1. Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks.
This is my number 1 favorite book!!!! A self-help book written to help black women on their road to self-recovery, I credit this book with helping me grow and embrace my womanhood. I discovered this book at Brooklyn Public Library on a warm sunny day in NYC. While the sun was shinning outside it seam dark and gloomy to me. A recent college graduate, and newly single, I was in a state of confusion about my life, love and future. I checked the book out and I am sad to say (cause I am a librarian), I never returned the book. I sat outside the library and read the first three chapters. It is as if bell hooks was speaking directly to me. With chapters on learning how to love being dark, successful unions, how to live in a community and how to find work that I love, hooks tome saved my life! This book helped me embrace being a black woman and to love my hair, dark skin, big hips and shapely figure, but to love the most important part of me: my exquisite mind. I have since purchased and had hooks sign a new copy for me, but I keep the copy I checked out of the library on my bookshelf. I re-read the book a few times a year re-reading sections I highlighted in 1993. It reminds me of how far I have come as a black woman and reminds me that self-help is so important!
2. It is no wonder that I became a Librarian. I also found my second all time favorite book at the Crown Heights branch of BPL and yep I still have the copy. Black Boy by Richard Wright is my second choice of a book that changed my life. I discovered Wright’s tome at 13, far too young to have read this book, but I did. It enlightened me at an impressionable age about race relations in America, life for black boys and men and solidified Wright as one of my favorite authors. I have since re-read the book many times as an adult just to feel Wrights words, thoughts and feelings.
3. What will make you happy? Is it love, money, family, or peace of mind? In Search of Satisfaction, J California Cooper, fictional story and characters will make you think about what is happiness. I am not sure how I found Cooper’s book, but after reading the first chapter, I was mesmerized by her metaphors, choice of words and life lessons that she delivers via her characters and their lives. I re-read this book every year to help me focus on what I really want and desire from my journey in life. She is my favorite fiction writer.
4. Brooklynites who love independent bookstores, will remember Nkiru Books and ABC bookstore. I grew up going to book signings and readings at these small bookstores where I learned the value of small businesses and reading books by and for African Americans. My fourth book is by an author who I saw at ABC Bookstore. She came in draped in traditional African Garb and with her head covered. Her chocolate skin was gleaming and she flashed her bright smile at all the attendees. I am talking about the lovely Iylana Vanzant and the fourth book that helped change my life is Tapping the Power Within. Vanzant’s first book is a self-help book to help women tap into their internal feminine power and to grow into black womanhood. This book taught me the importance of covering my crown and learning to look at life with my third eye. A must read for any woman struggling to find her feminine power and style.
5. When it was time for me to change my dietary habits and embrace a holistic lifestyle, I turned to the bible of the health books, Heal Thyself by Queen Afua. After my first read, I slowly stopped eating meat and began to do fire breaths and yoga. After the second read, I embarked on the 21-day juice fast. Since first reading this book over 10 years ago, I have fasted, embraced colonics, and embraced ad natural foods lifestyle. At 38 people mistake me for sometimes 10 years younger—I credit learning about a natural lifestyle from Queen Afua for the youthful appearance.
What are your top five books that has helped you change. respond in the comments section, and let me know! I’ll post the next five next week.
With you on your journey,
Tarshel
Just 5? That’s tricky ‘cause I gotta’ million of ‘em but I’ll give it a go.
1. Tanya – (can’t remember the author). This was the very 1st book I purchased with my own money. My elementary school had a RIF (reading is fundamental) program, which worked like a book club. The kids got their own order forms and waited for the books to arrive within the month. Tanya was described as a mystery, something unusual was happening at the house next-door type of story. I was in the 3rd or 4th grade. This book officially made me a book buying reader.
2. Mama – (by Terry McMillan). Terry McMillan’s 1st novel and the beginning of my love affair with her work. This book proved to me that contemporary Black slice of life stories are worth telling and that maybe just maybe I could be a writer too.
3. The Prophet (by Kahlil Gibran) During my 1st semester college interpersonal communication class a classmate shared this book, as an assignment. After reading it I felt philosophical and deep…started talking in slow-metered tones and got on everyone’s nerves pretending to be some kind of mystic. I heard a lot of, “What’s up with her? She just read her 1st Gibran book…Oh, okay.” By 2nd semester I was back to my jackassy self again.
4. The Alchemist – A Fable About Following Your Dreams (by Paulo Coelho). A wise friend gave me this quick and simple read, as I was on the cusp of making a major life decision. He inscribed my copy, “Best next move”. It’s one of those “happiness in your own backyard” stories I turn to it whenever I need to be reminded about the value of change and intuition.
5. Then and Now – Reflections on Yesterday (by Dolores E. J. Anderson). This book was written as a calendar for the year 2000. Each date has one or more historical facts about the lives and contributions of Black people. I knew the author well and this project was her life’s work. If she were alive today I know her 2008 and 2009 updates would be collector’s editions.
Just peeking in to see if you have fed your blog lately…(sigh).
But here are 2 more books to add to the discussion.
1. The Coldest Winter Ever – by Sister Souljah
2. Midnight (the prequel to Coldest Winter Ever, although written in reverse order) – by Sister Souljah.
I just read Midnight very recently and it motivated me to re-read The Coldest Winter Ever for what probably makes the 5th or 6th read for me. Yup, it’s that kind of book. You can read it over and over and each time it’s like the first time even though you know how it will end. Kinda like watching New jack City – you know what’s going to happen, but you still pause it to go to the bathroom!
Not only have I read this book many times but I’ve purchased it just as many times, because each time I own it, I let someone borrow it and I NEVER get my copy back! I’m glad folks are reading, but gimmme my dang books back yall!
The tale chronicles the life of Winter Santiaga, daughter of a Brooklyn drug lord. She truly is the coldest winter ever – but winter always turns to spring though never with out some dark gloomy messes!
The 1st time I read this books I finished it while waiting for a delayed flight in the Miami International Airport – what a powerful backdrop to the book’s ending. I found myself sobbing at the close of Winter’s story and looking around the airport trying to guess how many young women likely carried luggage with contents that could force a similar perdiciment on themselves.
The novel, Midnight, fully explores a character who we didn’t get to know a lot about in the first book and it too ends leaving us to know there will be more to come.
Ok, if you don’t post someting new on this blog I’m just gonna keep ranting on and on and on about more books….
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion will be next…
…still checking
Here’s some motivation: 3 solid posts Ja Grill on me!