platform over the years, making it somewhat of a haven for authors who want to control their book sales. In short, when you’re an avid reader, you buy and rent books from all over. Most of my books are from Goodwill Industries, a nonprofit that could be seen as acting as a corporation, and other thrift stores.

I check out tons of library books in person and on my Kindle. Through Kindle on three active library cards, I use Overdrive which connects you to all your libraries in one place. How e-books are shaping the book industry has also been a topic of conversation, especially with Amazon dominating in that sphere, too. My neighborhood library blocks away from my home is always crowded, but when it comes to the books, it seems underutilized because I usually get the hottest books of the moment easily. With libraries being a public space and used for quiet time, I wonder if enough patrons are checking out the books the libraries invested in.

AUTHOR EVENTS AT CORPORATE AND INDIE BOOKSTORES

I’m into meeting authors for a second and getting their autographed books. I’ve bought a few books from Barnes & Noble at the Grove for author events. That’s another issue: authors, regardless of fame, who should partner with indie bookstores to be their main bookseller or venue when they come to your city.

One great example is Elaine Welteroth, millennial media maven who released More Than Enough last year. During her stop in Los Angeles, she chose to have the event at the California African American Museum and the main bookseller was Eso Won Books, the only black-owned indie bookstore in the area. Another example is Marie Forleo, author of Everything is Figureoutable, who came to the Skirball Cultural Center with her Book Soup as the preferred bookseller.

AMAZON’s HANDS ON THE BOOK INDUSTRY

Noname and her book club are making waves with spreading the message of corporations establishing their own book businesses on top of taking a lion’s share of overall book sales. Amazon is building a book empire with signing on celebrities as authors and delivering Audible titles at record speeds, for example. Hopefully, the movement will bring more dollars back to our local libraries and the literary entrepreneurs of color who’ve opened businesses to purposely serve their communities.

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what's lit

2019 Literary Lookback: The Rise of Noname’s Book Club

Noname

Rapper Noname started a book club this past summer and has amassed a strong following with mostly millennial readers looking to discover a variety of books from authors of color.

With its August launch, the book club selected two books: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. Two books remained a constant over the months, with the latest twin picks being The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon and Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi.

The book club blossomed on social media—now having almost 67,000 followers on Twitter and over 38,000 followers on Instagram—and then moved to in-person meetings in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Photos from the meetings and from members make up most of the timelines on the two social media networks as well as vintage and stock photos of black people reading books. Letting members know they are seen and supporting their reading goals shift the book club, though helmed by a celebrity, away from the celebrity book club model that usually keeps the conversations online and seldom acknowledges members.

From cult classics to the words of emergent authors, Noname’s Book Club highlights books that speak on human conditions in critical and original ways.

That’s Noname’s Book Club’s mission statement, and it shows in the actions the group has taken to make an impact on the diverse consumers the literary industry tends to ignore.

supporting black-owned bookstores

The book club sends members to black-owned bookstores in seven cities to purchase the picks and some holding in-person meetings. One example is The Reparations Club in Los Angeles, which has quickly become home to many black creatives since opening earlier this year.

boycotting Amazon

Buying from the independent bookstores came from the book club’s stance on not buying books from Amazon. The boycott movement, popular with many indie booksellers and especially black literary groups, is to bring money back to those booksellers, especially the ones catering to consumers of color since they are usually not the top indie bookseller in their regions. Amazon has been blamed for taking necessary book sales from indie booksellers, especially with the e-retailer giant gaining a stronghold in the publishing industry creating its own books and other media based on books.

connecting with public LIBRARies

This month, the book club partnered with the Los Angeles Public Library to help members find the selected books free of charge. The book club posed the question of what should be its next partnership, and many followers chimed in, with Binghamton, New York getting a lot of votes.

In less than six months, the book club has made a major impact in magnifying the visibility of readers and authors of color, so the next year may bring more advancements in celebrating these literary stakeholders.

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Indie Rapper Noname Enters the Book Club Game

Noname / Billboard

Rising Chicago rapper Noname has announced she’s starting a nationwide book club that will have meetings at local bookstores owned by people of color.

Noname, aka Fatimah Nyeema Warner, made the announcement July 14 via Twitter, that Noname’s Book Club will feature works by women of color and LGBTQIA+ writers. The two August book selections are Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby. In a tweet Thursday, she said she’s looking for bookstore affiliates to hold meetings.

In a world of celebrity book clubs mostly led by white women non-authors, Noname is the second prominent black woman this month to start a public book club. Novelist and memoirist Roxane Gay had her first book club meeting last week discussing Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys that’s being televised on HBO and online at Vice.

Earlier this month, Noname was reminiscing on how her mother, Desiree Sanders, at 25 in 1990 was the first black woman to own a bookstore in downtown Chicago with sharing a business profile on Twitter. According to the profile, the bookstore sat in the back of a beauty supply store with counting celebrities such as Maya Angelou, Chris Rock, and Damon Wayans as visitors.

Instagram

With recent singles like “Song 32,” Noname had canceled the majority of her summer tour due to ongoing health issues. She still has concerts in Los Angeles, where she currently lives, and Chicago, her hometown, set in August.