Who is Real and Pride Month Book Picks for All

Nicole talks about who is a real icon and who is fake. She asked us about Mrs. Fields, Famous Amos, Homer, Newsies, Colonel Sanders, and Mary of Mary Had a Little Lamb fame. Do you think you know who is real and who isn’t? Listen to the pod to see if you are correct!

June is Pride Month and here are some book titles that is suggested reading for all! Take a look and check them out at the library:

Here for It by R. Eric Thomas: In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents’ house was an anomalous bright spot, and the Eden-like school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to these ever more relevant questions: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas finds the answers to these questions by reenvisioning what “normal” means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story.1

Real life by Brandon Taylor: Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community. 2

The Art of Showing Up : How to be there for yourself and your people by Rachel Wilkerson Miller: If you’re having trouble connecting with those around you, know that you’re not the only one. Adult friendships are tricky!!! Part manifesto, part guide, The Art of Showing Up is soul medicine for our modern, tech-mediated age. Rachel Wilkerson Miller charts a course to kinder, more thoughtful, and more fulfilling relationships—and, crucially, she reminds us that “you can’t show up for others if you aren’t showing up for yourself first.” Learn to fearlessly . . .3

Burn the Place : A Memoir by Iliana Regan: Nominated for the National Book Award, chef Iliana Regan’s debut memoir chronicles her journey from foraging on her family’s Midwestern farm to running her own Michelin-starred restaurant and finding her place in the world.

Iliana Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Indiana. While gathering raspberries as a toddler, Regan learned to only pick the ripe fruit. In the nearby fields, the orange flutes of chanterelle mushrooms beckoned her while they eluded others.

Regan’s profound connection with food and the earth began in childhood, but connecting with people was more difficult. She grew up gay in an intolerant community, was an alcoholic before she turned twenty, and struggled to find her voice as a woman working in an industry dominated by men. But food helped her navigate the world around her—learning to cook in her childhood home, getting her first restaurant job at age fifteen, teaching herself cutting-edge cuisine while hosting an underground supper club, and working her way from front-of-house staff to running her own kitchen.

Regan’s culinary talent is based on instinct, memory, and an almost otherworldly connection to ingredients, and her writing comes from the same place. Raw, filled with startling imagery and told with uncommon emotional power, Burn the Place takes us from Regan’s childhood farmhouse kitchen to the country’s most elite restaurants in a galvanizing tale that is entirely original, and unforgettable.4

  1. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/588517/here-for-it-by-r-eric-thomas/
  2. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/594502/real-life-by-brandon-taylor/
  3. https://theexperimentpublishing.com/catalogs/spring-2020/the-art-of-showing-up/
  4. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Burn-the-Place/Iliana-Regan/9781982157777