I’m not usually one who takes on New Year’s Resolutions for any number of the usual reasons related to them not lasting passed week 2. I’m giving it a shot this year, though. I used to be an avid reader but that has just fallen off for me in the last decade or so. Such an embarrassing thing to admit. Anyway, I want to get back into books, and as much or more than that I want to be more intentional about reading the works of people of color.

My resolution, therefore, is to read at least one book each month, fiction or non-fiction, for work or for pleasure, written by a person of color. My line up for the first few months:

• January – finish Roots by Alex Haley which I started last year, but have about half of the book to go
• February – The Grace of Sophia: A Korean North American Women’s Christology by Grace Ji-Sun Kim
• March – Vintage Hughes, selected poems of Langston Hughes
• April – Living Water, Living Stories: African-American Women and their Biblical Sisters by my former Twin Cities colleagues Bebe Baldwin and Alika Galloway
• May – Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throneby Wil Gafney

I haven’t picked titles for the rest of the year so that I can pick up recommendations along the way. I’m going to need some more fiction, and there is a need for some LGBTQ+ voices in my list, so I’d love your input there in particular.

Happy New Year!

photo credit: El s@lmón Libros via photopin(license)