Please join me tomorrow for a very special edition of the Onward Book Club, with my special guest, the great and powerful Iyanla Vanzant! Holy. Moly. This woman! This epic, beautiful woman! We will be discussing her classic 2010 #1 New York Times bestselling memoir PEACE FROM BROKEN PIECES — a story of grief, trauma, courage resilience, and the self-creation of a wise and deeply spiritual woman. I love and respect this book. I love and respect @iyanlavanzant. I have a lot of questions of my own for Iyanla about how we can possibly recover our spirits after the blow of losing the most important person in our lives (an experience I have painful familiarity with) or how to survive any of the “unsurvivable” losses that shake the foundations of being. We will also talk about intergenerational trauma, racism, relationships, and God. On a more personal note, I can’t wait to reconnect with someone whom I adore with all my heart, whose company has always made me feel like I live in a world of infinite possibility, where the opportunities for transformation are both endless and surprising. Please join us for this very special conversation — tomorrow (Thursday June 3) at 2pm EST on my Instagram live. See you there BELOVEDS! ??
Luvvie Adjei Jones is a star. She’s the New York Times best selling author of two wildfire memoirs and life guides: I’M JUDGING YOU and PROFESSIONAL TROUBLEMAKER. She’s a brilliant blogger; a tireless activist; a marketing wizard; an internationally respected expert on the very serious subject of shoes; a voice of truth about the power of Shea butter to transform our lives; the owner of the most insane and enviable pair of cheekbones the world has ever seen; a compelling and hilarious Podcaster; an Oprah Winfrey super soul 100 all star; the unchallenged heavyweight world champion of “side eye”; a TED speaker whose talk has inspired millions; a social media presence beloved by her army of Luvvnation; and a critic of the status quo whose very existence strikes terror in the collective guts of the mediocre… Born in Nigeria, forged in Chicago, she is a true global citizen and a leader for our times!
Tayari Jones is one of those “overnight success stories” who has actually been writing beautiful and thoughtful books for years. But it was her fourth novel, AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE, that made her into a bestseller and a cultural phenomenon. This heartbreaking, suspenseful, and intricately crafted book tells the story of a young, ambitious Black couple in Atlanta whose marriage is exploded by the arrest and incarceration of the husband for a crime he did not commit. What follows is a story of loyalty, betrayal, devastation, impossible moral dilemmas and stubborn regeneration. This is an unforgettable tale by a writer at the top of her game.
Lauren Wilkinson is a first time novelist of extraordinary intelligence and talent. AMERICAN SPY is a Cold War thriller that both embraces and transcends the spy genre — telling the captivating story of Marie Mitchell, a Black FBI agent who gets recruited by the CIA for a mysterious mission in West Africa. This is a book of rare sensibilities about divided loyalties, the dangers of imperial power, morally ambiguous missions, and what it means to be a good American
THE YELLOW HOUSE is a memoir of masterful, mythic proportions. Sarah M. Broom tells the story of her family’s history in a humble yellow house in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina?. Written with intimacy, heartbreak, poetic language and a reporter’s desire to get to the bottom of the truth, this book is a vast landscape. Broom won the prestigious National Book Award in non-fiction for this masterpiece.
