Show Your Shelf [Video]

by admin

 

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Have you ever wanted a glimpse into the libraries + bookshelves of your favorite authors? What notes do they make in the margins of their favorite books? What books have inspired them? In Show Your Shelf, Author + Journalist Joel Stein talks with authors about the books on their shelves. In this episode, author + entrepreneur Glory Edim talks about her book “Well-Read Black Girl.”

 

Transcript provided by YouTube:

00:02
– Oh, hi there
00:04
My goal as an author is pure,
00:06
to make money.
00:07
And in order to do that,
00:08
I have to get my book on your bookshelf.
00:11
Today’s guest has a totally different goal,
00:13
which is to get other people’s books on your bookshelf.
00:16
Glory Edim started the book club called
00:18
Well-Read Black Girl.
00:19
That promotes female black authors
00:22
and her book, Well-Read Black Girl,
00:24
is a collection of essays that a lot like the show,
00:28
expresses people’s love of reading.
00:31
I can’t wait to see her bookshelf
00:32
and find out how many great books are missing from mine.
00:37
♪ Show your shelf ♪
00:39
♪ Show some spine ♪
00:41
♪ Just stuff your tiny jacket show me yours ♪
00:44
♪ I show you mine ♪
00:45
♪ We’re delighted to have you with us ♪
00:47
♪ Perhaps we’re being pretentious ♪
00:49
♪ But we’re sincerely here to share the wealth ♪
00:52
♪ So show your shelf ♪
00:53
♪ Show your shelf ♪
00:54
♪ Show your shelf ♪
00:57
Glory, thank you so much for coming on Show Your Shelf.
01:01
I was so impressed with this book,
01:04
so impressed that you got a publishing house
01:07
not to put a dust jacket on it,
01:08
which I thought for on my books and lost heart.
01:11
How did you do that?
01:12
– We first started on Instagram
01:14
and like Instagram is all about aesthetics.
01:17
And so like taking it off of digital
01:19
and bringing it onset like real life.
01:21
I knew people would be taking photos of it
01:22
and I just wanted it to feel beautiful
01:26
and like just awesome to hold.
01:32
– We wanna do this thing that we’re calling shelfies.
01:34
– Okay. – Which involves,
01:37
It’s a selfie with your bookshelf.
01:39
– Here’s my book self, I have Rita Dove.
01:42
– Wait, Rita Dove,
01:44
Rita Dove, that was on my mom’s bookshelf .
01:46
Who is Rita Dove?
01:47
– She is an incredible poet.
01:49
Yeah, she was a poet laureate for many years.
01:52
You need to have her book.
01:54
Of course you have the classics like Zora Neale Hurston.
01:58
We also have some Audre Lorde, lots of short stories,
02:02
lots of Toni Morrison again,
02:04
Tar Baby, as well as Sula,
02:06
which is like needed.
02:08
Everyone should read Sula. – I have not.
02:10
I should read that next, right?
02:12
Is that next to that. – Read that next.
02:13
– Have you, but you’ve done Bullseye.
02:15
– I did Bullseye freshman year in college.
02:16
– Have you done Beloved?
02:18
it’s basically like an incredible ghost story.
02:20
Do you like Carla?
02:21
– I don’t. – That’s fine.
02:22
We won’t judge you.
02:25
– So what percentage of that bookshelf
02:28
is by black women authors?
02:31
– Oh, I would probably say like 90%.
02:36
– Okay.
02:37
So, after college
02:40
I was over a friend’s house
02:42
and we both majored in English in college together.
02:46
We both worked at the same magazine as interns together
02:50
and I saw her bookshelf.
02:51
She was a black woman. – Yeah.
02:52
– Saw her bookshelf and it was
02:55
radically different than mine.
02:57
– Yes.
02:58
– Which it was shocking because I was like,
03:00
we had the exact same in my head backgrounds.
03:02
– Right.
03:03
– Why would our books be different?
03:04
So wait, can I show you my bookshelf
03:06
and you can judge it?
03:07
– Yeah totally, let me see it.
03:09
– I haven’t done this with anyone before.
03:10
What are your thoughts?
03:11
What are your honest, don’t be nice.
03:13
What are your reactions here?
03:16
– Honestly, I haven’t read a lot of these books.
03:19
– I probably haven’t either, but yeah,
03:22
but what are, okay.
03:23
But, back to like your bookshelf
03:26
as a much higher percentage
03:27
of black women writers than mine .
03:30
– You also have to remember,
03:32
I went to a historically black college.
03:34
I went to Howard University and-
03:36
– I went to a historical white college.
03:38
– I don’t think I had ever read an autobiography
03:41
by a black woman until I encountered Maya Angelou.
03:45
And before then,
03:46
then it was like the narrative of Frederick Douglas.
03:48
You know what I mean?
03:50
– Right, right, right. – So I hadn’t read
03:51
a lot of like autobiographies,
03:53
and so I just kind of devoured Maya Angelou
03:56
and then she like named all these incredible people
03:58
that she worked with or encountered.
04:00
So I was like, if I’m reading her
04:02
and she worked with James Baldwin,
04:03
I have to read him next.
04:05
And then James Baldwin is referencing, you know,
04:07
another amazing artist or writer.
04:11
And then I read like Ralph Ellison,
04:12
like it just kinda became the spiral of recommendations
04:17
from the books I was reading.
04:18
Does that makes sense?
04:19
– Totally.
04:20
And which is probably how my book got,
04:22
shelf got so like white male, right?
04:24
‘Cause they were all referencing each other.
04:26
– Exactly.
04:27
– So when you see this, are you like, Oh, come on,
04:30
you should have more black women on your bookshelf?
04:33
Like what are your feelings?
04:34
– I’m not judging you.
04:36
– Judge me.
04:37
– I’m not judging you.
04:39
However, you know you can,
04:42
diversify just a little bit,
04:44
which you could probably say the same thing about me.
04:46
Like I have all black women,
04:47
so we, maybe we should do a book swap.
04:49
That’s probably what
04:50
we should do. – Book swap.
04:51
We both live in LA.
04:52
– Yes. – Honestly.
04:53
Okay.
04:54
We’re going to do this,
04:55
I’m gonna mail you Ben Franklin’s Almanack.
04:57
Don’t feel like you have to read it.
04:58
It just should look good on your shelf.
05:00
– Yes. – Diversify your shelf.
05:02
– I can compose for it on Instagram.
05:09
– We asked you to choose three books
05:11
that have influenced you.
05:13
One of the books you picked is Star Side of Bird Hill,
05:17
that is some cover, my God. – Isn’t this so beautiful?
05:20
Like- – I don’t know what I feel.
05:21
I’m feeling lots of things.
05:22
So how long ago did you read that?
05:24
– I read this when I first moved to New York in 2012
05:28
and this was the book that started
05:29
the Well-Read Black Girl book club.
05:31
– How so? – Yeah.
05:32
Because I met the author at Greenlight bookstore.
05:35
Her name is Naomi Jackson,
05:37
and then I invited her to come to our book club
05:39
and she was the very first author that we had.
05:42
– Who invites like an author
05:43
to come to their personal book club?
05:44
– I don’t know.
05:45
But at the time I had just started my Instagram
05:47
and so I probably had like less than a hundred followers,
05:50
but I was like starting to like post leads
05:52
and talk about books that I love
05:54
and she just was so generous.
05:55
She said yes, I think also she was new to it too.
05:58
This was her first book.
05:59
And she was excited that someone was, you know,
06:02
inviting her to a book club.
06:03
So she ended up talking to us about her book,
06:05
and craft, and what it was like to grow up in Brooklyn,
06:09
and just like,
06:09
even her MFA, she just talked to us for hours.
06:17
– One of the books she picked is Jazz by Toni Morrison.
06:20
– I read Jazz in that point of time where
06:22
I was trying to figure out my like romantic self.
06:25
And I gave this book to a boy that I really liked,
06:30
which is insane ’cause if you know the premise of Jazz,
06:34
it’s about a murder
06:36
and it’s all about this couple.
06:40
Their relationship starts to splinter
06:42
and the husband has an affair
06:44
with a younger girl, at whether, I mean,
06:47
I was gonna say spoiler,
06:48
but if you haven’t read it by now.
06:49
– Then we’re good, we’re good.
06:50
– It’s clear.
06:51
It’s clearly.
06:53
But he kills,
06:53
he kills the young girl out of just obsessive love.
06:57
– What were you thinking when you gave this to a dude?
07:00
– I was insane.
07:01
I just was so enthralled with it.
07:02
Like I loved, I just loved Toni Morrison
07:05
and I thought of this,
07:06
this idea of it being so unconditional.
07:10
But in retrospect,
07:11
it was just like really obsessive and scary
07:13
and like-
07:14
– But there was something romantic
07:16
about the intensity of it.
07:17
– The intensity of it, yes.
07:19
I doubt he even read the book.
07:20
I really doubt it, but it’s okay.
07:22
Like I honestly it’s like, things like that,
07:25
as long as you’re being generous with your own self
07:28
and the things that you love, you know,
07:29
it’s like you have your favorite song
07:31
and you share it with someone.
07:33
I’ve had the same thing with the book.
07:33
It’s like a special thing that if they get it,
07:38
if they really get it and appreciate it, they get you.
07:41
– It was like a nerd mix tape.
07:46
– This one signed from Saidiya Hartman,
07:48
Dr. Saidiya Hartman.
07:50
It’s the book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments.
07:52
So I had read the book,
07:53
but I also did it in audio as well.
07:55
So sometimes I do that if I wanna get like,
07:57
just get, feel closer to the book,
07:59
if it’s something that’s really,
08:00
if it’s usually with more than 400 pages,
08:02
I’ll listen to it and kind of track read as well.
08:05
– Oh wait, track read,
08:06
means you read it normally. – Yeah.
08:08
– And then you read it on audio as you’re listening to it,
08:12
as you look at it.
08:13
– Yeah, yeah.
08:14
I just like kind of like,
08:16
and it has to be where I’m like really relaxed,
08:18
on you know a Sunday where I can put on,
08:21
put it on the speaker,
08:22
put my feet up and really,
08:24
’cause it helps me just understand the analysis of the book.
08:27
If it’s something more complicated than reading in a romance
08:30
or a mystery, you know.
08:32
– Wait, what’s that deal?
08:33
I see it right there.
08:33
It’s like, no that, that page,
08:34
it was like highlighted or what.
08:37
– Yeah, so- – Is that by you?
08:39
– Oh my Gosh.
08:40
Yeah, there is, this book is so many,
08:43
so many, many highlights.
08:44
– When you read a book,
08:45
do you sit there with a high,
08:47
it’s like different colors of highlighter.
08:48
What is going on?
08:50
– I know, I know.
08:52
It just depends on the, how,
08:53
like deep I’m getting into the book.
08:55
Like it’s, for me, ’cause I wanna remember it
08:58
and I wanna be able to reference it
09:00
in other conversations.
09:02
And then with all these books too,
09:03
I just often feel like they’re in conversation
09:05
with one another.
09:06
So if I’m reading a poem
09:07
and it makes me think of an essay,
09:10
I’ll try to kind of bring them together and-
09:12
– Bring them together In what way?
09:14
Is it in your head or what do you mean?
09:15
– Yeah, it is in my head.
09:17
A lot of times, because I’m a writer too.
09:20
I’m looking at structure and form
09:22
and how they really built passages, how they build suspense,
09:26
what feels like really heavily researched versus
09:30
just straight from the imagination.
09:34
– So Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens.
09:39
It’s, and you know,
09:40
she created the other framework around
09:43
being a womanist instead of a feminist,
09:46
being a womanist and-
09:47
– Well, what’s that mean?
09:49
– So this is the,
09:50
it’s the 70s, it’s the late 70s, 80s
09:52
where, you know, there isn’t necessarily the,
09:55
there’s a lot of respectability of politics
09:57
that are happening with like black ideals
10:00
and the way your supposed to act and be in certain spaces,
10:03
you have Tony Morrison, you have Alice Walker,
10:06
you have Maya Angelou.
10:08
And even then they’re like in the beginning
10:10
of their careers, you have Nikki Giovanni,
10:11
they’re all part of the Black Arts Movement.
10:13
And there there’s not necessarily a defining,
10:17
overarching theme for the work they’re doing.
10:20
I think that’s what she’s trying to find.
10:21
Like in this time,
10:22
this is what it means to be a person
10:25
who’s in charge of her own destiny,
10:27
who is not being oppressed by the patriarchy
10:32
or any other, you know,
10:34
or racism or any other things that can be holding them back.
10:41
– Oh. – We sent you a gift.
10:43
Do you happen to have that nearby?
10:44
Not to ruin it for you, but it’s a book.
10:47
Okay.
10:48
So the idea is, I picked a book that I thought
10:52
in a very specific way,
10:53
represented who I think of, who I think you are.
10:58
– Okay.
10:59
– So it embodies you in some way.
11:02
I’ve now put- – Can I open it now?
11:03
– Please just open it, yeah.
11:06
– Okay.
11:07
– Oh boy.
11:08
– Oh, this is awesome.
11:11
This is awesome, ’cause she’s sassy.
11:13
I love Dorothy Parker.
11:15
– So I don’t think,
11:16
I think if it was very like earnest
11:18
and upbeat and not like Dorothy Parker,
11:20
but Dorothy Parker I think of as someone who is
11:24
so smart and so confident and so good at organizing.
11:27
I mean, she was really the head of that
11:29
at algonquin round table.
11:31
– Yeah. – And I think
11:32
she’s just such an amazing,
11:33
I was trying to think of someone who was an amazing host,
11:36
but still doesn’t disappear into the situation.
11:40
– Aww that’s so amazing, thank you.
11:42
I love, I, yeah.
11:43
I like, I love her.
11:44
She’s great.
11:45
She’s like really great.
11:45
And I love this cover too.
11:47
– Glory, thank you so much for doing this
11:49
and showing us your shelf
11:51
and judging me.
11:53
I appreciate it.
11:54
I will be sending you a book in the mail.
11:57
– Thank you for having me on the show, it’s awesome.
12:00
And you’ll be getting a lot of Alice Walker from me.

—

This post was previously published on YouTube.

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