Caribbean Books – 2014 Reading List

Carry On Friends invites you to read Caribbean books with us from our 2014 reading list on GoodReads.

Our goal is to celebrate Caribbean books – whether fiction or non fiction books by authors of Caribbean heritage as well as books by other authors regarding Caribbean life; an aspect of our culture which is underrepresented on the web.

While we will explore Caribbean books and authors, we will also explore other literary greats of the African diaspora as well as up and coming authors. The books from our 2014 reading list are from authors featured at the famed Calabash Festival held annually in Jamaica. We chose Calabash as a starting point because Calabash is considered the literary fest with a Caribbean twist, a trait that Carry On Friends identifies with.

The list has nine books to was make room for additional books of interest that might come up during the year.

Our first book will be Americanah by the Nigerian born Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who I’ve discovered during the summer and decided to  start the new year off with one of her books.

The Dead Yard: A Story of Modern Jamaica, was first recommended to me back in 2011. The book isn’t without controversy and all the more reason to read it. Will I feel the same way about it as I did about the book Legitimate Resistance: The Jamaican Connection? We shall see.

To pay homage to the Calabash Festival, we chose a collection of short stories called Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaica’s Calabash Writer’s Workshop

In addition to Calabash authors, we’ve included two other non-fiction books to round out our reading experience:

• Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time and
• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Rightwere chosen because being more efficient, getting things done and making the best use of our time seems to appeal more to us as we navigate our busy lives.

So join us as we get ‘knowleged’, ‘literatured’, uplifted, inspired, driven and entertained.