In August, 2019, Chicago-based rapper Noname launched her book club,and we are excited to be one of their partner libraries! The book club selects two titles a month to discuss among an online and in-person community of readers. Meetups are held in cities across the country from Los Angeles, to New York City, to Washington DC. Described as “reading material for the homies,” Noname’s Book Club highlights books that speak to human conditions in critical and original ways while encouraging members to support the works of authors of color.
Noname has long been a reader and supporter of books--her mother owned the Afrocentric Bookstore in Chicago when she was a child. Her goals for the book club, as stated in a recent NPR interview, are to highlight voices that may not be picked by other book clubs, to welcome all readers, and to educate people on timely, tough social topics. She hopes that people will engage with the books and each other both online and in person.
The selections for January are:
Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Die, Nigger, Die: A Political Autobiography by H. Rap Brown
Past selections include:
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Persepolis (the story of a childhood) by Marjane Satrapi
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
How to Cure a Ghost by Fariha Roisin
Memory of Fire II: Faces and Masks by Eduardo Galeano
Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli
Don't Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South by Michale Twitty
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life: Essays by Samantha Irby
