Hello and welcome to the Upgrade, the podcast and the team of LifeHacker, where we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Alice Bradley, editor-in-chief of LifeHacker.

And I'm Jordan Calhoun, Lifehackers Deputy Editor.

And today we are ramping up our reading game.

We really are, and today we're joined by two extremely avid readers,

Danielle Belton and Maisha Kai of the route.

And you have to be willing to be a little uncomfortable

and have your ideas question.

You know, because that's what diversifying your reading is all about.

I would encourage that curiosity in general about people's lives,

not about race, per se, or gender or whatever, but about people's lives.

Danielle is the editor-in-chief of The Root and creator of the award-winning pop culture

meets politics blog, The Black Snob.

And Maisha is the managing editor of The Glow Up, who also happens to be a former model

and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter.

In September, Danielle and Myesha launched a new podcast called The Root Presents.

It's Lit, which highlights black authors, creators, and thought leaders.

They've already featured some incredible guests like Claudia Rankin, Ijoma Aluho, and

Nicole Hannah-Jones.

Yes, and because of the nature of their podcast, and because we happen to know that they're both quite speedy readers, we thought they'd be great experts for today.

Jordan, do you have any reading goals for 2021?

I am so unoriginal when it comes to my annual reading goals. It's like an episode of Pinky and the Brain where they're like, we're going to do the same thing. We do every night Pinky.

...