Mel The Bookworm

[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek

My Black lady hand holds up a paperback copy of Miss Major Speaks. The cover depicts Miss Major at her most glamorous, sometime in the 1960s. The book is held up in front of a row of laundromat washing machines. Gotta get those pages in whenever you can, right?

(Buy this book here.) It’s always weird when someone tries to use demographic as an emblem, rather than a descriptor of experience. It’s reductive and robs us of genuine relationships and the understanding our own history(because like it or not, marginalized history is everyone’s history.) It makes small, unremarkable people too big in our minds,Continue reading “[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek”

[Last While In Books] I’m Still Here And So Are You

The writer, a Black woman in a tall yellow headwrap, a yellow spaghetti strap dress and a t-shirt with the dictionary definition of "eclectic" printed on it, gazes playfully down at the camera.

Fellow readers! I’m still here, but a lot is changing in Mel The Bookworm land. As a result time, contrary to the way I usually fill my personal schedule, is at a fleeting premium. Reviews and posts have been thin on the ground but one of the changes that’s happened lately means I have aContinue reading “[Last While In Books] I’m Still Here And So Are You”

[REVIEW] Gaysians, by Mike Curato

(Buy this book here.) AJ arrives in Seattle, fresh out of the closet and dreaming of art school and self-discovery. On his first venture into a gay bar, he spills a drink on drag queen K, who introduces him to John and Steven. The four of them (and a few others) become a found familyContinue reading “[REVIEW] Gaysians, by Mike Curato”

[REVIEW]Finding American: Stories of Immigration From All 50 States, by Colin Boyd Shafer

A hardback copy of Finding American sits on the knees of the author. The cover phot is a young, ethnically ambiguous woman standing in the middle of an empty American road.

[Buy this book.] I’m sitting here trying to remember the first time I thought of someone I knew as an immigrant and I can’t. Maybe it was my great-aunt Una, who came to New York from Panama just after WWII, from what I’ve been told. Maybe my godmother, a French Canadian who eventually repatriated andContinue reading “[REVIEW]Finding American: Stories of Immigration From All 50 States, by Colin Boyd Shafer”

[REVIEW] Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez

The bright red cover of Wake in paperback depicts a group of Black women rendered in blue underneath the heavily inked book title.

(Buy this book here.) What I expected from this award-nominated graphic novel about women who led revolts during and after the Transatlantic Slave Trade: Justice. Vindication. Strong, clever African women standing up to oppressors, liberating themselves and others, making their marks on history. Blood. Thunder. Justice. What I got: a new understanding of just howContinue reading “[REVIEW] Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez”

[REVIEW]The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern

The bright orange cover of the hardback edition of The Free People's Village, depicting a punk rocker hitting a robot dog with a baseball bat, sits on a blonde wooden table on top of a booksleeve printed with 1940s Black debutantes.

[Buy this book here.] whew This is a BOOK, y’all. The year is 2020, and COVID-19 doesn’t exist. In 2000, Al Gore became president, declaring a War on Climate Change and ushering in 20 years of Democrat control. Infrastructure is totally green, and carbon taxes keep it that way. Sounds great, right? NOPE. Instead ofContinue reading “[REVIEW]The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern”

[Last While In Books] I Guess I Have A Podcast, Now

A podcast recording mic sits in front of a out of focus monitor.

The state of the world isn’t really an excuse for not having blogged for nearly a month, but it’s all I got. Grr. Argh. Politics! (No but seriously it remains awful please let’s all take care of ourselves and others and read good books as often as we can) In any case, I have actuallyContinue reading “[Last While In Books] I Guess I Have A Podcast, Now”

Last While In Books: I’ve Mentioned Most of This Before.

A light skinned Black woman wearing a white eyelet frock, a big Afro, and funky neon yellow eyeliner sits by a window, reading a hardback book

The struggle continues, but so does the printing press, fellow readers. Without further ado, here are some tidbits of interesting diverse bookish news I’ve come across lately. I may have posted about this before, but I don’t think one can post too much about the adorable children’s book that James Baldwin wrote for his nephews.Continue reading “Last While In Books: I’ve Mentioned Most of This Before.”

[REVIEW] Condomnauts, by Yoss, translated by David Frye

A paperback of Condomnauts is held up against a cloudy night sky. The cover shows a red mouth open to reveal a starry galaxy, all on a sky blue background.

(Buy this book in the Equal Opportunity Bookshop) Whew this was a weird book. But, here goes. Josué is a queer, light-skinned AfroCuban with locs, a survivor of the cutthroat slums of future Havana, and part of a highly specialized intergalactic ambassadorial sex worker class. Known as “condomnauts”, Josué and his colleagues are responsible forContinue reading “[REVIEW] Condomnauts, by Yoss, translated by David Frye”

Last While In Books: Bye Colleen, Hello Black folks, Give Bookshop a Chance

Hey, fellow readers. Things are still going the way that they are in the US and elsewhere. The initial stress and shock has died down to a dull roar of anxiety, however, meaning I can a)focus more on real action and b)share some diverse bookish news. Hope you’re all hanging in there as well. (AndContinue reading “Last While In Books: Bye Colleen, Hello Black folks, Give Bookshop a Chance”