Deesha Philyaw Book Recommendations & Book Mentions
This list consists of recommendations or mentions of books spotted in media, social media accounts, podcasts or other public websites.
Deesha Philyaw on X
Deesha Philyaw is an author, columnist, and public speaker. WINNER PEN/Faulkner Award, Story Prize, LA Book Prize| National Book Award finalist | DMs not for business. Contact info for reps at link below. Here on Sundays

Tar Hollow Trans: Essays
Stacy Jane Grover
In TAR HOLLOW TRANS, the first book in the series (forthcoming June 2023), Stacy Jane Grover explores her transgender experience through common Appalachian cultural traditions. https://t.co/2fwuRlKQKi
Hardcover, 2023
$29.95$14.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
The Town of Babylon
Alejandro Varela
2/"They'd come to make a life, as they saw it, on someone else’s land. It was incumbent upon them to proceed humbly, to work tirelessly, and to enjoy themselves quietly.” —Alejandro Varela @drovarela, from his debut novel The Town of Babylon https://t.co/WwUmw2ZaM5
Paperback, 2024
$18.00$9.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Joan Is Okay
Weike Wang
Wang’s narrative is at once laser-focused and multilayered. She raises provocative questions about motherhood, daughterhood, belonging and the many definitions of “home.” What do we owe our parents? Our children? And are any of us OK?
Paperback, 2023
$17.00$8.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Red Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who've Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn't Enough
Candice Marie Benbow
2/"...Red lip theology gave God back to me, me back to God, and me back to myself.” — @CandiceBenbow, from her debut essay collection Red Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough https://t.co/sKMqU5y38b
Hardcover, 2022
$26.00$13.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration
Sofija Stefanovic
4/...and holds a Master of Fine Arts from New York University. Her fiction, essays, and criticisms have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, URSA, TIME, Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration, Gagosian Quarterly, The Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus, The Washington Post...
Hardcover, 2021
$25.99$12.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Olga Dies Dreaming
Xochitl Gonzalez
So here we are. Our #LIT16 Final Four: @destinyoshay , author of Nobody’s Magic Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Olga Dies Dreaming @chantalalive , author of None but the Righteous @lionesstales, author of Moonrise Over New Jessup https://t.co/Q8ejyHDesV
Paperback, 2023
$18.99$9.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Black Women Writers at Work
Claudia Tate
THIS IS NOT A DRILL
Paperback, 2023
$24.95$12.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
My Monticello: Fiction
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
@mayhewbergman I highly recommend novellas by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson—“My Monticello” in her story collection of the same title—and Rion Amilcar Scott, “Special Topics in Loneliness Studies” in his collection The World Doesn’t Require You.
Paperback, 2022
$16.99$8.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Olga Dies Dreaming
Xochitl Gonzalez
1/“In a woman’s world, time is the most precious commodity, and we don’t have it to waste.” – Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming https://t.co/a7CxwNlPTq
Paperback, 2023
$18.99$9.49 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Neruda on the Park
Cleyvis Natera
7/Here's Robert Jones Jr.'s blurb: “What Cleyvis Natera has given us with Neruda on the Park is a book so honest, so implicating, so liberating that is at once beautiful and terrifying..."
Paperback, 2023
$18.00$9.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book