Hello Friends! My time off sparked so much creativity! I nourished myself really well both inside and out.
One of my goals for 2025, is to read 100 books! Tagging in from another Blogger She’s Reading Now who inspired this post. Your getting two posts this week :).
Reading Snack! Homemade Granola
No good reading time goes without a yummy snack. I am absolutely OBSESSSED with this new homemade granola recipe I’ve been making. Every time my container goes out, I’m right back in the kitchen making another batch. Once I think I’ve got the recipe just right I’ll feature it in a future post.
Reading
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray
We are not giving enough high praise for this book. Ms. Murray has completed some of her best writing yet. And YES, I read Personal Librarian. and yes I still stand 10 toes down in saying this.
In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. On stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor of the preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis.
W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder and editor of The Crisis, has charged her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. Jessie attacks the challenge with fervor, quickly finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives, the writers become notable and magazine subscriptions soar.
In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires. However, as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.
Well researched, imagined, written poetry and prose. I’ve been a fan of Ms. Murphy for many years, and to see her writing evolve into capturing the black girl magic, flaws and intrigue and rise to Shero’s humanizes them in ways that make my childhood mind flutters. I’m here for EVERY word. 🫡
“We all have a role to play in WEB’s life. Maybe you have these questions because you don’t know your role“
The Life of Herod The Great by Zora Neal Hurston
Ok, hilariously I heard one boktuber say “Zora is still putting in work from the grave“. She’s not wrong…. In the 1950s, after the publication of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston set out to write a novel that would set the record straight about one of history’s most maligned figures. Hurston’s Herod challenges the New Testament version of the tyrant who supposedly ordered the deaths of many children in order to save the Christ-child, as recorded in the book of Matthew, by suggesting that he was actually a forerunner of Christ.
The intimate friend of both Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, Herod lived in times of war and expansion, where political assassinations and bribery were commonplace as the old world gave way to the new. Scholar and literary critic Deborah Plant brings this bold, spirited novel to readers for the first time with a new introduction and editorial additions that demonstrate Hurston’s point about how reimagining figures from the past addresses the troubles we experience today.
Is it possible to add a star? ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ as a Christian woman, I could not be more intrigued by this book as a clear item of our legacy. Ms. Hurston magnificently reveals yet another brilliant story of the diaspora in the form of King Herod. Made a villain by his enemies, is given another look by her well researched and polished work to reveal his identify. “But it was the voice of his foes that history sanctioned” is the truest line of this novel. As a lover of Queen Cleopatra (my dog is even named after her), Zora dispels even some of the myths of HER greatness as well. I checked this book out from the library as a beach read, and will very soon be adding a copy to my library. Did I mention the cover artwork?!?!?! YAASSSSS! Would even love that as a frame in my office. Read ASAP!
This was a fun disruption from the norm… talk soon friends!
J
Want More Content!
Dr. Judith Davis, is the Author of 7 Whispers from My Heart to Yours: What a year of chasing physical, social, emotional, environmental, career, intellectual, and spiritual wellness taught me. (amazon.com).
We can’t wait to learn, cook, and grow together with you! 💛✨
