Diversify Your Reading List: Who and What to Read this Autumn

After an ever-lasting summer, autumn has finally rolled around. Though it can be tempting for many of us to opt for that long list of dark academia fiction we never finished last year (or the year before), October is the perfect time not only to broaden our horizons and begin reaching for books we might not have thought about reading before, but also to celebrate Black excellence in literature and art. This list is composed of several genres and books that celebrate Black writers, Black history, the Black experience and some amazing Black characters:

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, Paterson Joseph

In The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, Paterson Joseph re-imagines the life and times of the excellent Black writer and composer in 18^th-century London. Like many other Black geniuses, the maverick’s life has been a mystery to many due to historical erasure. This elegantly written book gives the recently named “Great Black Briton” new life, placing him on the pedestal on which he has rightfully earned a spot. 

Paterson Joseph has in his historical novel and debut fully inhabited the slave-born Sancho, taking the few known facts and breathed life into him, finally immortalizing him among the stars of literature, language and music. 

Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin

“Black is a terrible color in which to be born into this world,” writes James Baldwin in his autobiographical collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son. The book tackles race issues in both America and Europe, such as traditions for the black man, his own strained relationship with his father, the search for identity and the isolation within the black community. It was his very first non-fiction book and remains, to this day, a modern American classic – deservingly so. 

Baldwin is the perfect author to start with once you make the decision to decolonize your bookshelf. Though it’s been a good year or two since I read this book, I remember how his words moved me in a way I cannot describe. These essays allow you to crawl into his fascinating brain as he critiques and narrates  his own Black experience during the 1940s and 50s. Be warned that this collection of essays cannot be rushed through. Every moment  of bitterness, pain, and unfairness is piercing. 

A creator of sympathy and emotion, I’m not entirely sure if Baldwin wrote Notes of a Native Son as a form of empathic communication between the reader and himself, or if he simply sat down by the typewriter and bled his soul onto the pages. Either way, it is a beautiful book. 

The Women Could Fly, Megan Giddings

“This is the story of the witch who refused to burn. Some people said that there was power in her blood, a gift from her ancestors that she could endure.”

The Women Could Fly is a dystopian novel about Josephine Thomas and her unbreakable bond with her mysterious mother. She theorizes that her mother was kidnapped, perhaps murdered, or that she was a witch. In Josephine’s world, the worst thing a woman, especially a black woman, can be accused of is witchcraft. 

Megan Gidding’s novel reminds me of the works of Shirley Jackson and Margaret Atwood in its use of the dystopian in order to provide social commentary. It is a feminist epic that speaks to our current time, whilst also in many ways remaining timeless.  

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World and Become a Good Ancestor, Layla F. Saad

In the summer of 2018, Layla F. Saad ran a month-long Instagram challenge that became a cultural movement worldwide. People from all over the world used the #meandwhitesupremacy challenge to examine and own responsibility for ways they keep White Supremacy alive. Now, Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World and Become a Good Ancestor is a book that takes readers on a journey through white privilege, white supremacy, and how to become a better ally.

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert describes Layla Saad as “…one of the most important and valuable teachers we have right now on the subject of white supremacy and racial injustice.”

The book engages and practically hands readers the right tools to change themselves, their communities, and in turn, the world. 

They Can’t Kill Us All: The Story of Black Lives Matter, Wesley Lowery

They Can’t Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery explores the deaths of black men such as Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Freddie Gray at the hands of the police. Through hundreds of interviews over the course of a year, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery uncovers life inside neglected and heavily policed parts of America in an effort to grasp the response to the brutal deaths of Black men in America. 

The book features moments of joy as well as tragedy, but is a great way of learning about and understanding the historical tensions between law enforcement and those they are supposed to protect. It describes many of the key incidents that later led to the internationally recognized  #BlackLivesMatter movement. 

Babel, R.F. Kuang

This one is for those of you who want to see characters of colour properly represented in both fantasy and dark academia. 

Babel, the prestigious Institute of Translation at the University of Oxford, is the centre of the world and its knowledge. Robin, who was orphaned in Canton and brought to England like other students at Babel, thinks the institution to be a paradise until his eyes are opened and the reality is revealed. Should Robin, Ramy, Victoire and Letty, a band of misfits who will never truly fit into the white halls of English academia, defy the institution that has given them language, life and a second chance, or should they withstand the ever-growing colonial empire?

I was unsure of whether or not to include this in the list as the writer, R.F. Kuang, is a Chinese-American. However, I’m yet to find a book where the author has put this much effort, intent, research and dedication into getting her characters of colour right, so I will allow this book its own space on the bottom to not take away from the writers above. It is also home to some of the most amazing young characters of colour, which Kuang, with the help of her friends, wrote with detail and compassion. She is one of the few popular fantasy authors who I personally feel writes every character with unmatched intention. Kuang does not toss POC characters in because she feels like she should, rather she creates a setting which cannot exist without them. Babel, despite taking place during the Victorian era, would not be the same without Robin, Victoire and Ramy. In fact, it would simply not be. 

Featured Image Credit: Amazon