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What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book
Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Essays
James Mustich
Jul 31, 2018
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book is prompted in part by his inability to offer any comfort to his son after the latter’s disillusionment in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the exoneration of the police officers at whose hands he died: “I did not tell you that it would be okay, because I have never believed it would be okay.” The paternal anguish of a parent who knows he cannot protect his child from the embedded racism he has seen claim with impunity the lives of friends and relations brings a new dimension to a familiar fear, the one Coates felt as a constant companion of his own Baltimore childhood and coming-of-age. Unforgiving and unforgettable, Between the World and Me is a book to be reckoned with, its raw feeling as searing as its formidable eloquence; the questions it raises are weightier than any answers, one fears, can lift.
This book is a modern classic. Every American must read.
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The closest thing to Baldwin that these times have to offer. A brilliant, personal, cut to the bone, exquisitely conscious memoir of the racial moment of our culture.
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I think this is a must for people of privilege - white, male, hetero, cis - to immerse yourself in the experience of a father and child who navigate a hostile modern America, simply because of how they have been born. The book gives an expansive look at the black experience that I could never understand on my own. I finished the book with greater awareness of structural injustice, and greater empathy for those who are in its grip. Coates' audiobook reading is excellent, too.
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I will never forget this book - I was so moved by it. It was a wonderful way to give me an idea of how powerful the feeling is of wanting to protect your own body from harm - and to need to be vigilant about it nearly every second of one's life - when you are a person of color.
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I would never be able to understand and still cannot fully. But these first-person narratives are so helpful.
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"1,000 Books To Read Before You Die" is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing, Inc. Based on the book: 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich, (Workman Publishing Co., Inc.: © 2018 James Mustich)
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