Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and other lies

Non-Fiction November 2022 TBR

As the name suggests, Non-Fiction November is a month-long readathon where the main point is to read more non-fiction books than you’d usually do. This readathon/challenge is hosted by abookolive and this year there’s prompts you can use to make your TBR if you so wish and you can interpret each word/prompt however you want. Those prompts are:

– Record
– Element
– Border
– Secret

I’ve looked through my TBR and I have ten non-fiction books waiting to be read. A few of them are gifts but most of them are books I’ve bought myself as I have interest in the topic they’re about. I’ve featured all ten books but I’ve highlighted the three very different books I think I’m most likely to pick up this month – though hopefully I’ll read more than that.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
Rafa Nadal: The King of the Court by Dominic Bliss
Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and other lies by Scarlett Curtis
Women vs Hollywood by Helen O’Hara
Common People by Kit de Waal
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin
She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
What Would Boudicca Do? by E. Foley and B. Coates
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

Rafa Nadal: The King of the Court by Dominic Bliss
This is like a coffee table non-fiction book, full of photos and short chapters, so should be a relatively quick and easy book to read. Nadal is one of my favourite tennis players and he currently holds the record of the man with the most Grand Slam titles.

She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
This is by two of the journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal and how they got people to talk about the abuse he inflicted on many actresses and other women in the film industry.

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
I feel like I should know more about the history of Black people in Britain and learn about the things I just wasn’t taught about in school.

Are you planning to read some non-fiction next month? Surprisingly (to me) I’ve read 10 non-fiction books/memoirs this year so far. My favourite was Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan. I’m interested to see if any of these non-fiction books knocks it off the top spot.

Non-Fiction November TBR

As well as November being Sci-Fi Month it’s also Non-Fiction November. It’s a readathon/challenge hosted by abookolive, steakuccion, Infinite Text, Curious Reader and The Book Bully and the main point of it is to read more non-fiction than you normally would that month.

There are four one-word prompts to help shape your TBR if you fancy using them. They are Time, Movement, Buzz and Discovery. You can interpret these anyway you want to, and you don’t have to use them.

I have 11 unread non-fiction books; more than I thought I did to be honest. I’ve picked out four books that I’d like to make a priority next month. Somewhat unintentionally it’s a mixture of books for my Read the World Project and books that are feminist.

What Would Boudicca Do?: Everyday Problems Solved by History’s Most Remarkable Women by E. Foley and B. Coates
This was a gift from my best friend. It looks like one of those fun non-fiction books where you can learn about real people but in a tongue in cheek way as it uses these interesting historical women as ways to give you advice on your own life. This could fit the “Discovery” prompt as I don’t really know anything about Boudicca or some of the other women included in it.

An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
This will be my book for Togo in my Read the World Project. It’s Kpomassie’s autobiography. He discovered a book on Greenland when he was a teenager and from then knew he had to go there. An African in Greenland follows his journey from Togo to Greenland and his adventures among the Inuit. This could easily fit the “Movement” prompt.

Child Soldier by China Keitetsi
Another book for my Read the World Project and this one’s Uganda. I think this will be a very tough read as it’s an autobiography about Keitetsi’s life on Uganda and as a National Resistance Army child soldier. This could also fit for “Discovery” as I don’t

Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (And Other Lies) curated Scarlett Curtis
This is a collection of essays from a wide range of celebrities including, actors, writers and activists all talking about what feminism means to them and how they started to call themselves feminists. This would fit the prompt “Buzz” as it’s a book that I saw a lot of hype about when it was released a couple of years ago.

I think An African in Greenland and Child Soldier will be my priority during Non-Fiction November but I should be able to read the other two as well as they are essay collections rather than narrative non-fiction so I could read an essay or two a day.

Are you taking part in Non-Fiction November? What’s the last non-fiction book you read? I’ve read five non-fiction books so far this year and my favourite so far is Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble by Graham Hunter.

TOP TEN TUESDAY: Winter TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week it’s what books we plan to read this winter. I’m not particularly a seasonal mood reader but here are a mixture of books I’d like to read before 2019 finishes and books I want to get to early in the New Year.

The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
I really want to hit 100 books read for my Read the World Project by the end of 2019 and I’m really close (I’ve read 98 books/countries) and The Good Muslim is a book that’s recently come into my life and it will cross off Bangladesh from my TBR. The Good Muslim is about two siblings who have been scarred by war and how they attempt to reconnect.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
I’ve had this book on my TBR for years, probably since it was first released and got all of its praise. I recently got the audiobook cheap so I’m hoping that’ll give me the push to finally read it.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker
Graphic novels are always a good way to get more books read before the year is out. I’m sure this will be a tough one though as it’s based on George Takei’s childhood experiences in a internment camp.

Night, Again edited by Linh Dinh
This is a short story collection from different Vietnamese writers so theoretically it should be a relatively quick read.

How To Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
I received this through TBTBSanta a few years ago and I still really want to read it. It’s an essay collection about the roles of literary heroines in our lives and how their stories can impact us.

Only God Can Make a Tree by Bertram Roach
Another one for my Read the World Project this book is by an author form Saint Kitts and Nevis and it’s a pretty short book at less than 150 pages.

Black Panther: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 by Christopher Priest, Mark Texeria, Vince Evans, Joe Jusko, Mike Manley, Mark Bright and Sal Velluto
I got this graphic novel collection for my birthday a few months ago and it’d be good to read it soon. Plus, T’Challa is one of my favourite Marvel characters so I would like to learn more about his history.

The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne
Contemporary YA, even hard-hitting YA, is often very easy and quick for me to read so maybe I’ll get through this one before the end of the year.

Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (and other lies) curated by Scarlett Curtis
I do like reading essay collections as they can be something you can dip in and out of, I think that’s how I’ll read this book over the next few months.

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard
I got this book in a subscription box years ago and I did try to read it then, but I couldn’t really get into it. Since then I’ve heard more and more good things about this series, so I want to give it another go.

What books do you want to read this winter?

Women’s History Month TBR and the Indieathon TBR

This TBR post is basically going to be one big month-long TBR but a subset of these books will be relevant to my Indieathon TBR. March is Women’s History Month and because I became aware of this sooner rather than later, I plan to focus on reading books by women this month. Each year I read a pretty equal split between male and female authors, but I always find it interesting to take a proper look as to what’s on my shelves.

Also in March is the Indieathon, which is a week-long readathon where the aim is to read books from independent publishers. This readathon is hosted by Ninja Book Box and it runs from Friday 8th to Friday 15th March.

In this big TBR post there will be far more books than I could possibly read during a month (though saying that I am going to making some long train journeys for work this month so that’ll give me more reading time than normal) and I’ll note which books are from independent publishers so those are the ones I might read during the Indieathon.

I have many unread books that are written by women but not so many unread books that are from independent publishers but, surprisingly to me, most of the books on this TBR are indie books.

Burning Cities by Kai Aareleid (translated by Adam Cullen), published by Peter Owen Publishers.
Mere Chances by Veronika Simoniti (translated by Nada Grošelj), published by Dalkey Archive Press.
A Fortune Foretold by Agneta Pleijel (translated by Marlaine Delargy), published by Other Press.
Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena (translated by Margita Gailitis), published by Peirene Press.
The Red Beach Hut by Lynn Michell, published by Linen Press
Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and other lies curated by Scarlett Curtis, published by Penguin
A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney, published by Titan Books

The first four indie books on my TBR this month are all for my Read the World Project. I have, at my last count, 149 countries left to read so it’d be nice if this month could give me a push with my international reading.

Set in the Estonian city of Tartu, Burning Cities follows two generations of the Unger family from the Second World War to the twenty-first century. Mere Chances is a collection of short stories that are said to be strange and about characters who are struggling to maintain their identities. Soviet Milk is about the affects of Soviet rule on one person, how a woman strives to become a doctor but outside forces stop her and even deprive her of her relationship with her daughter. A Fortune Foretold is a coming of age story about a young girl in 1950s Sweden who uses fortune-telling and prophesies to make sense of the world around her. The last indie book on my TBR is one I received from Ninja Book Box’s Summer Reading box last year; The Red Beach Hut is about the friendship between an eight-year-old boy and a man who takes refuge in a red beach hut.

I’m not sure which indie books are the ones I’ll read during the Indieathon specifically, as I’ve said before I’m very much a mood reader, but these books are both from independent publishers and by women, so I hope to read them this month.

All the books mentioned so far feel like they are serious reads so I’ve also picked up Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and other lies it’s a collection of essays and writings from lots of different women from different walks of life, so it’s something I can deep in and out of easily. The last book on my ridiculously ambitious TBR is A Blade So Black. I thought it’d be a good idea to throw some YA in here and this is an urban fantasy story inspired by Alice in Wonderland and with a black protagonist.

These are all the books I’d like to read this month. Are you focussing on reading books by female authors this month? Or are you taking part in the Indieathon? There’s going to be Twitter chats and Instagram challenges so I hope they help me to keep on track. Whish me luck! If I read five of these books that’ll be good for me.