50books_poc

50books_poc Uncounted: Resource Pimping: Librivox

Because it's good to share.

Librivox.org, which is partnered with Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, is a non-profit organization that recruits volunteers to create public domain recordings of public domain works.

In layman's terms, free audiobooks. And if you ever wanted to make a techno remix of Shakespeare's sonnets but didn't know where to go in order to get samples, well now you do.

As you can imagine, Librivox is dominated by English-language works as written by white men. There are however works by people of color on the site. Some of the works I found include...

( Read more... )

A week ago I asked y'all to go chip in on Angry Black Woman's effort to compile a list of mindblowing science fiction by POC.

The final list in now published, over at Tor. Go have a look-see! (Not everyone on the list is a person of color, just so's you know -- white women were included in the round-up, since the "inspiring" anthology was both 100% male and 100% white.)

She also posted a commentary on her blog, expressing her thanks and giving her reasons for publishing it at Tor. She concludes:

When we’re confronted by people who claim that there just aren’t very many outstanding women or POC writers in the field, we can point to this and say: bullshit, bucko. Try again.

We have to be responsible for keeping track of and highlighting and celebrating and giving notice to our own and recording the accomplishments of our best. Because no one else is going to do it for us. If they’re not ignoring, they’re actively suppressing. Neither of which is acceptable.

Make lists, write reviews, pass on books, stories, and authors you love. Be heard.

Mindblowing Science Fiction by POC @ The Angry Black Woman

In comments, please list authors or stories or novels you would include in a list of mindblowing science fiction. If you’d like to include a bit on why you feel these choices are mindblowing, feel free. There is no restriction on time period, both modern and decades long past authors and fiction are desired. If someone has already mentioned an author, story, or book you were going to, co-sign.

The suggestions list is running shorter than I expected; anyone want to go chip in?

In contrast to my history on this community, I normally don't read a lot of fiction. I also don't read a lot of history books, ethnic studies books, or memoirs, which seems to constitute a lot of the nonfiction reviewed here. So I'm going to attempt to find some nonfiction books in disciplines I'm interested in.

First I'll try this with the discipline I'm planning on going into (any other aspiring therapists or practicing therapists on this community?) I am not actually familiar with any authors of color in the field off the top of my head; I've done a lot of reading, but following the usual trails leads one to a booklist that is really, really white.

( Read more... )

Hm. It seems the last time I did a delicious + recs extravaganza was, er, May, which must mean that you have a very lazy mod. Or something.

Interesting and/or useful things that we have been collecting at delicious:

• Booklists
  • People of Color in SF Wiki -- hosted by the Carl Brandon Society
    
  • sparkymonster @ deadbrowalking: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors of African Descent
    
  • Books Recommended by Friends of CoffeeandInk, @ LibraryThing, @ GoodReads -- compilation and index of the recs made in this 500-comment RaceFail post
    
  • Books for our Times -- recommended books by African-American authors that "shed light on our times", offered as a corrective to a white-centric list published by Newsweek
    
  • American Book Awards - Before Columbus Foundation -- (description of the award and foundation). Many authors are POC; despite the connotations of the name, award is multicultural-focused instead of Native-focused.
    
  • (I know a BUNCH of booklists got posted during IBARW; I haven't yet had a chance to go through and compile them yet. It'll happen. If you want to help, do the "for:50books_poc" thing listed below, preferably including a short descrip of what we'd find at that link. Otherwise, I'll get to it when I can.)
  
  
  
• Blogs
  • Glyphs - The Language of the Black Comics Community Blog by Rich Watson, focusing on comics by or about people of color.
    
  • American Indians in Children's Literature -- (had I seriously never collected this before? seriously?) reviews and discussions of kid's books about American Indians, written by Deb Reese of the Nambe Pueblo. Most reviews are of white-authored books that get it wrong, but some of the posts are about Native-authored books.
    
  • Novel Spaces -- Group blog of 11 authors, mostly authors of color, in diverse genres: romance, SFF, horror, erotica, and mainstream.
    
  • BronzeWord Latino Authors -- Latest Latin@ books, author resources, showcase for young authors.
    
  • White Readers Meet Black Authors now has an LJ-feed, whitereadsblack
  
  
  
• POC-centric publishers, booksellers, and advocacy orgs:
  
  
  • Zubaan Books -- Indian feminist independent publishing house. "Some of the distinct lists that are being built in Zubaan are: Gender and Reproductive Health/Sexuality, Gender and Conflict, Gender and Architecture, Gender and Law, Gender and History/National Movement, Gender and Economics, The North East of India (including essays and fiction), Fiction in translation (mostly novels), Readers on the Women's Movement/Feminism, Biographies/Autobiographies/Memoirs"
    
    
  • Black Science Fiction Store -- books, comics, ebooks, audiobooks
    
  • African American Electronic Literary Network -- promotes African-American e-book authors, and educates urban communities on ebooks
    
  • Black Author Showcase - Agents of Literary Change -- social networking site with blog, bookstore, author resources.
    
    
  • Black Ink Press -- Community-based Indigenous writing, illustrating and publishing project based in North Queensland, with emphasis on children's books
    
  • Jujurrpa Books Publishes the work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and illustrators. Poetry, oral histories, children's biography, more.
    
  • AIATSIS Aboriginal Studies Press -- Publisher of Indigenous Studies, part of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Not all authors are indigenous.
    
  • Keeaira Press Publications Australia -- emphasis on photographs and art; not all authors are inidigenous.
    
  • Black Words -- newsletter, etexts, publishers, and other resources. Some resources only available to subscribers.
    
  
  
  
• Individual authors
  • Caren Gussoff -- CC-released short stories by Romani spec-fic author Caren Gussoff.
    
  • K Chronickles and (Th)ink -- website and blog of comic artist Keith Knight.
    
  • Podcast interview with Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    

If you have a link to add, either drop it in the comments here or:

• Add 50books_poc to your del.icio.us network.
• Save the link to your account with the tag "for:50books_poc".

And... on to the recs! If you're looking books in a particular genre or on a particular topic, or simply want to say, "Hey, I liked THIS book, what else would you recommend?" leave a comment. With luck, someone might have just the rec for you.

I grabbed these from the bibliography of Kim Anderson's A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood (2000). Anderson is Cree/Métis. I took all the books with Native authors or co-authors, including ones with white editors that seemed to be majority-Native authors. For books with Native co-authors, I didn't exclude ones in which the Native co-authors are in the minority (ex. 2 non-Native authors, 1 Native) because I thought people could still use it to look up other books by the Native co-author. There are other women of color authors also in the bibliography, but I excluded them to keep the focus on Native authors.

( Giant list of books )

I picked up these two randomly from the library. Our Twisted Hero was on the table promoting Asian Heritage Month at the library. Link here for reading suggestions. I Say a Little Prayer was on a shelf in the hardcover fiction section.

( Cut for length and potential spoilers )

Note about tagging: I've added a "translation" tag but haven't tagged the (white) translator although his name is noted in my post.

It's been nearly a month since the last one -- let's have another recs post!

First, a reminder that book club is coming up -- next weekend, April 19th, we're going to discuss Octavia Butler's Kindred. (Much thanks to nevermind98 for organizing it!)

Second, we've been adding stuff to the 50books_poc del.icio.us. (Again. Still. More.) Here's a bunch of the new stuff:

• Booklists
  • Legal Defense Fund Book Corner -- book reviews and commentary from the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. (Not all authors may be POC.)
    
  • The Root's Global Book List -- recommended recent books by black authors.
    
  • Mixedfolks.com Library -- Books about mixed-race people. Many authors are mixed-race POC, but not all.
    
  • Celebration of Women Writers -- both browsable and searchable by ethnicity and country. (They list "Muslim" as an ethnicity, which is kinda borked, but overall it's still got lots of good stuff.) Links to ebooks, too.
  
  
• POC-centric publishers:
  • Huia Publishers -- Māori books: novels, plays, histories, biographies, politics, and language; both adult and children.
    
  • Magabala Books -- Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, "Australia's oldest independent indigenous publishing house."
    
  • Indij Readers -- literacy materials for indigenous and non-indigenous Australian children learning to read and write.
    
  • African Writers Series -- UK publishing imprint
    
  • Peepal Tree Press -- Caribbean and Black British fiction, poetry, lit crit, memoirs, historical studies.
  
  
• Awards (children and young adult):
  • Baobab Prize -- African literature for children. Three categories: readers 8-11; readers 12-18; writers under 18.
    
  • Children's Africana Book Awards -- children's books about Africa published in the U.S. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Noma Award for Publishing in Africa
    
  • Tomás Rivera Book Award -- for books that authentically depict the lives of Mexican-Americans in the United States. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Américas Book Award -- "works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction" that "authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States.""
    
  • Carter G. Woodson Book Award -- social science books that depict ethnicity and/or race relations in the United States
  
  
• Awards (adult):
  • Fonlon-Nichols Award -- given by the African Literature Association, for "excellence in creating writing and contributions to the struggle for human rights and freedom of expression"
    
  • Caine Prize for African Writing -- African literary prize for short stories. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Booker Prize -- best novel published in the British Commonwealth. (Not all authors are POC).
    
  • Commonwealth Writers' Prize -- best book and best first book in the British Commonwealth. Finalists are selected by region, which makes the list of finalists for the past 20 years (pdf) pretty darn awesome. (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Noma Award for Publishing in Africa -- awards for scholarly/academic, children's, and literature.
  
  
• Online Literary Journals
  • Sable -- for new writers of color; international. Mostly print, but occasional full-text stories and articles are published on the website.
    
  • African Writing Online -- creative short fiction, essays, poetry, drama and art primarily from African writers and artists; published in the U.K.
    
  • Meskot -- Ethiopian online literary journal.
    
  • Kwani? -- Kenyan online literary magazine.
    
  • Sea Breeze -- Liberian online literary magazine.
    
  • One Ghana, One Voice -- blog for Ganaian poetry; new poem published every week.
  
  
• Other Resources for African Writers
  • BBC - Africa Beyond -- "African arts and culture in the UK and beyond." Includes regular features about writers and poets.
    
  • African Philosophy Resources -- "philosophy which focuses on Africa, philosophy done in Africa, and philosophy that is part of the traditional conversation among African philosophers."
    
  • African Children's Literature -- article about children's lit in Africa, includes bibliography (not all authors are POC)
    
  • Gambian Writers
  
  
• Publishing Industry
  • WriteBlack -- "Welcome to WriteBlack, where I write about the vagaries of the publishing industry and occasionally praise, occasionally criticize and always pick the nits of books written by black authors — with special attention paid to genre writers. "
    
  • GalleyCat - People of Color -- weekly column featuring people of color in the publishing industry: books, authors, agents, publicists, etc.
  
  
• Other Stuff
  • Literary Obama -- Books about the Obamas! Books by the Obamas! Books that inspire the Obamas! Books! Obamas! Books! (Not all authors are POC.)
    
  • Crossroads - Over the Road -- Korean science fiction stories online (!)
    
  • Color Online -- Blog focusing on young women of color. Book reviews, poetry, festivals, and more.
    
  • Interntional Romani Writers' Association
    
  • Destination: Salon Literary Guide to the World -- articles recommending books about various countries, takes a "virtual tourism" perspective. (At best, only half the authors in any given list are POC.)

In addition to the ebooks tag (which has new links as of April 3rd, not all of which are listed above), there's now an eshortworks tag. I added an academic tag because I know someone (sorry, I've forgotten who!) was looking for academic-voiced resources, and there's a poc-centric-booksellers tag for people who are trying to make conscious decisions about where they spend their money.

If you have a link to add, either drop it in the comments here or:

1. Add 50books_poc to your del.icio.us network.
2. Save the link to your account and tag it "for:50books_poc".

On to the recs! If you're looking books in a particular genre or on a particular topic -- or simply want to say, "Hey, I liked THIS book, what else would you recommend?" -- leave a comment. With luck, someone might have just the rec for you. ;-)

Last week I finished two novels that were well written but that I couldn't really get into. Maybe you would like them more than I did. :)

10. Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie

Shalimar the Clown is a big, international, multigenerational novel that starts out in Los Angeles in the 1990s with the assassination of the former US ambassador to India by a Kashmiri Muslim called Shalimar the clown. It goes back through a lot of history and family sagas through California, India, France, and England. I really liked the connections he made between these places at different times in history, particularly with the history of tense but usually peaceful coexistence of different cultures and religions, both between Jews and Christians and between French- and German-speakers in Strasbourg before WWII and between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir. The plot is complex and the prose is very…let's say skillful, but I always felt the narrator was a bit distant from the characters, more interested in being clever than in helping me connect with them. So in spite of all the loves and betrayals and horrible things happening to these characters I never cared all that much about them. ( The audiobook was read by Aasif Mandvi. )

11. Blind Faith by Sagarika Ghose, 2006

I hadn't heard of this book or author before I ran across it in the bookstore a couple months ago, but the cover looked interesting and I liked the first sentence, so I decided to give it a try. The first sentence is, "When the plane from Delhi to Goa exploded in mid-air and plummeted into the Arabian Sea, the sky wavered momentarily like a computer screen ribbed by static." Isn't that lovely? I really like Ghose's style, the way sentences would go in unexpected directions like that, and I liked knowing right away that this was set in contemporary India.

I also liked that the two main characters are women: there's Mia, a British journalist of Indian heritage, and Indi, an Indian civil servant who lives in Goa and is passionate about her career and refuses to give it up despite her progressive blindness. However I eventually started to get bored with the plot about Mia feeling torn between the two men in her life. She's married Indi's son Vik, a successful businessman, and moves to Delhi to be with him, but she also feels attracted to this mysterious religious fanatic named Karna who wants women to return to their traditional roles. And it's, you know, supposed to be about her choosing between these two men but also choosing between different ideas of what India is and what she's supposed to be, which I guess is interesting but it felt to me like it was done in a heavy-handed and repetitive way, so I was tired of the novel by the time I got through it, even though it wasn't all that long (about 270 pages) and the plot did eventually get more interesting.

The copy I have came with an interview with the author at the end and a list of ten works of Indian literature that she recommends. I thought I'd copy it here since I know a lot of us are always looking for more suggested reading. ( Sagarika Ghose recommends )

I have been adding a SLEW of links to the del.icio.us account -- it's doubled in size in the past few weeks. Some of these links have already shown up on the comm in various places, but a lot of them haven't.

So here, have a sampling of stuff that's been added to the link-list lately:

Children and Young Adult

• African American Children's Book Writers and Illustrators -- association for up-and-coming children's writers and illustrators of color, includes reviews of new books.
  
• Black Threads in Kid's Lit -- African-American kidlit-specific blog of Kyra E. Hicks
  
• Coretta Scott King Book Awards -- Award for African American authors and illustrators for outstanding contributions to literature for children and young adults
  
• Just Us Books -- publisher of Afro-centric children's books (list of featured Black authors)
  
• The Brown Bookshelf -- YA and children's-lit blog written by African-American authors Paula Chase-Hyman, Varian Johnson, Don Tate, Kelly Starling Lyons, and Carla Sarratt.
  
• Asian-American protagonists in YA fiction -- (not all authors are POC, but still a good jumping-off point)
  
• Awesome Non-White Children's Lit: An Introduction -- by fox1013
  
• Awesome Children's and Young Adult Books by Authors of Color and with Characters of Color -- by jadelennox
  
• American Indian Youth Literature Awards -- from American Indian Library Association (not all authors are POC)
  

SF/F

• Carl Brandon Society Awards -- Awards for spec-fic by or about POC (Parallax award winners are POC authors; Kindred award winners may not be)
  • American Indian Heritage Month Reading List
    
  • Hispanic Heritage Month Reading List
    
  • Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Reading List
    
  • Black History Month Reading List
• Haikasoru -- Publishing imprint for Japanese SF/F translated into English (article announcing first four titles)
  
• POC SFF Authors and Protagonists, from WisCon 2008 Panel -- (not all authors are POC)
  
• World SF News Blog -- links and news about speculative fiction from around the world. Companion to The First Apex Book of World SF.
  
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler
  

LGBT

• Sistahs On The Shelf -- blog devoted to Black lesbian fiction
  
• People of Color in Lesbian Fiction (not all authors are POC)
  
• Redbone Press -- books by and about black lesbians and gay men

Multiracial

• Loving Prize -- annual award for "outstanding artists, storytellers and community leaders for inspirational dedication to celebrating and illuminating the Mixed racial and cultural experience." Many past recipients are authors of mixed-race.
  
• Halvsie - Half Japanese Wiki: Literature

Africa & Caribbean

• Fahamu Books -- African publisher on topics of social justice
  
• African and Caribbean Book Recs -- from livrelibre
  
• South African Literature
  
• New York Public Library: African and Caribbean Literature
  
• Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century

Everything Else

• Big List of Awesome Authors, Poets, Playwrights, and Scholars -- denim_queen's list, now 400+ books
  
• Black American Free Thought Association - Suggested Reading List (not all authors are POC)
  
• African American Commercial Reading, Writing, & Publishing -- blog collective of black readers and writers talking about commercial publishing
  
• First Nation Communities Read Program -- library community leading program featuring books by or about First Nation, Métis, or Inuit (not all authors are POC)
  
• Philippine Comics Art Museum -- scanned copies of classic comics by Filipino artists
  
• News From Nowhere -- Liverpool bookseller with excellent selection of POC-authored books. Diverse sublists, including Romani, Asian LGBT, biracial kidlit, British slave trade, much more.
  
• Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature -- large subsections on African, Caribbean, South African, and Singaporean post-colonial lit
  
• OzLit's list of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers

If you have things you'd like to add to the del.icio.us collection, either drop a link here, or add "50books_poc" to your del.icio.us network, save the link to your del.icio.us account, and tag it "for:50books_poc".

One more thing. On the last links/recs post there is one request which hasn't yet been responded to: good/great historical fiction with a youngish protagonist; books about reservation life. Anyone got any suggestions?