September LIT Picks: Have Your 'Cake', It's Giving 'Obsession'

September Book Club Selection. We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become? Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake (2022) is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch. Join the Kulturally Lit Book Club 

This month, Kuturally Lit highlights Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (2025). Susana A. Morris pens a magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work. Morris explains what drove Butler: She wrote because she felt she must. "Who was I anyway? Why should anyone pay attention to what I had to say? Did I have anything to say? I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God's sake. At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing? Well, whatever it was, I couldn't stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all."