This blog post was written by Tylah Gantt, Communications Intern.
Finding the perfect book can be a lot like finding an awesome coffee shop with free WiFi that isn’t overcrowded with students and laptops. It’s an exhaustive, tedious, and ultimately rewarding experience. But let’s be real, in New York City who’s ever the FIRST to discover an obscure coffee shop? Lucky for you, you can always find the perfect summer book right here at Girls Write Now. We’ve asked our staff for their favorites and they did not disappoint! That’s right, bookworms and non-committal book enthusiasts, without further ado we present the 2016 Girls Write Now Summer Reading Guide. As always, please read responsibly!
For the passionately progressive and budding activist:
- Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine:
- a potent cross-genre narrative painting a brilliant and uncomfortably accurate picture of the realities of being black in America.
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi:
- an artistic black and white autobiographical graphic novel about coming of age during the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stephenson:
- a must-read about our prison system and Stephenson’s experiences as a lawyer for death row inmates.
For the too wild and untamed to be categorized:
- Geek Love by Katherine Dunn:
- a bizarre and compelling tale of the rise and fall of a circus family that includes unconventional superpowers, misguided philanthropists, and a cult following.
- Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan:
- a boundary and form-pushing novel that is part- historical fiction, part- fantasy, part- magic, and part- a lot of other things.
- How is Everything? Not Good by Jon-Michael Frank:
- an offbeat book that received thumbs up from a humor writer for The New Yorker.
For the history buffs who don’t mind a little fiction:
- My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein:
- the first novel in a four-part series about drama in Naples set during the 1950s and 60s.
- The Girls by Emma Cline:
- a coming of age novel set in the 1960s during the rise of a sadistic Manson family-esque cult.
- Girls to the Front by Sara Marcus:
- An inspiring history of the Riot Grrrl movement from punk rock in Seattle to protests in Washington, DC.
For the reader who wants small doses:
- The Best American Nonrequired Reading :
- an annual anthology of great writing from all genres selected by a teen reading committee from 826Michigan and 826Valencia youth programs.
- So What: New and Selected Poems by Taha Muhammad Ali:
- an honest collection of poetry driven by humor, imagery, and imagination.
- Kingdom Animalia, Aracelis Girmay:
- a collection of elegiac poems focused on honoring the dead. Girmay writes from a perspective that views everything as animal-like.
For the ones who love us <3:
