Guest Author - Khara Aisha

With new year’s resolutions, my personal Step One is generally to make the resolutions. A good Step Two, though, is setting up a method of accountability, so that I am further motivated by the fear of public failure. As of December 2005, I have the sincerest intention of reading every single book on this list. But to be more realistic, my reading list is both a “to do” list and a “wish list” because I only wish that I had time to read all the books that I want to read.

First on the list --and the only project already underway --The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. I probably should have read it long ago, but I never did. I saw the movie and I was so haunted and pained by the story that I didn’t want to read the book. I finally bought it when the Oprah’s musical version debued in New York City. The plan is to read the book, and then go with a friend to New York to see the musical adaptation. And I must say that so far, the book is deserves every award and accolade that it received. I’ll let you know if the same can be said about the musical.

Next up, Counting Raindrops through a Stained Glass Window, by Cherlyn Micheals. Counting Raindrops was recommended to me by the publisher. It’s about a woman who is convinced that marriage has a way of ruining loving relationships, and is therefore quite hesitant to marry the man that she loves. Honestly, I don’t know what to expect about the storyline. I suppose it could go either way, because it isn’t complicated. But the author is from my second hometown, St. Louis, and the poetic title had me hooked

And I count not resist Fab, by by Kieran Batts Morrow, Tiffany Anderson, Adrienne Carter, Tracy Richelle High. Now, I have no idea how four authors go about writing a book. How exactly does that kind of collaboration take place? Do they lock themselves in a boardroom for a month and go line by line, or is it a round-robin thing, where each person writes a page and then passes it on? Anyway, at least two of the authors are lawyers like me, working at law firms as big as the one that I work at, so I was especially intrigued. I actually don’t expect it to be really great, because I think the writing suffers when a fiction book has more than one author, but I look forward to being surprised.

I have never really been into science fiction (unless Buffy the Vampire Slayer) counts. But I really like Octavia Butler, and her newest novel, Fledgling, should be a treat. I got it for my birthday, and I expect it to be great. After that, I plan to read The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan. No one really needs a reason for this, right? The book may suck, but she’s Terry McMillan.

As to my other fiction picks, I doubt that any of them have the general appeal and selling power of Terry McMillan. But this is the kind of fiction that I love the most. This is the stuff that, to me, is truly “literary.” I am itching to begin On Beauty by Zadie Smith. The Blackbird Papers, by Ian Smith, has been sitting on my bookshelf for eight months, and its calling to me every day now. And I loved the review that I read of The Icarus Girl, by Helen Oyeyemi, so much that I cut it out and put it on the refrigerator.

If you have any “must reads” for 2006, feel free to send me an email at africanamericanlit@bellaonline.com