ATHENA Council member Mei Mah works on creating partnerships and on-ramps for learners at Grand Valley State University. She also has side hustles as a mom, spouse, chauffeur, personal shopper, maker and chef.
“I love to learn, especially by immersing myself in new cultural experiences,” Mei shared. “These days I’m reverting to my love of reading to stretch boundaries of imagination and knowledge. Books are just an old school version of the Starship Enterprise’s holodeck, where anything is possible.”
Check out this list of Mei’s favorite books by female authors.
Fiction:
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The AFTERWARD
E.K. Johnston
An American Marriage
Tayari Jones
Interpreter of Maladies*
Jhumpa Lahiri
Pachinko*
Min Jin Lee
Little Fires Everywhere*
Celeste Ng
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane: a Novel*
Lisa See
The Hate u Give
Angie Thomas
Non-Fiction
Dare to Lead
Brene Brown
Wave*
Sonali Deraniyagala
Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting by in America
Barbara Ehrenreich
Becoming
Michelle Obama
Boys & Sex
Peggy Orenstein
Educated
Tara Westover
Food & Cookbooks
Rosie’s Basics or The Pie & Pastry Bible
Rosie Levy Beranbaum
The Way to Cook
Julie Child
Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Gabriella Hamilton
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
Marcella Hazan
I am Filipino: And This Is How We Cook*
Nicole Ponseca & Miguel Trinidad
The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen*
Grace Young
*Asian books
Books are available by local woman-owned Books and Mortar via email or online shop. Kent District Library has an awesome book download program if you want to check it out from your local library.
