Read Women discussion

Hi all! My two oldest daughters and I will be hosting a small event at our church about decolonizing your bookshelf. We actually have offered it as an auction item, and we'll be making dinner and desert as well. I very much appreciate the conversations that I have had in this group, and I would love it if you all would offer your thoughts here. I have been actively trying to diversify my reading material, and the results have been pretty cool - outside of just finding really amazing "new to me" authors. If you have done this as well, I would love to hear any thoughts you have on the process and how or if it has changed anything for you. I am also going to create some book lists for people. I don't have to tell you all that it is mostly white, male authors who get the big advertising bucks, who make it into "the canon," who fill up most school reading lists, etc. I want to give people lists that are diverse. If you like SciFi, try these authors - kind of a thing. It seems like so many times, I will hear a conversation about a certain genre like fantasy, and the only authors I hear are Terry Brooks, Brandon Sanderson, or others like them. Don't get me wrong, I love their books, but I would also like people to know about Namina Forna, Andrea Stewart, and Deborah Harkness for example. Later, I will post some of the lists I have come up with, but if you have suggestions, by all means - post away! I will come back and chat more later as it has been a 12 hours work day for me. Ugh.

Looking forward to picking up some suggestions from your lists. I hope you and your daughters have fun, and that your audience enjoy your swaps. I think that it is all about adding variety and new-to-you joy to your reading. Something you highlight may become a new favourite.

I think this is wonderful, Misty! I think awareness is the first step, and for myself it was largely due to this group (and others that have come and gone) that I started diversifying my shelf. Once I started making it my goal to read more women and step away from those male authors, I began to make my yearly goals specific to Black women, women of color, Indigenous or Native American women, African or Asian women. This group specifically has helped me focus on regions around the world and honestly after a while I find many male authors just don’t write their characters well enough for me. I would just say check out our challenge chats (read around the world, indigenous authors, black women authors, even our author bingo) and see what’s there. Again, this group has been amazing and they’re always offering those recs. Can’t wait to see your lists!

Thanks for your responses! I'm actually a little nervous about it. The first thing I am working on is young adult fantasy without Rowling's transphobia. So far I have Zoraida Cordova's Brooklyn Brujas series and Nnedi Okorafor's Nsibidi Scripts series. I would love other suggestions.

What about the group read coming up- Eden Robinson’s Son of a Trickster. I haven’t read it yet but seems to fit the category according to the tags.

Misty wrote: "Thanks for your responses! I'm actually a little nervous about it. The first thing I am working on is young adult fantasy without Rowling's transphobia. So far I have Zoraida Cordova's Brooklyn Bru..."

Alternatives to Harry Potter is a great idea. There are so many other authors to explore, and parents, aunties and uncles get stuck thinking of what else to buy. We are coming up to Christmas and we are all desperate for ideas.
Have you thought how to pass on your suggestions - I have seen people produce homemade zines or small playing size cards. It would be great to have something small that you could take home and keep in your purse before venturing out to a bookstore.

What a great idea! I've been trying to read more Native North American authors (as I live in North America) and have encountered some of the most brilliant and powerful storytellers of my many years on this planet. I look forward to items that get posted here. Do you have a target age-group?

A couple of recommendations:
childrens:
I Lost My Talk by Rita Joe
adults:
The Strangers by Katherena Vermette

Jen wrote: "What about the group read coming up- Eden Robinson’s Son of a Trickster. I haven’t read it yet but seems to fit the category according to the tags."

Thank you. I don't do many of the group reads, so I hadn't looked at it yet. I will check it out though. Thank you.

Sonia wrote: "Have you thought how to pass on your suggestions."

Honestly, the only thing I have thought about was to just give them print outs of the suggestions. I hadn't thought about it much beyond that.

Sara wrote: "Do you have a target age-group?"

No - not specifically. I was thinking more of a comprehensive overview if that makes any sense. I thought I'd make a list of many different categories and have some suggestions for each. I haven't heard of those authors. Thank you.

Misty wrote: "Sonia wrote: "Have you thought how to pass on your suggestions."

Honestly, the only thing I have thought about was to just give them print outs of the suggestions. I hadn't thought about it much b..."

A print out is fab ♥

Great idea!

I joined this group a few years ago for this very reason - to get suggestions for books written around the world, by women and women of color, etc. Probably 2/3+ of the books I now read fit within that category, so it has been a success!

Are you focusing on specific categories, or trying to compile lists across many genres?

I've read a few Fantasy series recently that I'd recommend. Both considered "YA", but I thoroughly enjoyed them despite not being their targeted audience. Might be great for your girls, depending on their ages?

1)
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
This is a 3-book series and actually follows loosely along actual historical events (the Japanese takeover of Taiwan for example, and Civil War in China)

This is the same author who wrote Yellowface by the way.

2)
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir is another fantasy series that leans a bit dystopian.

First of all, what amazing initiative! I hope to be back with some more recs...

Misty wrote: "Thanks for your responses! I'm actually a little nervous about it. The first thing I am working on is young adult fantasy without Rowling's transphobia. So far I have Zoraida Cordova's Brooklyn Bru..."

I will think about this more, but the first thing that comes to mind is Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl (and the series). I didn't read those yet, so I am not sure if the vibe is at all similar to HP/witchy, but it's YA written by trans author with - I believe? - Korean heritage.

Also, Elatsoe & Sheine Lende comes to mind. It's not necessarily witchy, but I would say that a bit of a cross-appeal to HP fans might be there and... I can't remember if the MC is trans? But gender non-conformity is definitely present and the author is Indigenous and trans.

Okay - the next category I am looking at is historical fiction. I would love your suggestions for BIPOC women in this genre. I have a few so far:

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss it is set in 19th century Australia. The title is apparently the first Wiradjury word used as a title of an English language book. There is also a sequel which I thought came out next year, but I just found out it came out a few months ago. Going to snatch that one up soon!

This next one is usually labeled as SciFi, but I label it as historical fiction/thriller. Okay, okay - it doesn't totally fit, but I am going to include it anyway: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler.

Human Acts by Han Kang is a pretty rough but very powerful fictionalized story set during a time of political upheaval in South Korea in the 1970s.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a story of a young girl in Ohio in the 1940s who wants her eyes to turn blue.

I am going to comb through my list to see what else I have to add, but please throw your suggestions at me!

Adding to my list!

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

Here are a few Historical Fiction books I've read and enjoyed this past year:

As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
Technically historical fiction, but very recent history - this book is of the endless wars Syria has dealt with in the last few decades. It remains one of the best yet hardest books I've ever read. It's beautiful and heart-breaking and all too real.

Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Written from several perspectives during the Vietnam War, mainly the view from the women left in its wake.

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
A story of continued slavery in Barbados following the Emancipation act of 1834, and one woman's attempt at freedom for her family.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
Set in the fictional village of Kosawa, this is a story of greed (mainly American, but of village and city leaders as well), following the discovery of oil in African villages and the pipelines that dominate their land.

Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi
This story starts in Kabul in 1978 during the communist uprising in Afghanistan, then follows the life of Sitara into the early 2000s.

These are great suggestions Lindsey. Thank you.

I would love suggestions for Mysteries, Thrillers, Dystopian, and Science Fiction. TIA!!!!!

I'll comment on mysteries and thrillers, by sub-genre because I spend a lot of time combing the global options for this category.

Glory Be by Danielle Arceneaux (book 1 in the series; book 2 will be released this year). It's a cozy mystery, and the mystery is the least successful aspect of the novel, but readers don't mind because Glory is a great MC. She's a divorced, middle-aged, somewhat heavier African-American church lady living in Lafayette, LA and she's also a bookie. Everyone in my IRL book club loved it and gave it a pass for it's debut-typical weaknesses, and they are all excited about book two, Glory Daze: A Glory Broussard Mystery coming out.

The two biggest names are Rachel Howzell Hall and Attica Locke, both of whom write from LA.

African American author and breast cancer survivor, Rachel Howzell Hall, has published 13 books which take place in L.A. and feature female protagonists. Her books are not my jam, but she belongs on any shortlist, no question. Her most recent is, What Never Happened

Attica Locke has authored 6 mystery/thriller books and she is also a screenwriter and producer. Bluebird, Bluebird is probably her best-known novel, won multiple awards and made a ton of lists when it came out. https://www.atticalocke.com/

LitFic Thriller: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Nigerian author, Oyinkan Braithwaite. Family drama where the mystery is, why is everyone behaving as they're behaving? I loved this novel and highly recommend it for a more litfic leaning crowd. Traditional, page-turner thriller lovers might find it isn't what they were expecting.

The blog linked below presents several additional options, including Barbara Neely's Blanche White series (too slow for me, but very popular; amateur sleuth) and Nekesa Afia's historical mystery series set in 1920s Harlem and featuring her queer, amateur sleuth MC, Louise Lloyd. Dead Dead Girls is book 1 in the series. Afia's not terribly interested in the mystery, e.g., it's just a structure for writing about the topics she is interested in, and her pacing is uneven, but the opportunity to spend time in historical NY with a Black queer woman is well worth the shortcomings of this series. And the cover art is gorgeous.

https://blackfeminisms.com/mystery-no...

Lauren Wilkinson: American Spy: Thriller, as per the marketing blurb: "a unique spin on the cold war thriller". Barack Obama included it in his 2019 summer reading list : )
Alyssa Cole: When No One Is Watching - Cole is a best-selling romance author, plus scifi, but her 2020 release, WNOIW, was marketed as a thriller, and is her venture into this genre. It takes place in Brooklyn and addresses gentrification.

Nikki Dolson, best known as a short story writer, wrote All Things Violent. Her website lists her short stories, probably the best way to experience her talent. https://www.nikkidolson.com/writing

Elizabeth Wilkerson, author of Tokyo Firewall, a thriller/suspense novel in 1990s Japan, and more.

Yale-educated attorney who served for a decade + in the Georgia House of Reps, Stacey Abrams, has written several thrillers, including While Justice Sleeps, Coded Justice: A Thriller and more.

Last year, we read as a group Ramona Emerson's debut mystery/thriller, Shutter, the first in a series featuring Native American Navajo forensic photographer Rita Todacheene as the protagonist. Book 2, Exposure was released last fall. I highly recommend Shutter for anyone trying to read non-white women mystery/thriller authors. It's a special one, despite the typical weaknesses of debuts in this genre. You might want to look at the discussion thread for more details and takes.

Chinese-American author, Grace D. Li's Portrait of a Thief is best-described as a heist novel, but it also addresses Chinese-American identity and deeper themes. I guess I'd put it in the thriller category but not expect a page-turner.

A cozy culinary mystery series that is hugely popular and features a Filipino American women MC is Mia P. Manansala's Tita Rosie series: Blackmail and Bibingka, Homicide and Halo-Halo, Arsenic and AdoboGuilt and Ginataan and Murder and Mamon. She originally got a 3-book deal and is now working on her 6th, which speaks for itself. I hated Arsenic and Adobo with all of my heart for reasons I could rant on about for hours, but I am alone in the corner by myself with this opinion.

Last: Asian American author, Jesse Sutanto's Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers and Dial A for Aunties are very popular light mystery novels, with delightful covers as a bonus. Her website has a great page to review them: https://jesseqsutantoauthor.com/books

Hope this gives you some good ideas.

I forgot one of my favorite reads of 2023, but it's not for everyone:

The Old Woman with the Knife: A Novel by Korean author Gu Byeong-mo. Written in Korean, available in translation. The main character is an aging assassin-for-hire. And it's Korean, so you probably know all you need to know about its darkness. Simply masterful for readers not looking for the typical Western mystery/thriller tropes.

I hope this is readable to you! Worst case I can always email you my spreadsheet.... Some of these I have read, some are planned to read. All authors listed are female. If you want male authors as well, let me know.

Genre: TITLE by AUTHOR, # pages-Pub. Year -Translated? -COUNTRY
cozy mystery: Blind Sight by Tanya R. Taylor, 225-2019 -no -The Bahamas

fantasy/mag real: When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, 292-2023 -no -Trinidad and Tobago
fantasy: Dragonfruit by , 366-2024 -no -Micronesia
fantasy: The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo, - -no -Malaysia
fantasy: Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Yuryevna Abgaryan, 256-2015 -Translated -Armenia
fantasy-graphic: The Invisible Man and his soon to be wife by Neko IWATOBI "Iwatobineko", 128-2021 -Translated -Japan
mag realism: Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto, 256-1992 -Translated -Mozambique
mag realism: The Madwoman of Serrano by Dina Salustio, 224-2012 -Translated -Cape Verde
hist fic-mag real: The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia, - -Translated -Mexico
hist fic-mag real: The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, 338-2011 -no -Serbia

fiction-LGBTQ: So Distant from my Life by Monique Ilboudo, 112-2020 -Translated -Burkina Faso 

hist fic-graphic: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi, 156-2004 -Translated -Iran

horror: Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, 183-2017 -Translated -Argentina
horror: Four by Four by Sara Mesa, 230-2012 -translated -Spain 

mys/thrill: The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill, 292-2022 -no -Sri Lanka
mystery: A Beautiful place to die by Malla Nunn, 384-2008 -no -Eswatini / (Swaziland)
mystery: A Disappearance in Figi by Nilima Rao, 288-2023 -no -Fiji
mystery: A Shipwreck in Fiji by Nilima Rao, -2025 -no -Fiji
mystery: Blind Goddess by Anne Holt, 343-1993 -Translated -Norway
mystery: Force of Nature by Jane Harper, - -no -Australia
mystery: High Tide by Inga Abele, 310-2008 -Translated -Latvia
mystery: Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny, - -no -Canada
mystery: No Refuge by Nicola Clifford, 328-2021 -no -Wales
mystery: Roseanna by , 225-1965 -Translated -Sweden
mystery: Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan, - -no -Philippines
mystery: The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu, 286-2017 - -Singapore
mystery: The Laughing Policeman by , 224-1968 -Translated -Sweden
mystery: The Night Singer by Johanna Mo, 448-2020 -no -Sweden
fiction-mystery: The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach, 254-2006 -Translated -South Africa 
mystery: The Other Americans by Laila Lalami, -2019 -no -Morocco

sci fi: The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna El Essa, 272-2024 -Translated -Kuwait
sci fi: The Girl in the Moon Circle by Sia Figiel, 134-1996 -no -Samoa

thriller: Kasane by Brigitta Zwani, 238-2022 -no -Botswana
thriller: My Sister the Serial Killer by Braithwaite, 226-2018 -no -Nigeria
thriller: The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo, 288-2022 -Translated -South Korea

YA-graphic novel: Aya by Marguerite Abouet, 106-2007 -Translated -Côte d’Ivoire / Ivory Coast

Carol and Gail - you two are amazing! Thank you! I had sort of let this slide over the holidays, so thank you so much for all these suggestions. Ya'll rock!!!

Glad to help! One thing I didn't tell you on my list - the country noted is the country in which the author was born. The book setting may or may not be the same.

Also "Roseana" and "The Laughing Policeman" are written by a husband and wife team. But they usually show up on here as her name .

Today is the day! I have four pages of authors to hand out tonight. I focused on women and non-binary/gender queer authors. Almost all the list are BIPOC authors. I also included some Armenian authors since there was a genocide there that is not that far removed - there are places where it is still dangerous to say you are Armenian. If anybody has any last minute BIPOC women authors you want to throw at me - please do! I'll be printing out the list in a couple of hours. Thank you all for your help.

For Fantasy + Dystopian, try R.F. Kuang. She wrote the sci-fi trilogy The Poppy War which is SO good.

And for Sci-Fi, I'm currently reading & really enjoying Arkady Martine 's first in her series: A Memory Called Empire

Another good one for Dystopia is The Memory Police

I can't believe I haven't mentioned her in this thread yet, but everything by Tiffany D. Jackson is phenomenal. She writes a lot of thriller-style books (mainly YA, but I love them as an adult).

But all of her books have racial undertones (or overtones) that are the through-line for her stories.
For example, she wrote a modern version of Stephen King's Carrie, but her main character is a young Black girl passing for white in a nearly all-white (and still segregated) southern town.

My favorites are Allegedly, Monday's Not Coming and White Smoke

Misty wrote: "Today is the day! I have four pages of authors to hand out tonight. I focused on women and non-binary/gender queer authors. Almost all the list are BIPOC authors. I also included some Armenian auth..."

Ah sorry, just saw that you're wrapping it up - Congrats! I hope everyone appreciates the effort and takes advantage of the resource you've put together.

Congrats Misty! You should be proud of the work you are doing. I'm proud for you! Glad to have been able to give you some recs and thank you for adding another more focused challenge into my personal space.

Alwynne wrote: "Rowling's such a divisive figure might be better to refrain from commenting on her. Btw though Misty if you're going to exclude Rowling then should really exclude Chimanda Ngozi Adiche too, as has ..."

Ugh - I didn't realize she had defended Rowling. Gross.

Kat wrote: "Transphobia? Very disrespectful, not to mention that you clearly did not understand what she said."

Excuse me? You can just walk away with your TERFy attitudes. Rowling is trash. Don't come in here spewing transphobic crap at me.

Lindsey wrote: "For Fantasy + Dystopian, try R.F. Kuang. She wrote the sci-fi trilogy The Poppy War which is SO good.

And for Sci-Fi, I'm currently reading & really enjoying [aut..."

I have Kuang, but I don't have Martine! Thank you.

Lindsey wrote: "I can't believe I haven't mentioned her in this thread yet, but everything by Tiffany D. Jackson is phenomenal."

Thank you! I have added her.

Alwynne wrote: "Rowling's such a divisive figure might be better to refrain from commenting on her. Btw though Misty if you're going to exclude Rowling then should really exclude Chimanda Ngozi Adiche too, as has ..."

I had not known that about Adiche. Thanks for drawing this to our attention.

Lindsey wrote: "For Fantasy + Dystopian, try R.F. Kuang. She wrote the sci-fi trilogy The Poppy War which is SO good.

And for Sci-Fi, I'm currently reading & really enjoying [aut..."

I'm not informed enough to speak on this but I wonder about including Japanese authors because I thought Japan has never been colonized and in fact has a history of being the colonizer.

Jen wrote: "I'm not informed enough to speak on this but I wonder about including Japanese authors because I thought Japan has never been colonized and in fact has a history of being the colonizer."

Good point about Japan. I recommended The Memory Police but that's a Japanese author, whoops!

As for R.F. Kuang - she is from China and the Poppy War series explores the devastation of Japanese attacks on both Taiwan and China.

The concept of "decolonize your bookshelf" has been tickling at me and I just did some additional research. There are hundreds of articles out there going all the way back to 2020 (and maybe even earlier). The take-aways are numerous, but the main one, I think, is that it refers to any book that was not written by a white male, regardless of what country he comes from.

Two particular articles I read that resonated with me were both written in 2020:
* https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910...

and then this one, which basically asks the question: "Great, so you are reading books on diversity. Now what are you going to do with it?"
* https://medium.com/blk-ink/new-years-...

I started out just wanting to answer the question of Japanese authors as mentioned in previous comments and now have some deeper constructs to somehow work through.

Gail, thanks for sharing those articles. I, too, took “decolonizing” to mean authors other than white male (specifically US, UK, etc) as well.

I’m reading on my phone and can’t tell where this quote comes from exactly, but it resonates.

From the first article you posted above:
“Reading broadly and with intention is how we counter dehumanization and demand visibility.”

Lindsey wrote: "I’m reading on my phone and can’t tell where this quote comes from exactly, but it resonates. From the first article you posted above: “Reading broadly and with intention is how we counter dehuma..."

It's from the articles author actually, Juan Vidal. It isn't attributed to any other source. Thanks for reading it!

Thanks, Gail, for the links and digging into this. The articles are interesting and raise worthwhile points although some of the second one I don't understand. Thanks for sharing them and your efforts.

What I wonder is- is the term being used in a way that is dismissive of what is unique about the lives of people who are affected by colonization by lumping them with other communities whose lives are not. I wonder if it's ok to use this term this way and if there are other terms that would be a better fit.

Jen wrote: "...I wonder if it's ok to use this term this way and if there are other terms that would be a better fit..."

The second article started out sounding like it wasn't okay. I kept waiting for some anti-everything verbiage to come out, but I really didn't find it. I did have to look up the word "praxis" however. The author really liked it and I hate to admit I had never heard of it before. In simple terms it means action or practice. Thus my take-away of "so you've read it, now what?"

I was unable to find anything that leant me towards believing the term is not okay. In essence really it means the same as diversity - "who is different from ME?" (not including white males).

Lindsey wrote: "Jen wrote: "I'm not informed enough to speak on this but I wonder about including Japanese authors because I thought Japan has never been colonized and in fact has a history of being the colonizer...."

Rin in The Poppy War is a female version of Chairman Mao, so roughly based on the life of Mao.

Personally think excluding an author on the grounds that their country was once - pre-1945 - a colonial power is a step too far. If that's going to be an issue then have to automatically exclude authors linked to:

China - colonised Tibet
U.K.
France
Belgium
Italy
Portugal
America - essentially founded on genocide/colonialisation
Denmark
Holland
Germany
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Turkey - because of Ottoman Empire
Norway
Chile
Morocco
Ethiopia

Then what about Human Rights records? Subjugation of particular parts of the population? If so Brazil, large swathes of Latin America, Iran, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Uganda etc

The point of 'decolonising' is arguably as much about inclusion as exclusion. Opening up your reading, thinking about who and what you're reading and how that impacts your perspective on the world/culture/society/history. Otherwise it seems nothing more than a superficial, self-congratulatory box-ticking exercise - which I, as a queer person of colour, find "othering" and condescending. It's also about paying attention to what you read, always find it amusing that many white Americans striving to read more expansively still have four or even five-star ratings of deeply racist books like Gone With the Wind on their shelves, suggesting they've missed the point!

Yes, Ogawa's country was once a coloniser - during imperial times. But does Ogawa personally argue in favour of oppressing other countries, are her books putting forward problematic arguments in favour of racism etc?

Alwynne wrote: "The point of 'decolonising' is arguably as much about inclusion as exclusion. Opening up your reading, thinking about who and what you're reading and how that impacts your perspective on the world/culture/society/history. ."

I like your perspective here, particularly the point that decolonizing is "arguably as much about inclusion as exclusion."

I believe we're all affected by what we read. And while it won't make us "anti-racist" by reading anti-racism books, it will help us shift our perspective. It will help connect us to worlds and humans who are not in our little bubbles, and allow some empathy and understanding for others, their struggles, their lives, their happiness -all of the things.

Lindsey wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "The point of 'decolonising' is arguably as much about inclusion as exclusion. Opening up your reading, thinking about who and what you're reading and how that impacts your perspecti..."

Absolutely, and tbf, I think that's what was driving Misty's interest in what she reads. I was just gobsmacked by the breath-taking sight of people who hail from a country rife with racism towards Asian-American communities; an appalling human rights record not to mention a long history of interfering in/destabilising democracies, propping up dodgy regimes and so on; and which was responsible for dropping not one but two atomic bombs on Japan thinking it reasonable to debate whether or not Japanese authors are worthy of inclusion because of their country's past!

I get the intention is diversifying reading, so why not use "diversifying" rather than "decolonizing" if it's the more accurate term for the activity? In the second linked article, its author says "A recurring thread... is the conflation of ‘decolonize’ with ‘diversity’..." Conflation hear being the key word that rang significant for me.

I'm certainly not saying let's not read authors who this-or-that. I appreciate the intention of the activity referred to as "decolonizing reading" but question the level of consideration given. There are lives that have been uniquely affected by colonization. Even if the colonization ended decades ago, the repercussions ripple down to future generations.
It would be nice if there was an easy catch-all term to refer to the cis, white, able-bodied, hetero, etc etc man that has been centered but I question if an insensitive dismissing is happening when a word like "decolonize" is made to be that term for the sake of people's ease.

Alwynne wrote: "Lindsey wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "The point of 'decolonising' is arguably as much about inclusion as exclusion. Opening up your reading, thinking about who and what you're reading and how that impact..."

I think I was the only one to question Japan inclusion- message 34. For what it's worth, I did/do try to stress my stance of wondering and questioning and present openness to being corrected. I know I'm bringing up potentially riling issues but I have appreciated this group as a space where we can do that- work on difficult questions even if we don't entirely work them out.

I hope my message 47 makes clear that my questioning of Japan comes really from a questioning of language. Perhaps it also comes from me being Asian American whose mother's country has a long history of being colonized.

Jen wrote: "For what it's worth, I did/do try to stress my stance of wondering and questioning and present openness to being corrected. I know I'm bringing up potentially riling issues but I have appreciated this group as a space where we can do that."

I appreciated the question Jen. It's not something I'd thought of.

To your point, I do think it comes down to language and intention.

I have many East Asian family members (sister & uncle) and friends and have been trying to learn more about the history of that part of the world. We never learned in school (in the Midwest US) about the tumultuous history between Japan, China and Taiwan, for example.

I can especially see your comments in the context of "decolonization" from this perspective. Thanks for sharing and asking the question, even if it causes some discourse!

A few more "for what it's worths"...

I have wondered what would First Nations people make of the term "decolonizing" being used this way. I have wondered if the term has more accepted uses that I'm not aware of and is this one of them- what I think I'm getting at in message 40. I can't say the responses and writings I've seen so far are enough for me personally. Still open to this possibility though.

And. I did wonder at the very start of this thread, way back when, if the point was actually meant to center writers from colonies and former colonies and even went to google back then what countries have never been colonized. My inclination was always to center these voices specifically because of the term being used. It is only now that I felt compelled to raise the question of the term. It must be very much inspired by my current readings that look at Japan's colonization of Taiwan.

My latest wondering is- is the bookshelf supposed to be seen as physical space in the home/library/store that is "colonized"/taken over with books by white male straight authors? So "colonizing" here is like a metaphor suggesting it's like the way actual land is colonized? This is like a lightbulb to me and perhaps I'm late in seeing it. But I still question if it's insensitive to lives actually affected by colonization.

Lindsey wrote: "Jen wrote: "For what it's worth, I did/do try to stress my stance of wondering and questioning and present openness to being corrected. I know I'm bringing up potentially riling issues but I have a..."

Thanks, Lindsey. I appreciate your appreciation hehe. Making waves like this brings mixed feelings but I seriously am seeking to be informed and I go on past experience of this group as a place where tough questions have been okay.

Yes, to reiterate and summarize, I appreciate the intention- I'm all about it. I question the language.

Alwynne wrote: "If you're suggesting that my tone in the post you're now responding to was 'bullying' then that doesn't make sense in that how can you have responded to my tone before I'd posted - I wrote the post..."

Alwynne, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling comfortable in this space. I personally enjoy your input and voice, even when I disagree (or am uncomfortable, or confused). But the point is for you to get value from the group too, so I get that.

As an aside - I've never read Gone With the Wind, but it does have an odd stronghold on many Americans.
I think there's nostalgia mixed with ignorance (is that the right word?), sometimes intentionally but often not.
We're all growing and evolving at different speeds. I believe everyone who's here is doing their best and asking questions in an effort to combat that "ignorance" so to speak.

Uh....... well, I had no idea that asking for recommendations to give people would turn into what this thread has turned into.

FTR - I appreciate the suggestions. The supper went really well. We had a fantastic conversation. We talked about adding books to our repertoire from marginalized voices. The list I gave out was four pages long. The only white folks on the list were Armenian authors. We talked about how it is important to read women, but that I did not include white women authors because they already have more advertising dollars, etc., so the talk was centered on BIPOC women authors. We even talked about the term "decolonizing your bookshelf," and how it was a term I took from others, and what does it mean. We talked about making sure that the books we were adding to our bookshelves from BIPOC authors weren't only centered on trauma. I know we talked about a lot more, but my husband got laid off this morning, so my brain is really just Swiss cheese right now. I am also going to exit this conversation because I cannot emotionally handle anything else right now. Thank you all for your suggestions. They really enriched the reading list that I gave out.