These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
Today’s Theme: Unsung in Entertainment
The entertainment industry is huge. Globally it accounts for over $100 billion and has been steadily growing since early inventions like the phonograph. Now it includes everything from film, tv, music, gaming, and publishing. Which is why I have no idea how all these historical fiction books keep coming out about revolutionary people I’ve never heard of or people that I’ve heard of but only know a little about them. So today I wanted to shine light on them. (No pun intended!) In this one I’ve been learning about Katerine Dunham, an African Caribbean dancer. There are three women who join her on the voyage to the Maroon village of Accompong in Jamaica where she conducted pioneering anthropological fieldwork in the 1930s. I knew NONE of this before, so I’m excited to finish it. I’m going to be going down a rabbit hole to learn more about her and her travels as soon as I get the time lol [This is adult and will be out 02/24]
I also had never heard of Hazel Scott before which is crazy because I love the Harlem Renaissance time period, mostly because of the music and literature. So when I heard of someone who was out here playing two pianos at once and hosting her own tv show, I realized I NEEDED this book. I found out her career was derailed by The Red Scare and it caused so many more problems for her and her show. I don’t want to say more for spoilers, so just go read the book and learn more about her! [This is adult and is out now!]
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
More Unsung Women!
(I know they’re not unsung because I hadn’t heard about them or all the hardships they faced, so please keep that in mind. I’m saying what they faced at the time was hard and they didn’t get recognized BACK THEN. With that being said, I learned more about these women from these books, so you should pick them up and learn about them too!)
I know you’re thinking, HATTIE MCDANIEL? I counted her because of the way people treated her at the Academy and the way activists treated her as well. And yes, she broke those barriers, but they continued to offer her only those roles for a long time. So yeah, she got her due, but at what cost? I hadn’t heard of The Black Swan either, but this book was so good. I never thought I’d care about opera, but I learned so much about Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield. I also had never heard of Ann Lowe either who designed Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress. She was unsung because she was often not credited for her work. I counted this fashion designer as being in entertainment because she created gowns for the elite and they flounced them around everywhere, so I thought it was as good as someone watching and being entertained by them! And last but not least, I was introduced to Jessie Redmon Fauset and her contributions to the Harlem Renaissance. I never knew to look for or learn more about her, so this entire book was cool to learn about. For a long time she was not able to find a suitable editor position because of racial and gender discrimination.
What about you? Do you like historical fiction? Have you heard of these women before? Did you know about the things they faced?