A Penny for Your Books...Please!

The written word feels like a French kiss to my untethered soul.  When I was in kindergarten I remember sitting in our South Philadelphia kitchen with my older cousin Donnie reading the pictures of a book with such reverence that he commented, "girl you swear you can read."  That was before ever child was born talented and gifted and we didn't learn to read until first or second grade.  My family moved shortly thereafter and in our new house I didn't have many books.  But in third grade I was granted the privilege of my very first library card, and in the sound of a snap I went from a girl who liked to skate, skip and step, to a head over heals book worm. 

It feels like just yesterday when the summer was salty and sultry and I was dressed in a flowing skirt and moccasin sandals, walking with a handful of books six blocks to the Logan library.  The stone steps sent a jolt of excitement through my heart that was hard to contain as I pulled back the heavy door and entered heaven.  Just the smell of black ink on all of those stitched pages cast all thoughts of making it home in time for dinner far, far away.  I was helpless to the stories in books by America's favorite adolescent authors Judy Blume, Paula Danzinger and Joanna Hurwitz.  Each week I trotted home with five books and I repeated the act with such faithfulness that the librarian started setting new arrivals aside for me. 

In seventh grade I discovered the Sweet Valley High series, you remember the books about the popular identical twins that were always pretending to be each other and getting into trouble?  My teacher Mr. Klechuski looked liked he smoked a pack of Marlboro Reds a day and his coffee was always getting caught in his hippy beard and mustache so it was hard to take him seriously.  Instead of paying attention while he taught things that I already knew, I slipped my paperback between the pages of my text book and lost myself for the entire day.  It wasn't until high school that I discovered the great African-American writers such as Maya Angelou, Terry McMillan, Toni Morrison and Bebe Moore Campbell and I would read so much during my fifty-minute lunch period that my best friend would hide my books in an attempt to make me social.

So in honor of Woman's History month, I've composed a list of my favorite books by or about women to share with you.  Some will make you laugh, holler, and get so far under your skin that you'll want to share it with your book club.  Books make me oh so happy, and I hope you will enjoy one or all of them.

Fiction
Acting Out by Benilde Little
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Leaving Cecil Street by Diane McKinney Whetstone
Now is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker
Sugar by Bernice McFadden
This Bitter Earth by Bernice McFadden
Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
Brida by Paulo Coelho
The Blue Orchard by Jackson Taylor
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Mama by Terry McMillan
Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (short stories) by ZZ Packer
Damaged by Kia DuPree
Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
* Love in a Carry-on Handbag by Sadeqa Johnson (coming soon!)
Historical fiction (slavery, futurist, biblical)
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Cane River by Lalita Tademy
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
Family by J California Cooper
A Long Way From Home by Connie Briscoe
Jubilee by Margaret Walker
Memoir / Biography /Autobiography
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Laughing in the Dark by Patrice Gaines
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wall
Memoirs of Geisha by Arthur Golden
Foreign Fiction
The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Spiritual
Peace From Broken Pieces by Iyanla Vanzant
Yesterday, I Cried by Iyanla Vanzant
Everyday Grace by Marianne Williamson
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Seven Soulful Secrets for Finding your Purpose and Minding Your Mission by Stephanie Stokes Oliver
Listening Below the Noise: A Meditation on the Practice of Silence by Anne D. LeClaire
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hays
Woman's Studies
Women who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Lips, Hips and other Parts by Ayana Byrd
Star Woman by Lynn V. Andrews
Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts: Using the Power of Pleasure to Have your way with the World by Regena Thomashauer
The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine
On Writing
bird by bird (some instruction on writing) by Anne Lamott
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron
Writing Motherhood by Lisa Garrigues
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
Poems
Love Poems by Nikki Giovani
Maya Angelou Poems: by Maya Angelou
Head Off & Split: Poems by Nikky Finney
Selected Poems (PS) by Gwendolyn Brooks
Plays
For colored girls who have considered suicide / When the rainbow was enuf  by Ntozake Shange
The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Spunk by George C. Wolfe
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson

So this is my list!  Make some time this month to curl up with one or a few of these books in honor of the many women writers and stories that have paved the way for us today.  Happy reading!

With gratitude,
Love, Light and Laughter!