April 8 – May 20, 2023

April 26 – May 20, 2023

Over the last few years, I’ve been reading unappreciated and erased novels by Black artists from the twentieth century. They’ve helped me think about the idea of illegibility—about what the literary world has historically deemed too wild, complex, radical, experimental, or challenging to be included in the precarious and burgeoning Black canon. I’m also interested in why some promising writers give up after only one or two books. What conditions are required to be a writer over a lifetime? Some of these forgotten novels have since been rediscovered, like Nella Larsen’s twenties classics and Fran Ross’s 1974 Black feminist picaresque, Oreo. Others are still fairly unknown, like William Melvin Kelly’s dem and Willard Savoy’s Alien Land, his only novel, published in 1949, about mixed-race identity and passing. My most recent addition to this “shadow” canon is Alison Mills Newman’s Francisco. Originally published by Ishmael Reed’s press in 1974, it’s a California road-trip story about a Black woman artist, musician, and actress whose husband, the eponymous Francisco, is a Black indie filmmaker. Reading it, I can see how it rubs against that era’s prescribed notions of uplift, chastity, and even Black feminism in its celebration of Black love, sensuality, and joy. It doesn’t deal in the familiar tropes of trauma or alienation, and the female narrator is enthralled by her male lover at a time when narratives about Black men as absent or as abusers were more palatable to the mainstream. Thanks to New Directions, who reissued the book a couple weeks ago, it’s found its way back into the world in time for the author herself to experience its discovery.

—Danzy Senna

Read Danzy Senna on Robert Plunket here.  

The career of the filmmaker/playwright/novelist/actor Bill Gunn serves as both a cautionary tale about the racial and aesthetic narrow-mindedness of the American film industry and a still-visible signal flare to artists interested in pushing beyond conventional forms. His best known work, Ganja & Hess, which he wrote and directed, is a Black vampire movie with hints of Cassavetes and Jodorowsky, a rough-hewn, hallucinatory freak-out that lodges itself deep in your subconscious. It’s now considered a classic, but even with his increased recognition in recent years, being a devoted Gunnian requires a good deal of digging. His great soap-opera homage/parody Personal Problems, a collaboration with Ishmael Reed and a murderer’s row of excellent Black actors and musicians shot on early video equipment, is now in wide and official circulation. But his first film, Stop!, finished in 1970 but never released by Warner Brothers, requires luck and persistence to see. Having finally tracked it down this month in a fuzzy but perfectly watchable dub online, I can say it’s worth the effort. An improbable anticipation of The Shining blended with the free-flowing sexual gamesmanship of Nicolas Roeg’s then-contemporary Performance, Stop! would have been only the second released Hollywood film by a Black director, and surely the strangest for a long time to come. In its startling mix of genres and frank, often sinister sex scenes, it belongs in a dim, curious video store aisle of the mind.

A couple of weeks back, I shared a roundup of pending legislation across several states and at the national level which would ensure the right to read. There is another bill worth highlighting during this legislative session that is making positive progress in Connecticut.

Senate Bill 2, called the Act Concerning the Mental, Physical, and Emotional Wellness of Children, is a wide-ranging one covering everything from children’s mental health coverage to public libraries. Most pertinent to the ongoing removal of books from public and school libraries, though, is the bill’s creation of sanctuary libraries across the state. The bill would allow every community within Connecticut to designate a public library as a sanctuary library, wherein books which have been banned, challenged, or censored will be readily available to anyone who would like to borrow them.

The bill would open up small grants for libraries which choose to take on the distinction as sanctuary libraries, coming in at about $1,200 annually. The bill has made its way through committees and has been slated for discussion on the Senate floor for this week. You can follow the progress here.

Senate Bill 2 signals to libraries across Connecticut that the legislators find access to information so vital that it belongs under the state’s child wellness bill. Connecticut’s Ferguson Public Library in Stamford was the second library in the country to declare itself a sanctuary library in January 2023, following the lead of Chicago Public Library last fall. Under the new bill, any city could designate one library a sanctuary. Those cities with more than one public library may meet criteria to become eligible as sanctuary libraries or may choose to remain “nonprinciple” libraries; the difference would be in ability to receive the grants earmarked for the purposes of sanctuary libraries.

The bill was a surprise to the Connecticut Library Association and to librarians across the state. It emerged following a meet-and-greet hosted by the Ferguson Library following its designation as a sanctuary library; Senator Cici Maher attended the event, and two weeks later, after hearing from constituents that book bans were among the biggest concerns of library workers, she returned to session and her committee and began drafting the proposal.

Why do I pay attention to AAPI Heritage Month? As a school librarian, I spend a lot of time thinking about the diversity of my collection. I’m a white woman working in a school where white kids are a slight minority. I know that my ingrained racism keeps me from selecting books that are appropriate representative of the world unless I make a serious effort. One reliable way to naturally encourage diversity is to pay attention to heritage months. Of course, we need Black and Native American literature year round. We need to be centering gay and disabled authors from September to May, and in the summer, too. But these occasional focuses help me design displays and chose read alouds with intention.

Below, I’ve gathered some picture books that celebrate cultures from around Asia. All books are created by AAPI authors and illustrators, and feature characters interacting with their culture in some way. Whether you’re seeking a story about the act of grappling with your heritage or simply looking for a story where an AAPI culture is a complement, there is something to enjoy.

If you’re looking for more AAPI stories, especially ones for older readers, I’ve linked to some more recommendations below. Hopefully you’ll find a story to either make your readers feel seen or to help them understand how much there is to see in the world.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic circa 2020, there came the rise of virtual book clubs. With the strict adherence to social distancing rules, many started virtual book clubs in schools, libraries, or even just among friends. These virtual book clubs work in a similar way as those from Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon.

But here’s the most intriguing thing that came out of the pandemic: businesses that are not necessarily bookish in nature also started their own virtual book clubs. One such company is MUD\WTR, a coffee brand that launched its book club back in January with self-help book sensation Atomic Habits by James Clear as the first title. There was even a Q&A for their 1,467 members and guests after the session.

“We came up with the idea of a book club when planning for a big campaign in Q1 2023. The idea was around ‘healthy habits create healthy minds’ and my task as community manager was to find a way to make this come alive for our community. I knew from research that our community loves to read, and I used to work at a bookstore, so that helped,” says MUD\WTR’s Community Engagement Manager Britney Haddad. “We’re more than just a product — we’re about encouraging people to rethink their habits. When making positive changes in your life, it helps to surround yourself with people doing something similar, and our book club did just that.”

Chico’s, a clothing brand, also took a leaf out of someone’s book. The clothing store for women relaunched its Chico’s Book Club in March with the first title No Filter: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful, a collection of essays by model Paulina Porizkova. The book club’s rules are more lenient (they want you to do it on your own terms), and most sessions can be done online or in-person.

These brands pivoting toward bookish territory definitely sparks some intrigue and so it raises the question: what’s the deal?

I’ve seen the term “disaster girl novels” floating out there in the ether. In particular, BookTokker Mari (mynameismarines) used the label to describe one of her recommendations, Luster by Raven Leilani. Luster is about a young Black woman who gets involved with an older white man in an open marriage. And it’s messy. The book is designed to make you uncomfortable, like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Reading disaster girl novels is a fairly divisive experience, as you’ll see if you look at reviews. But love ‘em or hate ‘em, these kinds of books elicit strong emotions.

What makes disaster girl novels popular? So many of us are just trying to keep a low profile and get by. Life is hard enough when you are following the rules. So someone who’s blowing up their life, especially someone who thinks it’s a good idea, fascinates me. I am similarly captivated reading disaster girl novels as I am reading nonfiction about cults and scammers. These people just go for it?! The audacity! I could never imagine it in myself (or maybe I’m afraid to?), so I am eager to understand what makes these people tick.

So these are the books for people who like women’s rights and women’s wrongs. Whether the characters are genuinely behaving badly or just making the most questionable decisions, you’ll have a window into a mind pushed to its limit and leaning into its worst impulses.

Young adult fiction has a certain reputation with people who don’t normally read it. Since the books are about teens, the themes must be juvenile, right? What literary adult wants to read about whiny teenagers with their naive problems? Admittedly, some YA books are wall-to-wall with whiny teenagers. That isn’t what defines YA, though. In fact, there are many books that prove nothing is off limits for YA.

First, let’s look at how to define young adult fiction. The target demographic is 13- to 18-year-olds, sure. But authors and publishers are aware that adults read these books, too. Really, there are two pillars that define a YA book. The first pillar is that the protagonist or protagonists have to be in the aforementioned age range. The second pillar is the presence of the bildungsroman or coming-of-age story.

That’s it. There’s no requirement for whiny teenagers or angsty relationships. While some of their problems are very teenage and seem insignificant to adults, others are very real-world, grown-up problems being faced by people too young or experienced to have to tools to deal with them. Wars happen. Friends and family members die. Monsters attack. If conflict can arise in an adult novel, it can certainly rear its head in a young adult novel. Here are 12 books to prove that.

The social horror genre takes societal issues and exaggerates them, turning them into a major source of horror in the story in order to make it all the more obvious how broken society is. This can include things like sexism, racism, or other oppressive systemic issues facing the protagonist(s) and the world they live in.

Think about Parasite’s discussion of the cruelty of the wealthy and the ever-worsening gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. Think about Promising Young Woman’s depiction of rape culture and victim blaming and the way women are often punished in society for the actions of men.

The list goes on and on, but you get the idea. These are all movies in which a societal issue was pushed to its limits narratively to reveal just how drastic the issues are in reality.