50books_poc

Born with a Tooth is Joseph Boyden's first published book, a short story collection divided into compass directions (North, South, East, West) which inform the reader which part of Ontario the stories are set in.

Boyden's has two other works to his name, the loosely interlinked Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce, both of which earned critical raves and won major literary awards in Canada. Born with a Tooth is a rougher work with Boyden never manages to hit the staggering heights he achieves with his sprawling novels, perhaps finding the short story format too confining. Also, bizarrely, one story features characters with names identical to the characters in Three Day Road although none of their other features including the setting, background or characteristics are the same.

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6. Crystal Blanton (ed.), Shades of Faith: Minority Voices in Paganism. Pagans of colour write about their experiences. As with any such anthology, some pieces engaged me more than others; some were very moving.

7. Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince. This one is great - a post-apocalyptic dystopian take on the Gilgamesh epic, with strong female characters, in a setting where bisexuality is unremarkable and possibly even the norm. It left me hoping for a sequel, and I will definitely be checking out more of Johnson's work.

8. Karen Lord, Redemption in Indigo. Fantasy set in West Africa. I gather it's a retelling of a Senegalese folk tale, which means I miss most of the references, but that didn't spoil my enjoyment. Again, I will probably read more of her work.

This features several of the female characters from Satrapi's Persepolis, gathered together over tea in a Tehran apartment and taking advantage of their menfolk's afternoon nap to talk freely about their sexuality. It's beautiful and touching and very much in line with other things I have read about Iranian women's culture, and I highly recommend it.

Before I started this challenge, I read Parma's first book, Spirited - a 102-level book for Wiccans and Neopagans - and liked the writing style. I have recently joined a Druid organisation, and since Druidry tends to work with the Three Realms of Celtic mythology rather than the four elements preferred in Wicca and much ceremonial magic, I was interested to see what he had to say on this topic. Unfortunately, the title turned out to be rather misleading; there is very little reference at all to the Celtic background of the Three Realms concept, which is perhaps explained by the fact that not a single entry in the bibliography is a source that focuses on that culture. Although it does nominally have one section dedicated to each of the Realms, the assignment of topics to those sections seems a bit random. I also found the ordering of the sections counter-intuitive; Parma suggests that the Sky realm is the most alien to our ordinary experience, so it would make more sense to me to place it last rather than second. However, as a 201 book for Wiccans or other eclectic Neopagans - which in fairness is pretty much what it's intended to be, judging from the introduction - this probably isn't bad; it just wasn't what I was expecting from the title or from my previous reading of Parma.

ETA: I have a version of this review on my own journal, and oakmouse commented over there to say that the Druid Revival end of the Druidry spectrum does tend to use the four elements and not the Three Realms (unlike ADF, which is closer to the reconstructionist end, although it does not actually define as reconstructionist). I'm grateful for the correction.

(When I came to post this, I noticed that my previous post to this comm had double-posted, so I've now deleted one copy; apologies, mods and anyone else who was annoyed by that.)

I was a bit disappointed by this; I didn't really feel Davis answered the question of the title. She seemed to spend most of the chapters showing how racist and sexist the prison system is, which I kind of already knew, although I did learn some new detail about the US version. There was very little about restorative justice or other alternatives to prison. Pointing out the oppression that's endemic in the prison system is important, but I'd have liked to hear more about possible solutions too.

Help support the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Fund! Buy a copy of Bloodchildren - the new ebook anthology of stories written by the Octavia E. Butler Scholars.

As a member of the Board of Directors of the Carl Brandon Society, what I can tell you is this: the annual cost to send a writer of color to Clarion and to Clarion West is about $8000. Therefore, we are looking for 1000 people to buy one copy each of our new anthology - or 500 to buy two, or - well, you get the idea.

Production and publication of the anthology has been supported by generous donations by SF3, the parent organization of WisCon, and individual donors.
http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/book/bloodchildren/

I believe this was originally published in India as "Yoga Practice: Yama and Niyama"; I read the French Kindle edition, but various Indian websites seem to have copies of the original available. It is an introduction to yama and niyama, which are often referred to as the ethical foundation of yoga. It gives the best explanation of these two concepts I've seen, with a clear account of what the difference is supposed to be (the traditional translations of "restraints" for yama and "observances" for niyama never quite worked for me as a way of making sense of which practice belongs on which list). It also has some useful practical suggestions for incorporating them into your daily practice.

Angel Kyodo Williams interweaves episodes from her life with an introduction to Buddhist teachings and commentary on some ways that Buddhist insights can be applied in the context of black experience. What Williams writes about Buddhism was not new to me, but the memoir sections were engaging. I'm not qualified to comment on what she says about Buddhism as a way of addressing one's experience of racism; if someone made equivalent suggestions about how I as a disabled bisexual woman should deal with my experience of patriarchy, biphobia or ableism, I think I'd feel that the experience was being trivialised, but of course different oppressions are experienced differently by different people.

Hello, everyone! I've been watching this comm for a while, but didn't join because I didn't feel I had the spoons to commit to reading 50 books. Ironically enough, I'm pretty sure I have read at least 50 books by POC in the time the comm has existed, so I needn't have worried, but at the time it would just have stressed me out. Now my spoon levels are improving, I'm committing to reading another 50, and hopefully actually posting about them as well. I'll post my first review shortly, but meanwhile, you might also be interested in this Storify from a Twitter discussion where @feministtexican asked people to list books on feminism by WOC. I'm certainly adding some of them to my own wishlist.

Kim Scott, Iris Woods and the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project, Mamang (2011)

*Lizzy_bbb* gave Pearl a University of Western Australia Press picture book. It represents a story originally told by Freddie Winmer to a linguist in the 1930s, found, workshopped with his Noongar descendants and presented as a picture book.

I edited the story as it involved a man taking a ride inside a whale. In my version he made it go faster by shouting GO! GO! rather than by poking it with a spear.

Also, it was a nice change of pace as so many collections are of stories from the centre and the north west. As colonisation started in the south east, it's nice to have some stories from the bottom part of the continent where colonisation was experienced earlier and differently.