John Lewis and Andrew Aydind and Nate Powell
[isbn]
First you march, then you run! That’s what John Lewis did after more than five years as a leader in the civil rights movement, after being the youngest speaker at the march on Washington, after getting beaten and arrested for his nonviolent resistance. Lewis then ran for Congress and became a powerful voice for justice from the seat of government. Run follows the great John Lewis in the years following the events of the award-winning and... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
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Patrick Nathan
[isbn]
In this powerful work of cultural criticism, Patrick Nathan explores the myriad insidious connections between Fascism, politics, identity, art, and photography. Through surprising and insightful discussions of social media, memes, gifs, films, and literature, Image Control encourages us to watch the world carefully and actively, instead of only looking passively at images and propaganda. Nathan is a thrilling writer and thinker, and... (read more)
Recommended by Adam P.
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Deborah Copaken
[isbn]
If TMI is your jam (and Nora Ephron your muse), grab a copy of Deborah Copaken’s hilarious, cringy account of divorce, grief, and serial, serious illness. Ladyparts is honest in the most embarrassing, most important ways for women, giving our bodies and brains the space to be messy and loud in a society that demands quiet perfection.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Kat Chow
[isbn]
Rarely have I been so completely sold on a book after reading just the first page. Seeing Ghosts is often doing two things at once: it is deftly guided and also meandering; it is self-possessed while self-interrogating; and, at its heart, it is grieving a loss and honoring a legacy.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Ian Millhiser
[isbn]
Often, Supreme Court coverage focuses on individual personality quirks of the justices or the short-term results that decisions have on political parties. But the Court shapes the nation in fundamental ways via multiple opinions that come out over the course of decades. In other words, the coalitions of justices in the majority are playing multiple long-games simultaneously. In his short but thorough book, Ian Millhiser convincingly shows just... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Qian Julie Wang
[isbn]
Beautiful Country left me in tears. It's a heartbreaking, powerful, and ultimately hopeful memoir. The hardships Qian Julie Wang went through as such a young child living as an undocumented immigrant in the United States can be painful to read, but it's something many Americans need to hear. The author's clear voice and astonishing self-awareness keep you turning the pages, even as she unearths trauma after trauma. If you have any doubt... (read more)
Recommended by Leah B.
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Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
[isbn]
The origin story of the wildly popular My Favorite Murder podcast is as much about the hosts’ shared fascination with true crime as it is about vulnerability — the two struck up a conversation about Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly at a party, discovered it wasn’t their only common interest, and the rest is podcast history — so it’s fitting that candor and self-reflection would feature prominently in their dual memoir. The stories... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Natalie Diaz
[isbn]
I was drawn to Diaz’s harsh, illuminative poems about watching her brother struggle with meth addiction, but her speakers contend with many kinds of appetite. The poems collected in When My Brother Was an Aztec range between mournful, angry, reflective, funny, and red hot, but at their centers are Diaz’s observations of life on the Mojave reservation where she grew up and her dizzying aptitudes for plainspokenness and the kind of surreal... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn
[isbn]
From Hillbilly Elegy to Janesville, books purporting to explain the decline and polarization of rural America and the white working class have proliferated in the 21st century. Tightrope rises above the pack with its compassionate portrayal of its subjects, careful research, intersectional analysis, and thoughtful policy solutions. Focusing on the lives of Kristof's childhood peers in the working-class town of Yamhill,... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Allison Williams
[isbn]
After more than a year stuck at home, we are ready to hit the road! From day trips to weekend jaunts to a two-week adventure through our gorgeous region, author Allison Williams (and the always excellent Moon Travel series) offers fantastic guidance on where to go and stay, what to see, and more.
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Kristen Radtke
[isbn]
In Seek You, Kristen Radtke approaches the epidemic of American loneliness from a variety of angles. Each view is taken with tremendous empathy and conveyed with Radtke’s engaging and elegant illustrations. Seek You is a thoughtful exploration of a complex problem that offers understanding, not easy answers.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Amy Stanley
[isbn]
This captivating tale of one woman’s life and difficult path to Edo during the Shogun era reads like a novel, but is obviously the product of extensive research. Amy Stanley has beautifully recreated the experience of an “ordinary” woman, the kind of life story that is seldom recorded and rarely told.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Garrett M Graff
[isbn]
While reading The Only Plane in the Sky, my heart broke a thousand times. It is one thing to have witnessed (from the west coast on TV) the 9/11 attacks, yet quite another to see, smell, and hear the events as told by the survivors. My biggest takeaways are how much compassion was expressed for total strangers and how bravely many victims stepped forward into their deaths. Those brave people showed courage that pushed them past their... (read more)
Recommended by Tracey T.
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Jennifer Finney Boylan
[isbn]
Not only was Jennifer Finney Boylan’s story groundbreaking — one of the first works to put the transgender experience on the page and on the world stage — her writing is beautiful, honest, irreverent, and very funny to boot. When She’s Not There debuted in 2003, Boylan’s candor, determination, and outrageous wit were the perfect combination to open hearts and inspire a generation of trans folks. And now, as half our country continues to... (read more)
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Chris Hedges
[isbn]
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges is as trenchant a writer as his writing is urgent. A sobering portrait of a nation in swift decline, America: The Farewell Tour is an incisive work equally devastating and disturbing. A failing health care system, the opioid crisis, debt servitude, the resurgence of hate groups, a for-profit carceral state, prostitution and sex trafficking, the decline of union... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Leslie Marmon Silko
[isbn]
A profound portrait of PTSD and cultural marginalization, on and off the Laguna Pueblo reservation, Silko’s classic novel remains cutting-edge 44 years after its original publication. Weaving between past and present, Native folklore and stark depictions of reservation life, Silko uses formal innovation and lyricism to convey how trauma, depression, and colonization coalesce to break the spirit, and the potential of Native storytelling and... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Dubravka Ugresic
[isbn]
Yugoslav author Dubravka Ugrešić may well be the smartest, wittiest, most captivating author you’re not (yet) reading. With more than a dozen fiction and nonfiction works available in English translation, Ugrešić's brilliance is amply displayed. American Fictionary (rendered from the Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth and Ellen Elias-Bursac) — first published in 1993 and revised and republished 25 years later — is a collection of keen,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Barry Lopez
[isbn]
It feels reductive to call Barry Lopez's work nature writing. He had a gift for taking the awe that the natural world can inspire and distilling it into prose. It is difficult to choose just one of his books to recommend — read them all! — but Arctic Dreams is exceptional. Epic in scope and execution, it covers every aspect of the Arctic: its Native peoples, flora, fauna, geology, explorers, climate. In Lopez's skilled hands the barren... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Tamim Ansary
[isbn]
If you, like me, received an American public school education, the history of the world you learned probably began with Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, proceeded through the rise of Christianity, the European "Dark Ages" and Renaissance, and concluded with a series of world conflagrations and the rise of the US as a superpower. This version of history relegates Eastern history to a bit part in the West's Grand Story of Conquest and Triumph... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Assata Shakur
[isbn]
This may be the book on this list that will have the most altered emotional valence for many — but by no means all — readers today, as opposed to when it was published. In 1977, Assata Shakur was convicted of the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper, after years of acquittals or dismissals of various charges. Perhaps her trial was fair, but her treatment surely wasn’t. In the era of COINTELPRO, Shakur was held up by the government as the face of... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Chanel Miller
[isbn]
As a society, we expect a lot from our victims. We’d like them to be faultlessly virtuous and silent, or deeply flawed and perhaps culpable, because either scenario allows third parties to feel neither susceptible to, nor responsible for, such an outcome. Victims are often unnamed for many good reasons, but it has the perhaps unintended effect of making their suffering abstract, their pain unattributable to a specific face. In Know My... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Steven Greenhouse
[isbn]
Impressively researched, unflinchingly honest, and at times deeply moving, Steven Greenhouse’s Beaten Down, Worked Up is a valuable resource both for those looking to learn about American labor history and for those looking to learn from it. Through case studies of pivotal workers’ rights campaigns and intimate portraits of the people who waged them, Greenhouse shows the trajectory of the labor movement from its heyday to the... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Ezra Klein
[isbn]
If you want to understand the politics of the moment and the forces underlying the current state of the nation, this deeply researched and clearly argued analysis is the essential book. Period. Full stop.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Terry Tempest Williams
[isbn]
Activist, author, and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams is as vital as the wildernesses she so magnificently writes about (whether on a map or located within). For nearly four decades now, this advocate, defender, and all-around American treasure has been an unwavering voice for environmental and social justice, encouraging compassion for and (re)connection with the natural world. In Erosion: Essays of Undoing, Williams balances... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Michelle Alexander
[isbn]
There are a lot of important books on this list, but I hope this one is the most influential. It is said of the Velvet Underground that everyone who heard their first album started a band, and I suspect that a significant number of the readers of this book immediately became activists. What other reaction is appropriate, when the case made by this book — that the American carceral system is largely a racialized means of social control — is so... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Valeria Luiselli
[isbn]
In 2015, when Valeria Luiselli started interpreting for migrant youths in the New York immigration court, the system was in crisis and a target of demagogues and disinformation, but not nearly to the extent that it soon would be as American politics took a dehumanizing turn. When this book was published in 2017, it offered a much-needed corrective — it is a humane account that doesn’t traffic in answers; rather, it is literally centered on... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Angela Y. Davis
[isbn]
Reading Women, Race, and Class changed my understanding of feminism forever. The book opened my eyes to the deeply racist and classist history of feminism in America, and introduced me to the concept of intersectionality. Angela Davis gave me a history lesson like none I’d ever received in school. (How had none of my teachers ever even mentioned these things about Susan B. Anthony?!) The book spans from abolition to the publication date... (read more)
Recommended by Leah B.
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Svetlana Alexievich and Bela Shayevich
[isbn]
In the Western consciousness, the disintegration of the Soviet Union was defined by one moment, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 — the Cold War, and freedom, were won, roll credits — but the reality was far more complex. To the Soviet people, what the Western powers epitomized as the final triumph of liberal democracy was, for better or worse, a massive and ongoing rupture, a complete disintegration and reformation of their beliefs, values,... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Dorothy Wickenden
[isbn]
A thrilling triple biography of fiercely impressive women, Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Coffin Wright, who fought together across racial and class lines to expand rights in America for the dispossessed. Tubman's brave exploits on the Underground Railroad are well detailed, here, as are her valiant scouting trips for the Union army during the Civil War. Seward and Wright were staunch abolitionists who helped Tubman shelter her... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Nate Powell
[isbn]
Working with John Lewis on the March trilogy gave Nate Powell an enviable education and perspective on the history of entrenched American inequalities and how to combat them. His new graphic memoir is a thoughtful reflection on how to put that into practice as a parent during one of the most tumultuous times in American history.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Melissa Maerz
[isbn]
Richard Linklater's classic high school flick, Dazed and Confused, launched the careers of actors like Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, and Matthew McConaughey, whose role as the legendary (and rather creepy) Wooderson made famous the titular line, "Alright, alright, alright." All of the stories in the book are firsthand accounts from the director, actors, crew, and friends filled with joyous memories and juicy gossip. Maerz's book is fun for... (read more)
Recommended by Eric L.
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Alice Waters
[isbn]
Legendary chef Alice Waters knows that how and what we eat is a political, environmental, and humanitarian act that ricochets around the word, influencing ecosystems, labor, and equity. We Are What We Eat is her passionate plea to eat and act graciously, with the intention and compassion our planet (and our taste buds!) deserve.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Heather McGhee
[isbn]
I knew of Heather McGhee’s work at the think tank Demos, so I expected her first book to be a work of insightful analysis on social history and economic policy. In that regard, the book does not disappoint. However, I was unprepared for just how beautifully written and engaging The Sum of Us would prove to be. This is a clarifying and perspective-shifting book that will change lives; it stands in dialogue with Isabel Wilkerson’s... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Elon Green
[isbn]
You can read and appreciate this book as a true crime thriller — it's got plenty of twists and turns, breakthroughs and roadblocks to the investigation at its center. But the real achievement here is capturing the lost queer New York City of the late '80s and early '90s — the bars where men who could not be themselves in public went to loosen their ties and live in the best version of a queer community available to them. Elon Green captures why... (read more)
Recommended by Tim B.
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Stacey Abrams
[isbn]
Recently, Stacey Abrams testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about her objections to new voting restrictions in Georgia. She had barely started when a Republican senator asked her to slow down. This book will tell you exactly why she will not slow down.
Recommended by Keith M.
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John Green
[isbn]
In this gorgeous and entertaining collection of essays by the inimitable John Green, topics from the (seemingly) mundane to the magnificent are examined with grace and wisdom. Based on Green’s podcast of the same name, The Anthropocene Reviewed gets five stars, easy.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman
[isbn]
Drawing parallels between the summers of 2020 and 1964, the award-winning author, poet, and memoirist Smith brings together 40 incomparable voices to anthologize the Freedom Summer of 2020. Poignant and powerful, There's a Revolution Outside memorializes a cultural turning point and galvanizes the reader to keep fighting for justice after the summer ends.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Michael Lewis
[isbn]
Michael Lewis specializes in profiles of people who can find and exploit flaws in entrenched systems. His new book is about the individuals who had to see through, and work around, the Trump administration’s campaign of misinformation and inaction in response to the looming pandemic.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Malcolm Gladwell
[isbn]
The bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945 was one of the deadliest nights in human history. Malcolm Gladwell’s new book engagingly covers the many technological advances that made it possible, the mindset of the leadership that ordered it, and the moral questions that remain unanswered.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Lidia Yuknavitch
[isbn]
I need better language to talk about this book, these stories. Brokenness. Fury. Quiet. Orgasm. Triumph. Death. Impressions of the misfit life, the human experience. Lidia Yuknavitch writes with fire about the frozen souls of the lost. And we’re all lost. You have to read slowly, read again, stop and let settle. This book is short, but it’s so big I have to take time to breathe now that I’m done.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Rebecca Buxton, Lisa Whiting
[isbn]
From female philosophers of ancient Greece and China to Mary Wollstonecraft and Angela Davis, prepare to be blown away by the breadth and depth of scholarship, though largely unheralded. Read about Diotima, for instance, who may well have taught Socrates what came to be known as his own method, and essentially elucidated the path of love, or what was later known as the Bhakti path to enlightenment. Women have always been active in this field —... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Willy Vlautin
[isbn]
Willy Vlautin tells remarkable stories with plain language and real characters. His is the kind of writing that puts the reader in the body and heart of the protagonist, in this case, a working-class woman trying to survive and do right in a gentrified, moneyed world. We need to read these fraught stories, and Vlautin makes it compelling to do so.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Paulina Bren
[isbn]
This is a fun, informative feminist history of the NYC residential hotel that connected Grace Kelly to Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion to Cybill Shepherd. Aspiring artists, writers, models, and career women of all stripes came to stay here for the safety, the glamorous sisterhood — and a room of one's own. I just know Betty Draper stayed here as a model before she married Don!
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Jared Cohen
[isbn]
This is a great insight into some of our lesser-known presidents as well as a new look at the more famous ones. Cohen has done his research and writes great tales of transitions of power. It's very interesting to read about men who were hoping to ride out four to eight years in the lazy chair of the vice president, only to be unexpectedly be given vast amounts of responsibility they (mostly) did not want.
Recommended by Jeffrey J.
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Casey Cep
[isbn]
This book reads like a detailed Law and Order episode. The story is actually told in 3 parts. 1) A murderer who killed for life insurance money. 2) The lawyer who defended both the murderer AND, eventually, the murderer's killer. 3) The journalist who spent years trying to tell this fascinating tale. This book is full of interesting details and courtroom drama. And I love that it shed some light on one of the most mysterious modern American... (read more)
Recommended by Rose H.
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Hanif Abdurraqib
[isbn]
Hanif Abdurraqib’s books are always such a treat to be savored. In this lyrical landscape of American music history and culture, Abdurraqib’s historical and personal words of experience present themselves with precise rhythm and melodious prose that work from every angle. Following up on 2019’s Go Ahead in the Rain, which was longlisted for the National Book Award, A Little Devil in America is yet another masterpiece.
Recommended by Kim T.
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Patrick Radden Keefe
[isbn]
Patrick Radden Keefe reports the story of the family that has profited enormously from the nation’s opiate epidemic. Most coverage of the epidemic focuses on the desperation and misery of the country’s worst off; Empire of Pain instead turns its lens on the culpability of extreme wealth and power.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Michelle Zauner
[isbn]
At one point in her memoir, Michelle Zauner describes the quick ascent of her band Japanese Breakfast as “suspiciously charmed.” Any reader who has made it that far knows there’s nothing suspicious about it. Crying in H Mart is a skillfully written and deeply moving portrait of Zauner’s mother and their close, and at times strained, relationship. It is also a rumination on cultural distance and the power of food to bridge the gap — it is... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Mandy Len Catron
[isbn]
What begins as an experiment for the author, who takes a psychology test to try and fall in love with another test participant, becomes the premise for a book that is as much fun to read as it sounds. Catron supplies a candid account of her doubts and misgivings about love, drawing from her family's and her own romantic history, tackling the topic with analytical curiosity. And when she finally does arrive at success in love, as the title... (read more)
Recommended by Aubrey W.
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Stacy McCullough
[isbn]
In the heart of winter, trapped in snow and ice, dreams of spring and summer vacations bounce around in my head. In this era of restrictions, recommendations, and social protocols, it's hard to imagine anything safer than a personalized road trip with your quarantine bubble. Oregon Day Trips by Theme offers adventurers the opportunity to explore on their own terms, enjoying everything from caves and mountains to museums and local... (read more)
Recommended by Corie K-B.
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Pankaj Mishra
[isbn]
In this collection of previously published, thought-provoking essays, Mishra looks at, amongst other things, the flawed relationship between the West and the Global South — and especially at the unsound and faulty assumptions that have led to harmful policies. Pankaj Mishra is a Marxist critic. His essays are acerbic and illuminating and a joy to read. A definite must-read for anyone interested in the impact and effects of colonialism,... (read more)
Recommended by Sheila N.
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Carol Anderson
[isbn]
Highly recommend for folks looking to expand their antiracist knowledge. Anderson goes through historical moments in order. This makes for a read packed with information that has been glossed over in a lot of public education settings. A must-read.
Recommended by Rin S.
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Quiara Alegria Hudes
[isbn]
Quiara Alegría Hudes is one of my favorite playwrights. She’s won the Pulitzer Prize and she wrote the book for the musical In the Heights. In her dramatic works, home — no matter how imperfect — is a guiding force for all of her characters. Now, she's turning her generous and poetic voice to her own story, recounting her South Philly barrio and its cacophonous beauty that has always transfixed her.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Sarah Schulman
[isbn]
The story of the AIDS activist group ACT UP is more important than ever in our age of deep inequality, political gridlock, and rampant disease. How social movements arise and make change fast is vital information, and I’m so glad that Sarah Schulman has put years into explaining not just how but why ACT UP succeeded as much as they did. Many of the earlier accounts of the organization have been marred by some of ACT UP’s big personalities, who... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Lidia Yuknavitch
[isbn]
Fierce, elegant, beautifully grotesque, unabashedly sexy, unapologetically brutal. Exploring the effects of trauma and want on the psyche, Lidia Yuknavitch masterfully mixes sharp reality with the fantastical. Whether about blood-hungry mythical graywolves or desperate addicts seeking a fix, the stories in Verge are surreal, dark fairy tales of pure, deep-down truth.
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Courtney Maum
[isbn]
I am so grateful to have found this INVALUABLE resource to guide me through the publication of my first book. It contains vital information for writers at all stages in their careers. With tips and advice on everything from querying agents and setting aside valuable writing time to childrearing and doing taxes (Did you know you can write off the lattes you drink while plugging away on your novel??), this book is a holy text of sorts. I feel like... (read more)
Recommended by Ariel K.
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Mark Bittman
[isbn]
First, Mark Bittman brought us VB6. Now, he ratchets up his crusade to get people cooking and eating better by delving into our unsustainable, destructive, and unhealthy agricultural and food production systems. We don't need to buy more organic veggies, Bittman claims, we need to start a revolution. After reading this incisive book, I'm ready to appoint him leader.
Recommended by Matt K.
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Rene Denfeld
[isbn]
This book is beautiful and disquieting and I tried — I really tried — to savor it, but instead I devoured it in one sitting like a fool. Denfeld has a gift, and it’s more than a way with words. It’s an ability to root beauty out of dark recesses. To explore moral reprehensibility with compassion. To make the reader cringe and marvel in equal measure, and consume in hours a book they’d intended to ration out over days. I’ve honestly never... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Emma Copley Eisenberg
[isbn]
In this thoughtful and immersive chronicle of the 1980 murders that thrust West Virginia’s Pocahontas County into the national spotlight, Eisenberg seeks to better understand not only the crimes and their aftermath, but also the lasting impact the region (which she came to know independent of her inquiry) has had on her. A complex and captivating read.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
[isbn]
As you might expect from a book that juxtaposes a narrative of parental abuse and neglect with one of a serial killer and his horrific crimes, this is not an easy read, and merits a long list of trigger warnings. But readers who can stomach the unsettling subject matter (sheepishly raises hand) will find an engrossing, suspenseful, and wholly unforgettable true story of a young girl’s brush with evil.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Michael E. Mann
[isbn]
Fossil fuel companies and politicians beholden to business interests have waged a propaganda war, transforming climate change in the public imagination from the urgent responsibility of governments and corporations into an issue of personal responsibility. In The New Climate War, Mann reveals the inner machinations of this war and empowers readers to fight back.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Simon Winchester
[isbn]
Winchester's ability to take vast historical subjects and transform them into lucid and compulsively readable narratives makes his writing a joy to read. In Land, Winchester dives into the history of property ownership, combining hundreds of years of well-researched history with entertaining anecdotes that illuminate and humanize historical figures and moments from around the globe.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Ada Calhoun
[isbn]
An exploration of the political and cultural milieu that Gen X women find themselves immersed in. Ada Calhoun deftly outlines the factors that contribute to the unique situation that Gen X women inhabit.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Amy Stanley
[isbn]
Tsuneno, the errant daughter of a Buddhist priest, is determined to take control of her own life and to live it on her own terms. Using the letters she wrote (as well as letters written by other family members), Amy Stanley paints with extraordinary detail life in midcentury Japan, and the city of Edo in particular. I was completely enraptured with this book. Shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford award, Stranger in the Shogun's City... (read more)
Recommended by Sheila N.
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Eden Dawn and Ashod Simonian
[isbn]
Locals and visitors alike cherish Portland, as it’s filled with something-for-everyone treasures to be found around every corner, both indoors and outside. This colorfully designed guide provides an updated tour through some of the smile-making activities that will engage your senses, showcasing what a wonderland Stumptown truly is.
Recommended by Aubrey W.
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E.J. Koh
[isbn]
A disciplined, engrossing work about learning to love generously and the role language can play in closing one off and opening one to understanding, The Magical Language of Others is an incredible achievement. A translation of memory, words, and feelings that, like all good translations, communicates the essence of the original text while creating something new and beautiful.
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Chuck Palahniuk
[isbn]
If you know Chuck Palahniuk's writing, you know he goes where others dare not tread. The advice imparted here is similar: explicit honesty that holds nothing back. It is this bold trait that garners him a devoted fan base, and what makes this book so rewarding.
Recommended by Aubrey W.
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Francesca Wade
[isbn]
Between the two world wars, five unorthodox intellectuals, poet Hilda Doolittle, novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Ellen Harrison, historian Eileen Power, and novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf lived at Meckleburgh Square. They occupancy didn't overlap and they didn't know each other personally, so what's the premise of Francesca Wade's Square Haunting? It's an illuminating and captivating look at the lives of five women who... (read more)
Recommended by Sheila N.
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Wa Thiongo Ngugi
[isbn]
Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o's new novel, The Perfect Nine, is a dazzling retelling of the Gĩkũyũ origin myth (Kenya's largest ethnic group), interpreted and translated into English by Ngugi wa Thiong'o' himself. An exuberant epic entwining storytelling-in-verse and edifying mythology, The Perfect Nine is an action-packed, adventurous fable abounding with joy and wisdom. Rich, memorable, and magnificently composed, Ngugi... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Adam Cohen
[isbn]
In Supreme Inequality, Cohen makes a convincing argument that for 50 years the courts have been a centerpiece of Republican strategy, and the increasingly conservative Supreme Court has prioritized corporate interests and the wealthy while giving short shrift to marginalized groups. Its decisions have directly helped to create the deep inequalities existent in our country today. With a new, extremely conservative justice confirmed, this... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Dan Rather
[isbn]
After a long career as one of our best-known and loved journalists, Dan Rather has made himself one of the most essential voices to read in our current political climate. What Unites Us is a hopeful, thoughtful, and rational book about how we can come together as citizens even — and especially — in profoundly troubling and divisive times.
Recommended by Jill O.
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Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
[isbn]
Building on their popular podcast with this fascinating book, the SYSK hosts are going to change the way you look at everything — Mr. Potato Head, getting lost, facial hair, and more. The ideal read for anyone who’s ever wondered why things are the way they are.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Allie Brosh
[isbn]
Allie Brosh returns with the highly anticipated Solutions and Other Problems. With her signature illustration style, stories of very bad animals, and humorous, yet deeply moving observations, Brosh is bound to warm your heart and have you laughing out loud.
Recommended by Rachel M.
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Yuval Noah Harari
[isbn]
There are a lot of choices in evolutionary science titles, and I personally feel it can get a bit overwhelming. When Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens came out a few years ago, it really brought evolutionary science to the masses. Thoughtful, engaging writing that is accessible, even to the non-science-y folks. With The Birth of Human Kind (Sapiens #1), we can see Harari's work brought to life in captivating illustrations, further encouraging... (read more)
Recommended by Corie K-B.
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Jon Meacham and John Lewis
[isbn]
There is no book that I would rather be reading this fall than His Truth Is Marching On. Jon Meacham is a powerful writer and his portrait of Congressman Lewis is sure to be one of the most significant books of the year.
Recommended by McKenzie W.
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Tina Ontiveros
[isbn]
A memoir of growing up in the Northwest, living below the federal poverty line, with a father who was larger than life, sometimes abusive, and always a force to be reckoned with. One of the things I really loved about this book was how it illuminated new corners of the Northwest — towns I’d never heard of, places I’ve only passed through. Ontiveros’s love of the natural world comes shining through. I also loved her refusal to reduce her father to... (read more)
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Harriet Jacobs
[isbn]
A profoundly harrowing account, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girlby Harriet Jacobs, is too often overlooked in the canon of American classics. Published 16 years after the narrative of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs presented the particular horrors of female slavery to a majority white male audience for the first time. A vital piece of history, Harriet Jacobs's autobiography deserves to be read and examined by modern audiences.
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Katie Skelly
[isbn]
Katie Skelly's sense of the strange, her delightful cartooning, and the underlying unhinged true crime story make an unbeatable combination. I can't wait.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Bryan Stevenson
[isbn]
“Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?” If you feel called to learn about criminal justice, but don’t necessarily have a firm understanding of how the legal system operates, Just Mercy is exactly the book to read. Not only is it totally accessible, but the stance from which Bryan Stevenson writes is so utterly compassionate that, as he sheds light on example... (read more)
Recommended by Aubrey W.
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Isabel Wilkerson
[isbn]
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson pulls back the American myth of meritocracy and reveals a rigidly hierarchical caste system with roots that date back to Jamestown. A masterly examination of the deeply rooted systems of power encoded in every facet of American life, and a thought-provoking exploration of the parallels between the American caste system and those of India and Nazi Germany. Caste is necessary reading for... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Betsy Bonner
[isbn]
While attending a bookseller conference inn January (a lifetime ago), I started The Book of Atlantis Black on the plane, and absolutely could not rest until I finished it a couple of days later. The more I talked to other booksellers, the more I heard the same story — once begun, no one could resist its pull. The Book of Atlantis Black is the fascinating, tragic, and utterly compelling narrative of Betsy Bonner's search for what... (read more)
Recommended by Jill O.
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Michael Pollan
[isbn]
Credited with igniting the mainstream's consciousness surrounding food, Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan carefully examines the culture and processes of the food we eat. A catalyst for various food movements in the 21st century, Pollan successfully wrote a text that challenged and changed the way omnivores the world over think about what's on their dinner plate.
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Phil Keith, Tom Clavin
[isbn]
Are you locked down? Life on hold? Read a biography of someone who really lived their life!
Incredible and fascinating, All Blood Runs Red is immensely enjoyable journey of
Eugene Bullard, boxer, pilot, soldier, spy. Bullard was also a jazz drummer and owner of a Paris nightclub in the 1930s, who was friends with Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, and many more. Born in Georgia in 1895, escaping the racism he hated, he... (read more)
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Chip Jones
[isbn]
In 1960s Virginia, we celebrated American superiority in the race for one of the first successful heart transplants. The reality of this success was darkened with the knowledge of what went on behind the scenes: organ collection from an African American without their permission or knowledge. The history of abuse within our health system, and how it has affected our communities of color, is a must-read for anyone trying to understand the world we... (read more)
Recommended by Corie K-B.
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Billy Jensen
[isbn]
When I first sat down to write my review of Chase Darkness With Me, I made a quick list of words I would use to describe its author, Billy Jensen:
tenacious
resourceful
compassionate
I reread what I’d typed, mumbled “wait a minute” to myself, and went back to look at my review of... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Morgan Jerkins
[isbn]
In Wandering in Strange Lands, Morgan Jerkins invites her reader along on a journey, both figurative and literal, to better understand her lineage and the ways in which the displacement of Black people across America still resonates generations later. Her brave, inquisitive nature and openness to whatever truths she may encounter — the welcome ones, the uncomfortable ones, the ones for which there is no written record — make for an... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Michael Bennett, Dave Zirin, Martellus Bennett
[isbn]
Wow, who knew NFL player Michael Bennett was a visionary justice warrior with a worldwide view and the sensibilities for community outreach? He is, and he does, and he has the writing chops to tell us all about it. For a lady who hates sports, this book was so much more than I expected. Bravo, Michael, and keep fighting the good fight!
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Layla F Saad
[isbn]
This book is so needed. It is a workbook for people with white privilege, like me, to educate themselves on the pervasive racist ideologies that they carry; and to dismantle these, and take action to make the world a better place. Reading and journaling through it, I was asked to confront hard truths in a loving way, an experience that continues to be a life-changing gift.
Recommended by Aubrey W.
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C Riley Snorton
[isbn]
This profoundly important book analyzes the intersections of blackness and transness from the mid-19th century to present, illuminating a history that has long been overlooked in a trans theory that centers whiteness. Necessary reading.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Laila Lalami
[isbn]
Laila Lalami’s account of the multitude of ways that many citizens — whether natural born or naturalized — are treated as lesser is precise and well argued. Informed by her own history, but citing numerous sources about the experience of others, Conditional Citizens makes a convincing case that gaining the official designation of inclusion into American society doesn’t make one welcome.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Cathy Park Hong
[isbn]
This book is ruthless and funny, exacting and searching, and will make you question, deeply, your assumptions about race, language, gender, and the interactions you have with the people and the world around you. Cathy Park Hong's essays are sharp and incisive, and she doesn't let anyone, or anything, off the hook.
Recommended by Tim B.
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Ramiza Shamoun Koya
[isbn]
I have just begun this debut novel by Portland author Koya and am really enjoying it. Amina moves to DC to further her career and be close to her family in the years following 9/11. There, she develops a relationship with her nephew, who is fascinated by their East Indian heritage and is searching for answers. This is a well-crafted story about second-generation Americans finding their place in the world.
Recommended by Jennifer H.
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Peter Mayle
[isbn]
British author Peter Mayle and his wife make real their dream of living in the French countryside when they purchase a 200-year-old stone farmhouse. When Mayle's publisher complains about the lateness of his expected manuscripts, Mayle writes back a detailed account of the trials and indignities he faces with the upkeep of said farmhouse. That letter to his publisher eventually becomes A Year in Provence, and the book is hilarious,... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Rebecca Solnit
[isbn]
This memoir is a marvel. Rebecca Solnit writes with the cool, studied sense of a person who has always had to provide a great deal of proof, and makes a compelling case for how issues of representation, visibility, and credibility fit into the epidemic of violence against women. This book filled me with rage and hope in equal measure, and I loved every word.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Barry Lopez
[isbn]
As someone who has broadened the notion of what it means to be both a world traveler and a profoundly curious writer, it’s no wonder that National Book Award–winning author Barry Lopez, now 74 years old and battling terminal cancer, has given us a work so expansive it can only be named Horizon. Lopez has visited more than 70 countries, and though his book is loosely divided into just six regions — from the Oregon Coast to the... (read more)
Recommended by Renee P.
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Susan Stryker
[isbn]
Susan Stryker is an incredible historian, and in her seminal Transgender History she compiles a trans history of resilience from the mid-20th century to the present to show that progress is at times less like an arrow than it is a boomerang. A must-read for anyone and everyone.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Caroline Dooner
[isbn]
This book is for every person who is sick of dieting, sick of feeling bad about their bodies, sick of having a tumultuous relationship with food and eating, and ready to kick all that nonsense to the curb. Here's to 2020 being the year of the Fck it Diet!
Recommended by Haley B.
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Maggie Doherty
[isbn]
A well-researched group biography of five women and their experiences at Radcliffe's Institute for Independent Study. These writers and visual artists all struggled to balance society's expectations of women with their own artistic and personal goals, and through their friendships and collaborations helped guide and inspire women for years to come.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Jennifer Worley
[isbn]
I tore through this with a bedtime-be-damned voracity normally reserved for mysteries and thrillers, and though I already knew the broad-strokes version of the story, I was nonetheless completely enthralled by this firsthand account. Neon Girls chronicles Worley's journey from fledgling stripper to full-fledged labor activist; the creation of the Exotic Dancers Union; and the transformation of San Francisco's legendary Lusty Lady into a... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Beth Macy
[isbn]
In Dopesick, Beth Macy exposes the heartbreaking realities of those individuals and communities affected by the opioid epidemic in America; its scope ranges from small-time drug pushers to the corporations and doctors that peddled the deadliest and most addicting drugs to unsuspecting patients, ruining lives along the way. This book is a humanitarian plea for those responsible to right the wrongs caused by their greed. It will both... (read more)
Recommended by Eric L.
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