May Reading List
The Vibe is…Feeling Inspired
Just as I am by Cicely Tyson
I am a Promise by Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Heart Talk by Cleo Wade
Finding Me by Viola Davis
Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins
Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell
This reading list is available on Bookshop.org
We’re focusing on feeling inspired with this month’s reading list. There’s a lot of memoir here this time, because I think hearing about the real stories of real people can be more inspiring than fictional events. Cicely Tyson’s incredible eight decade career and here life and chronicled in Just as I am, which was released just before her death in 2021. The foreword for this book is written by Viola Davis, whose memoir Finding Me also is on our list. Both women have incredible stories of their sojourn into life as professional actors, and are true examples of determination and destiny, which is also the theme of Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce’s I am a Promise, a children’s book about her life, focusing on her childhood and sporting career. Powell’s Lift as You Climb is our other children’s book about the life and the work of Civil Rights activist Ella Baker.
If you’re looking for more inspiration as a creative, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic might be a good place to start. More self-helpy than memoir, this book is about harnessing your creativity to create your art (in her case, writing). If instead you’re looking to be inspired in your relationships with others, Cleo Wade’s book of essays, poets and ephemera is a delight.
Our only fiction book this month inspires us to make the absolute best of some of the worst moments in our lives. The first book in Beverly Jenkins Blessings series introduces us to Bernadine, a woman scorned and done wrong, but who manages to birth something incredible from the ashes of her life.
Happy Reading!
