I had the opportunity to sit down with @laurenesouthe & discuss her debut poetry collection @childofcongo + recently released chapter book Bullet Fragments From a Child of Congo. She is truly a generational talent! Read the full interview @afropean & be sure to add these works to your tbr list! Link to this interview is in my bio ✨
#books #africanliterature #blackbooks #congoleseliterature #africanpoetry #africanpoet #tbrlist #tbr
Grief, forgiveness, and family— these are the words that remain with me upon completing francesca ekwuyasi’s 2020 debut novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread. In this novel, ekwuyasi tells the story of a family that is fractured following several life-altering events, and their interwoven paths to seek reconciliation and harmony (both within themselves and with each other) once again. The story — which spans several countries and continents— follows Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Taiye and Kehinde over the course of their lives. Kambirinachi believes she was born an Obanje, or a child with a malevolent spirit that plagues its family with misfortune by dying in childhood — a circumstance which in particular caused misery to her mother. Now a mother herself and a widow, she is constantly placed between two worlds, that of the living and of the dead. Her kin calls her home, and yet she remains in mortal form living for her children and experiencing everything that comes with the human condition. Her twin daughters, once inseparable and deeply intertwined, have not spoken in over a decade. They must find a way back to each other if either is to feel a sense of wholeness again. The estranged three reunite at their home in Lagos, where old wounds can no longer be repressed and healing is the catalyst to a new life. (full review at link in bio)
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so basically what i’m saying is read this book!! 😭😭😂✨ what’s on your 2026 tbr???
#bookstagram #blackauthors #africanliterature #books #bookish #blackbooks #africanbookstagram #africanbooks #nigerianauthors #booksbooksbooks #butterhoneypigbread
April Book of the Month!
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I’m so excited to get into this collection of short stories. In Call and Response, Gothataone Moeng walks readers through the lives of ordinary families as they navigate relationships, tradition, and what it means to thrive in an ever-changing world.
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I tend to really enjoy short stories and how though compact, they are filled with profound wisdom. As one reviewer writes, “…these radiant stories are filled with the stuff of life: joys and sorrows, the wisdom of generations, the ceremonies of the everyday…”
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Has anyone ready this already? Let’s chat below!
The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself. - George M. Johnson
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Join me and the Insideherreads book club as we read ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ during the month of March 🌸✨
Happy Black History Month ✊🏾🖤
February’s book is The Middle Daughter by Chika Unigwe. I’m so excited to get into this story about family, freedom and discovering womanhood — all things which personally resonate with me right now.
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This will be my first time reading Unigwe’s work and stepping into her world of characters (which I’m told is truly captivating). Have y’all read this one yet? Have you read any of her texts? Let’s chat in the comments!
Happy New Year!!! The insideherreads book club is back, and our January Book of the Month is Maisy Card’s These Ghosts are Family.
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This novel is about the consequences of a thirty-five-year-old secret on several generations of a family. The story takes us from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem and follows characters as compelling as they are haunting. These Ghosts are family is Card’s debut novel.
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If you’d like to join our monthly discussions please send me a dm with your email address. Let’s get into this text! Happy reading, y’all! ✨🫶🏾
Hello beautiful people! 👋🏾 it’s been a minute and I miss this space 🫶🏾 Here are some titles from my 2024 TBR. What’s on your list? What do I need to add to mine??
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Also, *drum roll* the insideherreads book club will be returning in January, and the book of the month announced on January 1st! If you’re interested in joining just dm me “insideherreads.” I’m so excited to read with you all and grow in community 💓
“Haunted landscape...Emotional bonds...Collective history” once I read those phrases in the description of this book, I knew I wanted it to be my next read!
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Here’s our book for May, book club! Sing, Unburied, Sing is a novel by Jesmyn Ward that tells the story of a family making a trip from their Gulf Coast town to the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
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I just know this one is going to have us at the edge of our seats, and fully engulfed in the story from start to finish.
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What are you all reading right now? Has anyone read this book? What are we in for?!
After posting that I’d completed The Vanishing Half I received a couple of dms asking me what I would rate the book on a scale of 1-5. I wasn’t sure how to answer that, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to qualify the book in that way.
I enjoyed The Vanishing Half, I did. My feelings, or rather, my opinion about the book seems to be changing the more I really process the story and it’s characters. I was initially so hung up on this idea that a black person could ever become white. It just didn’t make any sense to me. As the story progressed however, and I began to really understand each sister and how she may have been affected by the trauma of their past, it started to make sense. Not make sense in that it’s logical or acceptable, or that I’d act in the same way, but you see how she may have wound up there. I liked this story. I’m saddened by it, and I experienced several deep and mostly unpleasant emotions while reading it, but it was good.
I’m not sure how to rate it out of 5, but I certainly recommend it as a read. Brit Bennett definitely did something here!
