Did you know about the tradition of saying “rabbit rabbit rabbit” on March 1st to ensure good luck throughout the rest of the year? Did we collectively forget to do it last March? Rabbit rabbit rabbit has its own Wikipedia page, even. And some people say it on the first of every month…just for extra luck! We say “rabbits rabbits rabbits” to make the smoke of bonfire go in a different direction, away from our eyes, too. To be honest, I can’t remember when that started or when I first heard about the March 1st thing.
Anyway, I actually have something to write about today! We got the results of our vote for the next batch of books our book group is going to read. I nominated 5 books and I ended up not even voting for one of them because there were so many interesting books on the list. We had a record number of people interested in participating and newbies joining the book group. 9 people recommended books and NINETEEN voted! WOW. It was murder trying to whittle the list down to the required number of votes.
There were many political titles, auto/biographies and books by Black authors on the list this year, a definite sign of the times. Only 2 of the books recommended were by an author we have already read and I haven’t read ANY of the ones that won, for a wonder! In fact, on the list of 46 books that were recommended, there was only ONE that I HAD read. A record! Our organizer was really pleased because we voted for 9 books and everyone who recommended books had one of theirs chosen! Wins all around!
Here is the list, in case you are interested or looking for something to read:
Key: blue=recommended/voted for by me, purple=recommended by me but not voted for by me, green=voted for by me, yellow=already read. The ones with a star in front won.
- Know My Name by Chanel Miller
- *Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
- *Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
- Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford
- Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Raymond Arsenault
- Challenge Accepted! by Celeste Barber
- The Other Hand by Chris Cleaver
- *The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
- Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
- *Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud
- Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks: A Librarian’s Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie Spence
- Salamander by Thomas Wharton
- What Kind of Woman: Poems by Kate Baer
- The Obstacle in the Way by Ryan Holiday
- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
- The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation
- Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
- *The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
- *They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
- Want by Lynn Steger Strong
- The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs
- Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Reuben Jonathan Miller
- Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
- Deacon King Kong by James McBride
- *The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart
- Anxious People: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
- The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
- The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
- American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
- The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
- A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
- *Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
- The Mandibles: A Family by Lionel Shriver
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
- The Terranauts: A Novel by T.C. Boyle
- She’s Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Jane Sherron de Hart
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
- *The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
- The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
- The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper
So, a lot of books to add to my reading list! I gave Anders the Trevor Noah autobiography for Christmas so I don’t have to buy that one, at least!