Verandah Chat and Tea with Curdella Forbes, Author of A Tall History of Sugar
Get a cup of your favourite tea, cock yuh ten and enjoy our interview with the very masterful, Curdella Forbes.
Get a cup of your favourite tea, cock yuh ten and enjoy our interview with the very masterful, Curdella Forbes.
Have you ever met an author that was truly and genuinely as smart and brilliant as their work? Fortunately for us (because our book choices are goddess-tier), the writers that we’ve gotten to know since the start of 2020 have inspired us and left us gagging at how intimately their intellectual pursuits and their creative work connect. Our April book’s writer, Curdella Forbes, is no exception to this rule.
For this episode of Like A Real Book Club, we sat down with Curdella on her verandah with three cups of tea, beautiful rolling hills before us and some nice, cool breeze washing over us. At least that’s the imagery we had in our heads while we sat in our respective homes. As an academic, it came as no surprise that Curdella’s understanding of the colonial project in the Caribbean is multilayered and complex. In our conversation about this deeply intricate novel, she talks to us about why she chose to use a man with “no skin” as a point of contention for both white people and black people, who were subjects of the empire, to confront their ideas of race, worth and success. Throughout this interview, you’ll hear Curdella talk about the importance of writing in Jamaican, the seamless melding of the naturalist and spiritual world in the Jamaican psyche, writing the varied realities of Jamaican women and “our responsibility in the face of human vulnerability”. AND JUST SO MUCH MORE.
#LikeARealBookClub Ep 3 - Pages to Screen and Rants in Between
We talk about the books we wish turned into movies/tv series… but not before ranting a bit.
We talk about books that should hit the screens, but not before a small rant about Bookstagram and reading habits.
Books mentioned that are worth reading:
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis Benn
Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth Warsan Shire
The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
Over The Roofs of the World by Olive Senior
Gardening in the Tropics by Olive Senior
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#LikeARealBookClub Ep 2 - Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Meetup to talk about our January book: Girl, Woman, Other
Lots of spoilers for Girl, Woman, Other ahead!
Trigger Warning: Discussions around gang rape and sexual assault in the book.
In January, Rebel Women Lit read Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other which is the only 2019 Booker winner we'll recognize. Like A Real Book Club meets to chat about the not-a-short-story collection of stories by 12 black british people -mostly women- and their interwoven lives.
Join us next month as we discuss The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins.
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Like A Real Book Club Podcast Launch: Books That (Kinda) Defined The Decade
Like A Real Book Club' - A Rebel Women Lit Podcast Episode 1
We’ve launched a podcast! After months of fighting away imposter syndrome, we’ve decided to launch a podcast where we talk about books and just about everything else.
Read The Transcript
If you were to ask any member of a book club what goes on there, responses would be in the neighbourhood of, “we interrogate the themes emerging from the story and intentions beyond the words. Oh, and we also talk about how fucking hard natural hair can be but also, our perception of justice being less about victims and more about punishment”. Essentially, we talk about books...and literally everything else. And that’s exactly what the “Like A Real Book Club” podcast is lol.
In our very first episode, we shared and discussed the books we thought shifted the book and publishing industry in the decade that has passed (and we’re not gonna talk about whether it was or wasn’t the end of the decade lol!).
You can listen to Like A Real Book Club on any podcast directory. Here are a few:
Direct RSS Link: likearealbookclub.libsyn.com/rss
Episode Shout-Outs:
Yrsa Daley-Ward
Maxine Walters
Ayobami Adebayo
Leone Ross
Some links below are affiliate links
Books Mentioned:
Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James
Kingston Noir
How To Love A Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs
Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Americannah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward
Milk & Honey by Rupi Kaur
A World of Poetry
Hunger by Roxane Gay
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James
Serious Things Ago Happen by Maxine Walters
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Winds of Winter by George R. R. Martin (???)
Come Let Us Sing Anyway by Leone Ross
Everything we do at Rebel Women Lit is driven by supporters like you!
You can help us pay for sound editing, website and podcast hosting, transcribing and all other “oh wait!” costs by donating to our book club.