Doesn't have to be published this year.
Why you recommend it would be greatly appreciated.


Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir
by Kwame Onwuachi & Joshua David
a light read and an honest look at how confident Black men have to navigate this world.Black foodies will enjoy this but it's not just about a chef.

Will post more as I remember them

That shit felt like a fever dream and every time I stopped reading for the evening felt like I was coming up for air.

>That shit felt like a fever dream and every time I stopped
>reading for the evening felt like I was coming up for air.

Thanks for the rec

Looked it up myself and it sounds awesome. Like something I've been needing in my life.

Can't wait

marlon james wrote himself amongst my favorites with the quickness..

a brief history of seven killings is also greatness
john crow's devil as well.

can't wait for black leopard's next installment

Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg

¨Your mother is Colin Powell¨ - Lurkmode

www.Tupreme.com

Dopesick caught me completely off guard when the heroin dealer that is one of the central figures in book turned out to be Rapper Big Pooh's brother.

Bad Blood got me really hoping the eventual Elizabeth Holmes movie is as wild as the story is.

The part where co-workers could tell what part of the Steve Jobs bio Holmes was reading by her behavior?! Hilarious.

Dopesick I didn't really care for, Dreamland by Sam Quinones had covered the topic in a better way but I may just think that because I read it first and it took place closer to home. Sigh.

>The part where co-workers could tell what part of the Steve
>Jobs bio Holmes was reading by her behavior?! Hilarious.

"A month or two after Jobs’s death, some of Greg’s colleagues in the engineering department began to notice that Elizabeth was borrowing behaviors and management techniques described in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple founder. They were all reading the book too and could pinpoint which chapter she was on based on which period of Jobs’s career she was impersonating."

About two aging criminals looking back on their lives. Sad and humorous, a lot of it takes place in parts of Spain that I am familiar with.

There, There- Another one that is sad and humorous, intersecting stories about modern Native Americans.

Kanye West Owes Me $300- entertaining read about a white dude who almost made it big in the rap game.

Orphan X- solid read about a defected CIA dude who basically just starts killing bad guys.

Blood and Honor- about the Nicky Scarfo era of the Philly mob, interesting to me because a lot of the stuff happened in my neighborhood.

michelle obama book that I received as a gift from my mother. it’s a very relatable story.

Hanif Abdurraqib's "They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us" was my answer to this post last year and his second book "Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest" will be my answer for this year. Hanif is so good about sharing his relationship and memories with artists as a fan and how music has woven in his life while also allowing the reader to reflect on how it's woven in their own.

This was a Beautiful memoir where everyone's humanity was shown and no one was perfect. Go in looking for reflections on relationships and pretend you don’t know her dad.

https://abstracto.wordpress.com/reviews/cortijos-wake/

https://www.amazon.com/Salsiology-Afro-Cuban-Music-Evolution-Contributions/dp/0313284687

https://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0060512806

>https://abstracto.wordpress.com/reviews/cortijos-wake/

I've had a weird number of smart people recommend this. You might be the (good kind of) last straw on this one.

His intro is very informative but also entertaining.

I've only visited Puerto Rico once, but having driven through the area discussed in the book, it's already incredibly rich with cultural signifiers about class and race that are familiar and yet obviously different from those we are accustomed to in the US.

I've been on a huge salsa kick for several weeks, buying a ton of old records and listening non-stop. Cortijo and his childhood friend Ismael Rivera were giants of the genre and paved the way for many other musicians afterwards, and the story of the two musicians is integral to the story of the music.

>I've only visited Puerto Rico once, but having driven through
>the area discussed in the book, it's already incredibly rich
>with cultural signifiers about class and race that are
>familiar and yet obviously different from those we are
>accustomed to in the US.

I'm a dogshit traveler (lazy, uninspired, etc.) but what you're talking about here is exactly how it looks in the rare occasions I succeed and don't do a bunch of hackneyed stuff.

Julia as an observer is endowed with such humility, humor, and keen insight.

looking forward to it, thanks.

Talking to Strangers - Malcolm Gladwell
Ego is the Enemy - Ryan Holiday
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker - Damon Young

Kitchen Confidential

Just bought the Rakim book.

by Mark Hanson


I needed this cuz I really don't give a phuck about ppl's problems and the world's problems. This book validates who I am when I don't have any phucks to give.

I stumbled (way too late, oops) on Clarice Lispector last year or the year before with Near to the Wild Heart of Life and loved it. But I think Passion of GH is actually better. It's weird and claustrophobic but also open and wild and clearly "free" in some other senses. Also, Lispector has clearly read a bunch of medieval women mystics, which appeals to a niche academic pursuit and makes me feel like I know a secret handshake that, like, two other people share.

Started reading Gustav Landauer this year in a collection that is uncreatively titled "Revolution and Other Writings". He's an eccentric, fragmentary thinker but unlike Bakunin, it's kind of fun. He also got deeply into medieval mystics, and his work is peppered with attempts to wrap his head around Meister Eckhart. In any event, I like reading political theory but sometimes have a hard time making it mean something small and personal and that seems to be the exact struggle that he found in his own career so reading the essays slowly unfold into and around that problem is sort of gratifying.

Also read up on the author, Lispector. Interesting story.

You said the novel was more rewarding somehow in that you were already keyed in on what was likely the author's source material. Do you think someone with zero knowledge of medieval women mystics would be missing out during the read?

The entire book is an exceedingly bizarre spiritual epiphany by the main character. I appreciate what I believe to be her source material, but Lispector is a uniquely skilled writer so that the content of that epiphany is provocative and juicy enough that no prior knowledge is necessary for understanding, appreciation, or enjoyment. It speaks for itself perfectly well.

If you love the Beasties, punk, hip hop, or New York.

its definitely shifted my view a bit

d

The Evolution of Hard Sci-Fi, David G. Hartwell

There's no Octavia Butler stories. but science fiction as a whole is something I haven't read since I was young. It was refreshing to step outside of my typical tastes

"Nine Lives" by Ursula K. LeGuin is one of, if not the first entry/entries. It was interesting to read a short story about other worlds and cloning that was written in 1969.