Episode 30 - On the Edge of Heartbreak with Cynthia Okechukwu

On this episode, Cynthia Okechukwu, the founder of Black Girls Read Chicago, and I discuss books that make you cry, her love of hardcover books, and what kinds of audiobooks work for both of us. She also gets to share an incredible story of getting a critical book put into her hands at a young age. 

 

Black Girls Read Chicago Instagram 

The Read & Run Chicago Gift Guide 

 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

 

What Betsy’s reading: 

The City and It’s Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix 

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

 

Books Highlighted by Cynthia:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine 

 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Little House Box Set by Laura Ingalls Wilder 

Matilda by Roald Dahl 

Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe 

Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing 

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by Eve L. Ewing

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson 

Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport that Wasn't Built for Us by Alison Mariella Désir

Will by Will Smith & Mark Manson

The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey 

Caucasia by Danzy Senna 

It by Stephen King

The Help by Kathryn Stockett