Do You Have Any Wlw Books That Star Women Of Colour?

*finishes reading a full book in 3 hours* who am i

In fact, it's the best way of living life

Strolling aimlessly in a bookshop is selfcare

10 Female Written Short Stories Everyone Should Read

I have seen a post circulating for a while that lists 10 short stories everyone should read and, while these are great works, most of them are older and written by white men. I wanted to make a modern list that features fresh, fantastic and under represented voices. Enjoy!

1. A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri — A couple in a failing marriage share secrets during a blackout. 

2. Stone Animals by Kelly Link — A family moves into a haunted house.

3. Reeling for the Empire by Karen Russell — Women are sold by their families to a silk factory, where they are slowly transformed into human silkworms. 

4. Call My Name by Aimee Bender — A woman wearing a ball gown secretly auditions men on the subway. 

5. The Man on the Stairs by Miranda July — A woman wakes up to a noise on the stairs. 

6. Brownies by ZZ Packer — Rival Girl Scout troops are separated by race. 

7. City of My Dreams by Zsuzi Gartner — A woman works at a shop selling food-inspired soap and tries not to think about her past. 

8. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor — A family drives from Georgia to Florida, even though a serial killer is on the loose. 

9. Hitting Budapest by NoViolet Bulawayo — A group of children, led by a girl named Darling, travel to a rich neighborhood to steal guavas. 

10. You’re Ugly, Too by Lorrie Moore — A history professor flies to Manhattan to spend Halloween weekend with her younger sister.

The bean jar

Found my cat curled up in my blanket this morning and I just had to take advantage of the cuteness!

We need more diverse books in literature. More voices need to be represented.

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has released the results of their 2019 survey on diversity in kidlit/YA.

We thank them for this invaluable work, note their commitment to adding Arabs/Arab Americans in future surveys, and present these graphs of their findings.

The 3,716 books surveyed have this many main characters total for the following groups:

Black/African: 11.9%

First/Native Nations: 1%

Asian/Asian American: 8.7%

Latinx: 5.3%

Pacific Islander: 0.05%

White: 41.8%

Animal/Other: 29.2%

LGBTQIAP+: 3.1%

Disability: 3.4%

“Taken together, books about white children, talking bears, trucks, monsters, potatoes, etc. represent nearly three quarters (71%) of children’s and young adult books published in 2019.” - librarian Madeline Tyner

When we looked at the breakdown for IPOC creatives who wrote and/or illustrated stories with characters of their own race, we found the following:

First/Native Nations: 68.2%

Pacific Islander: 80%

Latinx: 95.7%

Asian/Asian American: 100%*

*NOTE: these percentages include both authors and illustrators and, as pointed out by author Linda Sue Park for past surveys, Asians/Asian Americans are frequently illustrators but not necessarily authors of their own stories, meaning this is not fully reflective of #OwnVoices representation.

Black/African creatives wrote and/or illustrated only 46.4% of stories featuring Black/African characters.

This is the work that still needs to be done.

Trivia Tuesday #4

The largest library in the world is the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It has more than 170 million items. It's also one of the most beautiful!

Photo source

Learn more about the Library of Congress here! You can also read more about the top 10 largest libraries in the world and the most beautiful libraries in the United States.

Leo Tolstoy sure does know what happiness is!

“Rest, nature, books, music… such is my idea of happiness.”

-Leo Tolstoy

I honestly think that crying over a book is one of the most prominent sign of compassion for humanity. You’re crying over someone who isn’t really there, doesn’t really exist, but you still feel for them as if you have known them your entire life.

Reading opens our minds to the world around us, taking us to places even though we're only within four walls.

One real benefit of reading I rarely hear anybody mention is how much more interesting life becomes when you read a lot. It depends what you’re reading, of course, but most (good) books will teach you something you didn’t already know, and even if you have to give the book back to the library, you get to take that much with you. A lot of people talk about things they wish they’d studied in school–I’ve done it, too–but it’s a nice consolation prize that you can always pick up a book and learn something new. And as that library in your brain collects more volumes, everything around you gains new resonances, new context, and new connections which make your lived experience richer. In quarantine alone I’ve read about religion and politics and history and evolution and computer science and astrophysics without even leaving my house and it’s already a more interesting world.