Who: Frances Dinkelspiel, author and freelance reporter
Recommendation: “All the Sinners Bleed” by S.A. Cosby
Why it’s a good read: I love atmospheric mysteries that draw you into a new place and reveal something about human nature. “All the Sinners Bleed” by S.A. Cosby is a page-turner featuring Titus Crown, the first Black sheriff in a racist county in Virginia. Titus is trying to convince a white supremacist group not to march through town to celebrate its Confederate past when a student kills his teacher and is then shot by Titus’s deputies. A search for answers leads to a serial killer and secrets the town’s leaders want prefer remain hidden.
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Who: Ruth Dusseault, California Local Reporting Fellow
Recommendation: “The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story Of War And What Comes After” by Clemantine Wamariya & Elizabeth Weil, 2018
Why it’s a good read: The narrative propels itself by oscillating between external details and internal reveries. It’s a pleasure to see this story. It reads like a list of sentences, quick breaths. You won’t get lost between flashbacks, scene changes, culture clashes or milestones in the protagonist’s life. A Rwandan refugee comes to America as a girl and becomes an American woman, consciously.
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Who: Nibras Suliman, Bay City News intern
Recommendation: “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur
Why it’s a good read: Assata Shakur is a revolutionary who writes of her experience with policing and incarceration in America. Her autobiography is both personal and political, and was one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read.
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Who: Lindsay Green-Barber, Founder and Principal of Impact Architects
Recommendation: “Fledgling” by Octavia E. Butler
Why it’s a good read: Anything Octavia Butler is a must read, but I’d skipped over Fledgling until recently. It’s an entertaining vampire love story, but also lays bare some of humanity’s darkest us vs. them reactions.
Synopsis: Fledgling is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly inhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of “otherness” and questions what it means to be truly human. Read more on the author’s website.
Check if the book is available to borrow from your local public library.