Thank you @lachristensen for asking me to contribute to this @nytimesbooks round-up. I took the prompt personally. What of *my* experience with certain books do I wish others could have? nytimes.com/article/books-…
I always recommend "Coming of Age in Mississippi". In many ways, it was my first experience of a narrative account of "merit" as white myth-making. Her family's history of sharecropping puts more meat on the bones of, say, Wilkerson's Warmth of Other Suns. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/116457/c…
A Fine Balance was my first time touching the idea of caste. Long before I would know what sociology is, that idea of a global system of oppression inscribed in people's bodies in a way that felt familiar to me but strange? This was that. penguinrandomhouse.com/books/115368/a…
I really do think of The Space Traders almost weekly, especially now. Most people with a "black out square" on social media would trade us all for half the gold Derrick Bell's aliens offer. Comrades over allies. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
My first exposure to reparations was actually Randall Robinson's trilogy back in the day. But no one book has so clearly set out the history, meaning and urgency of economic reparations for Black people as does "From Here to Equality". uncpress.org/book/978146965…
I could have named a hundred more but each of these is representative of the books that shape my understanding of the world: narrative, empirics, history, and claims-making. And each means something to me personally.
