I'm so excited for January To Be Read List !!

 If you know me, you probably know that I do a lot of reading. My house is full of books. I'm also a part of three different book clubs, and then I also read for my own pleasure.  So, here are the books that I'm hoping to get to/finish by the end of January 2021, mostly in order of how they are stacked on my desk and when I need to read them.

How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith: Nearly every every every list of recommended books from 2021 has this book on it. I grabbed a copy from Literati's Atlas Obscura club (my first love in Literati is Malala, but they opened me up to a lot of books), and I'm about halfway through with this. Completely amazing prose about the places in our country touched by the taint of slavery. So far, it's wonderful, and exciting, and just infuriating at the same time. (The chapter on the Blandford cemetery incensed me, but in a good way.) I'm probably going to write a much deeper review on this for the blog next week. It is so good!

The Renunciations by Donika Kelly: I picked this up a few months ago with the Literati book club hosted by Roxanne Gay (one of my very favorite people), and never got around to reading it, so I'm going to try and start. I have read through the first few already and love the blackout poetry that she includes. I don't read nearly enough poetry for someone who teaches it. 

Rosewater by Tade Thompson: This is for Life's Library and I have until February somethingth to finish it. I'm about three chapters in. I am loving the premise of an aperture in the dome that heals people of all of their illnesses, but at the same time I wonder what the price of that healing will be and how the main character is related to it.

The Mindful Writing Workshop by Richard Koch: This one is for school. I picked up last summer hoping to get some ideas for my Creative Writing class, but I fell behind with it. Originally I picked it up as a Kindle book, but decided that I needed the physical book as I like to annotate and sticky note books, especially when they're for studying. I like to be a good role model for my students.

All the Stars and Teeth  by Adalyn Grace: One of my reading Discord servers (Life's Library Readathon! Amazing people and wonderful readers!) recommended this one. Another writing discord server (Yay That Writing Place) is having a reading challenge to read one book from each letter of the alphabet so I'm starting with this one.

Call us What we Carry by Amanda Gorman: I'm reading this with Malala's Literati Book club (another one of my favorite people in the world and also one of my personal heroes. I'm going through her Masterclass right now), but also by Amanda Gorman and Yay more poetry! Amanda Gorman was the beautiful young poet who read at Joe Biden's inauguration. I hope these are just as inspiriting.