So You Want to Talk About Race: Understanding Racism in America
So You Want to Talk About Race is a vital book in our divisive society, to help all of us understand what is racial oppression and why we need to talk about it.
Nonfiction
42 posts
What books can tell us about the world.
Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite
In 2011, the Korean American writer and teacher Suki Kim taught English to the sons of North Korea’s elite. This book explores her experiences there and, as she writes, “My goal was to write a book that humanizes North Koreans.”
Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir
Native Country of the Heart was the right book at the right time. It read like a personal letter from Cherríe Moraga to me, and I will be forever grateful…
Sucking Up: A Brief Consideration of Sycophancy
Sycophancy (ˈsikəˌfan(t)sē) is the phenomenon known to most of us by alternative words or phrases such as sucking up, ass kissing, brown nosing, and bootlicking—words and terms that give sycophancy…
Tiger and Clay – Syria Fragments
“There are memories for which we can live more than a life time.” —Brother of Rana Abdulfattah Photographs over the past several years have shown migrants and refugees crossing the…
Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939
As the son of a WW II veteran who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, I grew up hearing stories from my Dad about his personal experiences in the war. I picked up Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939 because I wanted to know more about Hitler the man: his roots, his formative years, his path to Führer, the choices he made along that path. "If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific."
No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems
Liu Xiaobo is the author of hundreds of essays and seventeen books. Most of the essays in No Enemies, No Hatred are from the period between 2004 and 2008, and reflect, in the service of freedom of speech, how words followed by action can change the direction of a country.
The Fire Next Time
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin was first published in 1963 during the emerging Civil Rights Movement and was an instant best seller. A brilliant social critic, public intellectual, and interpreter of racial myths and beliefs, Baldwin captured the zeitgeist of a country riven by race. Without prejudice or fear, he deconstructed the institution of racism in America.
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Warmth of Other Suns is a magisterial book examining the Great Migration from the South that began during World War I and lasted until the 1970s.
The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria
One of Di Giovanni’s themes in her book The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria is “the velocity of war,” the speed with which it descends upon a country, whether it be Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, or Syria. The book is based on Di Giovanni’s reporting from Syria during the six-month period, June–December 2012.