BookOwl

[Updated May 2024] Full disclosure: Science fiction is one of my favorite genres! It was extremely difficult to limit my picks to just six  books or series. However, I recognize that if I gave all of my favorites here, the amount of text would stretch from here to the moon and back.  Science fiction is one of those genres that really makes its readers think of the futures that they would want to live in. (For example, I wouldn't mind living in the semi-utopian future depicted in  Star Trek .) It is a big umbrella, covering everything from speculative fiction to space opera (think,  Star Wars ). Some blur the lines enough between science fiction and fantasy, but I prefer to have some separation between the two, with the former being one about realistic possible realities and the latter primarily uses realities that do not follow the laws of reality as we know it.  Not to diss fantasy, which is another one of my favorite genres. Imagination is equally compelling i...

      5/5 stars   *Spoiler alert!*   Our History Has Always Been Contraband is an interdisciplinary collection of contemporary and historical essays, edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Its aim is to defend the importance of studying and including the Black experience in curricula all over the United States and world, in response to a series of book and curricula bans that brand Black studies as radical and racist (looking at you Florida though it’s not alone in this by any means).   “To talk about the importance of teaching Black History… we must be honest about ourselves and talk about values; values shape what one thinks is important to preserve. The history of Black people throughout the African diaspora has been riddled with stereotypes, myths, and miseducation… Marcus Garvey … who rallied for Black people to move back to Africa, had a mindset that Black Americans were going back to the Motherland to civilize...

    5/5 stars    *Spoiler alert!* “In creating this miscellany, our goal is for you to find at least ten new-to-you and irresistible books by authors of backgrounds different from your own...that you'll read in the next year...The idea is to keep seeking out and reading diverse stories.”   Challenge accepted! (I ended up adding 23 books from Bibliophiles, if anyone was curious, although I may come back and add more during a re-read.)    “It is our small offering to the world, sparked by social injustices and racial reckonings, and inspired by many years of reading diversely and realizing what magic can happen when people leave their comfort zones.”   Pretty much all of the books recommended in this gorgeously illustrated volume center the stories of marginalized groups, like women, BIPOC, and those in the LGBTQAI community. A fair number of them I had read, which had me pointing to the book covers in miniature like I was in a bookstore each time ...

  4/5 stars *Spoiler alert!* It took me a while to gather my thoughts on the second and final volume of the Earthseed duology by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Talents was both extremely heartbreaking and extremely full of hope. At the end of the first book, Parable of the Sower , Lauren Olamina and her found family have established the first of the Earthseed communities in the mountains of California. Named Acorn, Lauren sees it as the first of many to help jolt humanity out of its doldrums and spread to the stars. Readers are introduced to the voice of Lauren’s child, Larkin, who tells what happens next in her mother’s story from far in the future through Lauren’s extensive journal archives. “I have also read that the Pox was caused by accidentally coinciding climatic, economic, and sociological crises. It would be more honest to say that the Pox was caused by our own refusal to deal with obvious problems in those areas. We caused the problems: then we sat and watched as they...