Bougie Book Club | Rich in Melanin, Rich in Life
Each month we will recommend 5 books within a particular theme that will help you live your best life. Rich in Melanin, Rich in Life…..this month we are highlighting 5 books written by women of color.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Disarmingly honest, boldly political, and truly inclusive novel that will speak to anyone who has gone looking for love and found something very different in its place. Explores the stigma of psychotherapy within ethnic communities with a really close to home story for many black women living in diaspora. It was a fantastic read with modern cultural referencing all throughout.
Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.
As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.
Book is available on Amazon here
Heart & Hustle: What it Takes to Make it to the Top by Patricia Bright
"I’m going to show you how to hustle like I do, using your head and heart. All it takes is three steps…”
YOUR BRAND: how you can use who you are to smash it online YOUR BUSINESS: how to run your side hustle like a total boss YOUR BELIEFS: ditch the thinking that’s holding you back.
From the early lessons she learned growing up in South London, to the moment she gave up the 9 to 5 to do what she loved, Patricia Bright’s story will revolutionize how you think about work, life, and what it means to succeed. Packed with her trademark attitude, style and sense of fun, Heart & Hustle is an inspirational guide to taking control of your own future.
Book is available on Amazon here
The Game of Desire: 5 Surprising Secrets to Dating with Dominance and getting What You Want by Shannon Boodram
Women: gain control and confidence in your love lives and find the relationship you want with this modern, life-changing guide from the certified sex educator, intimacy expert, and YouTube personality.
For younger generations, dating is a complicated mystery. Apps like Tinder and Bumble are supposed to foster connection, but instead serve as a reminder of how painfully single we are.
Certified sexologist and intimacy coach Shan Boodram—the most sought-after sex educator on the internet—is about to change all that. In this essential how-to guide, she addresses the realities of life today—when the rules of love and attraction are fluid—and teaches a group of young women how to become master daters in just sixty days.
It starts with you. Shan makes clear that love and self-discovery go hand in hand—your dating life is just as much about you as it is about other people. She challenges you to look inside yourself for what you want out of a partner, a relationship and, most important, yourself. Once you figure out what you want from dating, she shows you exactly how to get it. The Game of Desire empowers you to take the lead, learn your strengths, and identify and correct your weaknesses, all the while getting inspired watching a group of women learn how to succeed in today’s dating pool.
While many books tell women why they can’t get a date, Shan teaches you the skills and techniques necessary to take charge in today’s competitive and often confusing dating scene, providing the tools essential to attract—and retain—the partner(s) you want. From learning love languages to debunking dating myths, she helps women build knowledge and confidence.
Featuring conversational case studies, comprehensive facts about the psychology of sex and romance, and expert insight into sex culture, and written with her trademark humour and charm, The Game of Desire is a must for all of Shan’s fans and for every woman struggling to feel loved and desired.
Book is available on Amazon here
Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible By Elizabeth Uviebinené and Yomi Adegoke
The long-awaited guide to life for a generation of black British women inspired to make lemonade out of lemons, and find success in every area of their lives.
Black women in general are well past making waves – we’re currently creating something of a tsunami. From authors to politicians, to entrepreneurs to artists, black women in the UK continue to thrive against all odds and well outside of the world’s expectations. Women who look like us, grew up in similar places to us, talk like us, are shaping almost every societal sector, from the bottom and, finally, from all the way up at the top.
Black women today are facing uniquely challenging experiences in all aspects of their lives. Yet when best friends Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené’s searched for a book that addressed these challenges they realised none existed. So Slay in Your Lane – the lovechild of exasperation and optimism – was born.
From education, to work, to dating, to representation, money and health, this inspirational, honest and provocative Black Girl Bible explores the ways in which being black and female affects each of these areas – and offers advice and encouragement on how to navigate them.
Illustrated with stories from Elizabeth and Yomi’s own lives, and from interviews with dozens of the most successful black women in Britain – including Amma Asante, Charlene White, Jamelia, Denise Lewis, Malorie Blackman and Dawn Butler MP – Slay in Your Lane recognizes and celebrates the strides black women have already made, whilst providing practical advice and inspiration for those who want to do the same and forge a better, visible future.
Book available on Amazon here
The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
A sidesplitting, hysterical, edgy, and unflinching collection of (extremely) personal essays, as fearless as the author herself.
Growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, Tiffany learned to survive by making people laugh. If she could do that, then her classmates would let her copy their homework, the other foster kids she lived with wouldn’t beat her up, and she might even get a boyfriend. Or at least she could make enough money—as the paid school mascot and in-demand Bar Mitzvah hype woman—to get her hair and nails done, so then she might get a boyfriend.
None of that worked (and she’s still single), but it allowed Tiffany to imagine a place for herself where she could do something she loved for a living: comedy.
Tiffany can’t avoid being funny—it’s just who she is, whether she’s plotting shocking, jaw-dropping revenge on an ex-boyfriend or learning how to handle her newfound fame despite still having a broke person’s mind-set. Finally poised to become a household name, she recounts with heart and humor how she came from nothing and nowhere to achieve her dreams by owning, sharing, and using her pain to heal others.
By turns hilarious, filthy, and brutally honest, The Last Black Unicorn shows the world who Tiffany Haddish really is—humble, grateful, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. And now, she’s ready to inspire others through the power of laughter.
Book available on Amazon here
Please comment with additional recommendations that you have found useful in developing your leadership. Also if you have any book recommendations, please email them to contact@bougieguidebook.com.
