Reads 365: No.5
A new month, a new theme.
December : Year in Review
A combination of literary classics & essential reads
As always, some of the books features heavy subject matter, so please be mindful of the content warnings and research them fully.
Your mental wellbeing matters.
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
An ex-slave is haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. Morrison's masterpiece about trauma, motherhood, and the afterlife of slavery is devastating and essential.
📚 Genre: Literary Fiction
📖 Pages that changed literature
🏆 Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize
#MarginsXReads #Beloved #ToniMorrison #PulitzerPrize #BlackLit #AmericanClassic #Slavery
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo
Twelve Black British women's interconnected stories spanning a century. Evaristo's Booker Prize winner is joyful, experimental, and essential—a celebration of Black British womanhood.
✨ No punctuation. All heart.
📚 Genre: Literary Fiction
👑 Revolutionary storytelling
#MarginsXReads #GirlWomanOther #BernardineEvaristo #BookerPrize #BlackBritishLit #BlackWomen
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Janie Crawford's journey through three marriages to self-discovery. Hurston's 1937 classic celebrates Black Southern vernacular and women's autonomy.
✨ "She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons."
📚 Genre: Literary Fiction
🌅 Poetic prose
📚 Harlem Renaissance classic
#MarginsXReads #TheirEyesWereWatchingGod #ZoraNealeHurston #HarlemRenaissance #BlackClassic
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A Nigerian woman blogs about race in America while her first love waits in Lagos. Adichie's epic love story tackles race, hair politics, identity, and belonging with wit and wisdom.
✨ "Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black."
📚 Genre: Literary Fiction
✈️ Spanning continents
🏆 National Book Critics Circle Award
#MarginsXReads #Americanah #Adichie #NigerianLit #Immigration #Race #LoveStory
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
What if the Underground Railroad was an actual train? Whitehead reimagines Cora's escape from a Georgia plantation through a surreal, devastating America.
✨ Magical realism meets historical horror.
📚 Genre: Historical Fiction
🚂 Brilliant speculative history
🏆 Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award
#MarginsXReads #Day35 #TheUndergroundRailroad #ColsonWhitehead #PulitzerPrize #Slavery #HistoricalFiction
December’s Year in Review book list