Book Recommendations
A curated collection of books that have helped me explore personal growth, leadership, relationships, and the Black diaspora.
Mental Health & Wellness
Leadership & Organizing
Black Diaspora
Mental Health & Wellness
Setting Boundaries, Finding Peace
An incredibly eye-opening read about rigid and soft boundaries and their relation to past trauma and lived experiences. The guidance and advice is highly practical and easy to implement right away. This book became a great way to have a common language that removed value judgments.
Inward reflection, relationships with friends and lovers, and boundary-setting at work.
Heal the Body, Heal the Mind
A useful read with an excellent style that includes checklists to map yourself to certain types of trauma. The book explores the connection between body and mind—necessary for folks who might be high-functioning and accomplished but with unpacked trauma.
Inward reflection, relationships, and exploration of prior traumas from childhood through adulthood.
The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity ― A Transformative Guide to Understanding Childhood Trauma and Health
A wonderful read that shows how a culturally competent and curious doctor helps her largely lower-income, minority pediatric patients and their families. Resonant to learn that childhood experiences predispose you for certain health crises later in life even if you “live healthy” as an adult.
Inward reflection and health planning for those who may have potentially forgotten childhood trauma and adverse living conditions.
The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World
Great for anyone who has recently “come out” and anyone interested in queer history. The book has a myopic focus on a non-diverse segment of the gay male community, but serves as a useful reference point.
Inward reflection on where one might fit into the gay male community, and as a reference point for how much the LGBTQ community has changed for the better.
The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
A useful read that helps you understand the history and evolution of non-monogamy in the US. The book emphasizes elements that are made more complex in any relationship—communication with partners about needs and feelings.
Inward reflection as well as platonic and romantic relationships, monogamous or not.
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived Joyful Life
An incredible resource toward getting clarity about what comes next. The tools and language have value beyond career planning. I still think about prototyping—not unique to launching startups, but in piloting decisions and viewing past iterations as prototypes for something bigger.
Inward reflection with a focus on work and what energizes you.
You Were Born for This
A worthwhile read to the degree you find astrology, placements, and aspects useful—for literal direction or as an essence to guide you. The book includes affirmations and questions based on your natal chart, so you’ll want to know more than just your sun sign.
Inward reflection with a focus on affirmations and questions for regular journaling.
Leadership, Organizing & Workplace
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters
An excellent resource for life. Each section covers how to lead an effective gathering—personal celebrations, team meetings, conferences, or professional events needing rethinking. I was able to apply lessons for immediate success in both personal and professional contexts.
Anyone who manages a team, plans events, or wishes to have guidance in planning milestone events. You will feel more empowered about the decisions you make.
Multipliers: How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
An important read for new leaders. The book peels back ideas on what makes for a successful individual contributor that creates a diminishing manager and other behaviors that make one stand out as an individual but poor at multiplying the impact of one’s team.
New leaders and as a reminder for those managing a new time—a chance to reset expectations and even transparently discuss team norms.
Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
A useful read in understanding what relationships click and what it takes to be in sync as relationships evolve. Professionally, you will need to establish relationships with colleagues to be as successful as possible. The book explores a pair of friends’ friendship as it starts, coalesces, is stressed, and is invested in.
Those thinking about navigating challenging friendships, understanding what your needs in a friendship are, and considering where next for a working relationship.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Recommended by a therapist at a critical time in life that added immense clarity. Cain looks at institutions from school to work that are structurally set up for extraverts and their success. The book dissects how many of these structures came to be and the ways in which introverts can add value.
Introverted employees and student leaders, and managers of teams with employees differently orientated toward introversion and extraversion.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Recommended by several people, this book was quite useful in asking us to reconsider relationships to power. For example, did we domesticate wheat or did wheat domesticate us? A really wonderful philosophical question to ponder about systems and structures.
Anyone looking to understand the current systems (economic, social, etc) that we have in place and wanting to question if, what, and why.
Black Diaspora Collection
Americanah
One of the first books that comes up when you want to gain an understanding of the African experience in the US, UK, and the continent. Admittedly, Adichie’s book is about the Nigerian experience but the characters cover many of the tropes and stereotypes found across the diaspora.
Understanding the African diaspora experience and how we interact with each other across different regions.
Things Fall Apart
A classic read by an acclaimed African author. It’s important to acknowledge what is considered a classic is also a function of that author’s colonizing country and language. The novel beautifully portrays a pre-colonial era, Igbo traditions, the subtext around masculinity, and what it means to hold onto tradition against a changing society.
Those with a tie to England’s colonialism—either by language or prior settlement—wanting to understand African literary classics and precolonial life.
Kindred
Black authorship is often concentrated in the American South or Northeast. Butler’s work engages the West Coast Black experience with incredible craft. An uncomfortable subject like slavery is explored with joy through an impeccable and creative mechanism. A truly existential question emerges: would you rather exist if it came from a bad place or not exist at all?
Those seeking West Coast Black narratives, science fiction that grapples with historical trauma, and existential exploration through speculative fiction.
Tenderheaded: A Comb-Bending Collection of Hair Stories
Harris’ collection of vignettes, short stories, pictures, and poems weaves a tapestry that surrounds you in Black wonder. Whether you think about hair growing from your head or your face, this book is a valuable tool of empathy for our parents, siblings, children, and community. You’ll never think about hair trendsetters the same way.
All who care about Blackness and want to understand hair as a cultural, familial, and personal marker of identity.
An Untamed State
An exploration of Caribbean culture. Reading multiple stories, histories, and voices provides context that becomes incredibly useful for understanding a region. This is a difficult read because of its subject matter, but it powerfully explores what is possible for women moving through the world.
Those interested in Caribbean narratives and understanding the complexities of women’s experiences across the diaspora. Please note: this book contains themes of sexual assault.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
A humorous but touching memoir that explores parts of South Africa’s not too distant history with apartheid. Noah directly speaks about his existence being illegal under apartheid laws. Very few memoirs can perfectly capture the history of a full people or country or era in time, but this read succeeds because we can know Trevor Noah and see the through-line of his past with his future.
Those wanting to understand Southern African history, apartheid, and its lasting impact through a personal and humorous lens.
The Count of Monte Cristo
A tale of adventure, revenge, intrigue, and motivation that is a captivating read and movie. Dumas’ mother was a Black woman from Haiti/Dominican Republic. It’s my all-time favorite book (before I knew of Dumas’ heritage). The movie is also wonderful, and you can appreciate both.
Those seeking classic adventure narratives and interested in the often-overlooked heritage of canonical European authors.
The Vanishing Half
A deeply moving novel about twin sisters who choose to live in two very different worlds—one Black, one white. Bennett masterfully explores identity, family, and the long-lasting effects of the past on the present.
Those interested in exploring colorism, passing, identity formation, and the complexities of family bonds across the Black diaspora.
