Time to Decolonise Your Reading Pile!
Because representation matters
This post was originally posted on 1 April 2024 as an April Fool. Previous April Fool posts can be found here. It is left up for amusement purposes only.
Although the primary purpose of the post was an April Fool’s amusement, it is notable that, one or two joke entries (such as #10) aside, most of the books listed here COULD be included on genuine lists of this nature - but almost never are, because the compilers of such list screen for political conformity and adherence to ‘progressive views’ as much as they do for ‘representation’. For a more serious discussion of this phenomenon, see here.
Are the books you are reading too pale, male and stale?
Many people are increasingly recognising the need to strive for greater diversity in what they read - both in terms of authorship, reading more books written by women and people of colour, and equally importantly, in terms of representation within those novels. Are you reading enough books where the main character is a woman, or a person of colour?
With that goal in mind, here are ten top recommendations to diversify your reading:
1. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Juan ‘Johnny’ Rico is a second-generation Filipino immigrant living in a Buenos Aires. From his childhood, where he speaks Tagalog, the novel traces his induction, co-option, indoctrination and ultimately whole-hearted participation into a hierarchical militaristic society complicit in aggression, war crimes and genocide. He loved the Terran Federation.
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J K Rowling
A terrible miscarriage of justice sees a Black man wrongly convicted of murder - and imprisoned for over a decade in a brutal and inhumane carceral system. A harrowing and heart-warming from one of the world’s best-selling living female authors and an outspoken advocate of women’s rights.
Written by a woman of colour, about three women of colour, this autobiographical history of Chang, her mother and her grandmother will challenge Western colonial perceptions of China - and passes the Bechdel test in spades.
4. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
By France’s most famous Black author, this gripping novel opens with a miscarriage of justice - and continues to expose the corrupt nature of the judicial system in a patriarchal and aristocratic society. Initially thwarted by the prejudice and power of entrenched hierarchies, the novel celebrates the protagonist’s resort to direct action to bring ruin to his enemies and achieve justice.
Written by an enslaved Black1 man oppressed within an expansionist and colonialist society, these timeless tales of morality reject the anthropocentric prejudice common to most literature and demonstrate that all animals2 are capable of - and worthy of - the highest levels of moral judgement and respect.
6. The Power of Culture by Katharine Birbalsingh
Did you know the most successful state school3 in the UK is run by a black woman? This is the story of her success: how, by the power of culture, an inner city school achieves results that put most independent schools to shame. The truth the establishment4 doesn’t want you to hear!
7. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Featuring a young protagonist of colour, this stimulating and thought-provoking novel explores and celebrates the fundamental and integral nature of his humanity, a nature that cannot be denied or erased even in the harshest circumstances. For there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
8. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
An Indian patriot driven from his country by the brutal rapacity of British colonialism, Captain Nemo wages a merciless struggle against the forces of imperialism, while simultaneously funding resistance movements that fight for freedom across the world. A stirring tale in defence of freedom, liberty and the self-determination of all peoples.
9. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Celebrate women authors by reading the best-selling crime novel of all time, written by the best-selling author5 - male or female - of all time. Best read in the original edition.
10. Flashman in the Great Game by George Macdonald Fraser
Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi, was a leader and heroine of the First Indian War of Independence6. Though regrettably written by a white straight male colonialist army officer with a number of problematic attitudes, this eye-witness account of her deeds, rediscovered during a sale of household furniture at Ashby, Leicestershire, in 1965, nevertheless offers a moving and dramatic depiction on the woman frequently referred to as ‘India’s Joan of Arc.’
Happy reading!
And some vegetables. And even a few minerals.
Michaela Community School in Brent. Progess 8 of 2.37 (the highest in the country; very few schools get over 1.0); 31.1% eligible for Free School Meals; 69.4% whose first language isn’t English; more than 91% pass English and Maths GCSE; 82% of 6th formers secure a place at a Russell Group University.
Or Blob.
Religious books excepted.
Sometimes pejoratively referred to as the Indian Mutiny.