Book Picks: The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois

**Triggering Content (child abuse) Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award (yes, people, I’m still catching up on early pandemic booklists), Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ novel The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois has given us an immensely rich novel, one that hooked me with the depth and drama of a Black family spanningContinue reading “Book Picks: The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois”

Book Picks: Palmares

Palmares is marvelous. Magical realist and at times even Biblical, Gayl Jones’ novel is set in a fictional Brazil at the end of the 17th century. It opens with the young first-person narrator Almeyda, observing Mexia, a mixed race woman. She serves as a model for a particular type of femininity: quiet, alluring, and outwardlyContinue reading “Book Picks: Palmares”