4 Books To Spark Your Wanderlust
Fiction expands thought and rattles previously ascribed conventions with each turn of the page. It takes what many consider to be the norm and pushes the reader’s understanding to new plateaus and dimensions while transcending status. Adventure in Black believes that exploration can happen anywhere and at any time without the necessity of traveling great distances to see something new in the world and within one’s self. One place to do so is from the comfort of your own couch during intermissions of binging series-after-series on Netflix while sitting right next to ‘quarantine bae’. These selections will appeal to the wanderer, seeker, lover and inquisitive mind in you.
The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho
In Paulo Coelho’s ‘The Alchemist’, we follow a young shepherd named Santiago on his allegorical journey away from the Spanish hillsides of Andalusia he’s called home all his life and to the feet of The Great Pyramids at Giza. He is in search of what we all are looking for in life. The truth. A prophetic reading about Santiago’s future from a gypsy in his small town sends his trek afoot out and far away from all he knows. The mosaic of characters Santiago meets along the way reveal new epiphanies through hard lessons he learns firsthand on the unyielding quest for his ‘personal legend’, confines of trust and precepts on the endurance of true love on his road towards enlightenment. Coelho’s modern fiction masterpiece is a must-read for anyone seeking a better understanding of self-fulfillment.
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hiram Walker, an enslaved biracial teen, has a unique gift that makes origami of both time and space. We witness this mystical talent first hand in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest novel ‘The Water Dancer’. Set in plantation-era Virginia at the height of slavery when freedom for those in bondage was out-of-mind, Hiram discovers his power through instant tragedy and the effects of longtime loss. A horse carriage ride across the bridge over a river led by Hiram with his brother proves fatal. He sees an apparition of who he believes is his mother who was sold far away to another plantation by his slave master father when he was nine. This shock forces Hiram to lose control, sending him and his brother into the river. Unable to save his brother from drowning, Hiram is saved by the uncanny superpower that transported him safely out from the water that took his brother and carriage. Coates’ novel is an escape from the norm. His work tests the standards of literary fiction as it freely moves through time and over spaces in order to get his people closer to freedom.
The Travelers
Regina Porter
Time never stops and Regina Porter’s novel ‘The Travelers’ moves right along with it. Starting in New York City in the late-1950s, this piece of literature spans decades and generations of two families--the Vincents and the Christies. Each hails from completely opposite places in society. The former, a wealthy Irish family with roots deep in Manhattan's storied past. The latter, a recently arrived African-American family from Georgia who call The Bronx their new home. These bloodlines intersect at the heart when Rufus Vincent meets and marries Claudia Christie. Needless to say that Rufus’ father, James, is far from enthusiastic about the pairing. East of the Harlem River, the Christies find themselves becoming fragmented by the times. Conflicts in the Gulf of Tonkin signify the start of the Vietnam War sending Claudia’s naval father, Eddie, off to battle at the start of the 1960s. She and her mother, Agnes, brave the turbulent decade at home while Eddie faces them abroad on an aircraft carrier far from home. With these characters in place, Porter’s offering of a love story with a historical fiction backdrop that grows as the decades fly by all the way to the start of Obama’s two-term presidency in 2008. The dynamic interplay between true-to-life personalities makes for smooth transitions as readers watch these families grow with the changing world around them.
Well-Read Black Girl
Glory Edim
Voice in literature denotes representation. Throughout the history of printed fiction, women of color have been silenced by a literary industry--and society--that rarely told stories fully appreciating their experience in the form of culturally-relatable protagonists. The candid essays of various female authors compiled in Glory Edim’s ‘Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves’ the unheard and overlooked get a chance to speak on the issue in their own words. Contributions by Lynn Nottage (Sweat), Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn), Gabourey Sidibe (This Is Just My Face), Morgan Jerkins (This Will Be My Undoing), Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish), and Barbara Smith (Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology) Tayari Jones (An American Marriage) and Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing) openly present their personal relationships with pieces of literature and stress the impact of writers looking to redirect this trend in ink.
What’s on your list?