Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez, Garcia Gabriel (Pearl Ruled)
The Shore of Women by Sargent, Pamela – read
When Will There Be Good News? by Atkinson, Kate – read (No Review)
The Book of Joan by Yuknavitch, Lidia – read (No Review)
Out of mesopotamia by Salar, Abdoh
In Search Of The Lost Chord: 1967 And The Hippie Idea by Goldberg, Danny read (to do list)
To Hold Up the Sky by Liu, Cixin
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by O’Connor, Flannery- read (No Review)
The Wives of Henry Oades by Moran, Johanna- read (No Review)
Spirits and Thieves by Rhodes, Morgan – read (No Review)
The Rush’s Edge by Smith, Ginger – read
The women’s revolution, Russia 1905-1917 by Cox, Judy – read
George Orwell Illustrated by Smith, David
Marx’s Capital by Smith, David -read
The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, James – read
Sex in the world of myth by Leeming, David Adams Read
The goddess by Leeming, David Adams
The conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven by Schultz, John
A People’s History of the United States by Zinn, Howard – reading
The Weight of Ink by Kadish, Rachel – read
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Clarke, Susanna
Thinking in Pictures by Grandin, Temple
My Beloved World by Sotomayor, Sonia
The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut, Kurt
Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology by Reynolds, Richard – read (No Review)
The Relentless Moon by Kowal, Mary Robinette
The Language Of The Night by Le Guin, Ursula K.
Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in Their Struggle for Self by Golomb, Elan
Watchmen as literature by Van Ness, Sara J.- read (No Review)
Parable of the Sower by Butler, Octavia E.
Junk City by Boilard, Jon -read (No Review)
The Music Book by Osborn, Karen – read
Back to the wine jug by Taylor, Joe
Watchmen by Moore, Alan – read (No Review)
The Nickel Boys by Whitehead, Colson – read
The Water Dancer by Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Dark mirror by Gellman, Barton – read (No Review)
Playing in the Dark by Morrison, Toni
Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene by Ehrman, Bart D.
Berkeley at War: The 1960s by Rorabaugh, W.J.
Things that can and cannot be said by Roy, Arundhati – read
Cinderella Liberator by Solnit, Rebecca – read
Berkeley: The Student Revolt by Draper, Hal – read
The Books of Earthsea by Le Guin, Ursula K.
Robert Duncan in San Francisco by Rumaker, Michael -read (No Review)
History as mystery by Parenti, Michael – read (No Review)
Feminisms redux by Edited by Warhol-Down, Robyn and Herndl, Diane Price
American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring by Giraldi, William
A Book of Book Lists by Johnson, Alex – read (No Review)
Becoming Superman by Straczynski, J. Michael
Howl on Trial by Morgan, Bill and Peters, Nancy Joyce – read (No Review)
Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century by Franklin, H. Bruce
Legends edited by Silverberg, Robert – read (No Review)
Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Calvino, Italo
Why I Read by Lesser, Wendy
Side Life by Toutonghi, Steve – read (No Review)
This is how You Lose the Time War by El-Mohtar, Amal and Gladstone, Max
The Future of Another Timeline by Newitz, Annalee – read
Gideon the Ninth by Muir, Tamsyn – read
Sixteenth Watch by Cole, Myke – read (No Review)
The City In The Middle Of The Night by Anders, Charlie Jane – read
The Lost War by Anderson, Justin – read (No Review)
Small days and nights by Tishani, Doshi – read
The Shadow King by Mengiste, Maaza – read
Mickey Mouse: From Walt to the World by Deja, Andreas
Tag Archives: Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Daily Communiqué – 28 April, 2019 – Recap Week 4
Monday was a good day to take about the pitfalls of poorly researched writing encouraging stereotypes of sexual and emotional abuse in the guise of BDSM.
Tuesday I got real about the history of Jesus.
A review of City Light Theater Company’s Eurydice was Wednesday’s spotlight.
Thursday’s commentary was about billionaire vigilante Batman.
One of my favorite authors, Ta-Nehisi Coates featured in Friday’s commentary.
Saturday wrapped the week with a discussion about what to do about the “Problematic Artist,” spurred by the recent banning of Kate Smith by the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Daily Communiqué – 26 April 2019 – Ta-Nehisi Coates
I’ve said more than once that Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most important writers today. If not the most important when it comes to matters of race in America. Especially matters of black and male in America.
His book Between the World and Me is written for his son explaining how to survive in a world where, “… navigating his Baltimore neighborhood was rife with literal boundaries and secret codes, any violation of which could get him beat up. Ta-Nehisi Coates attempts to make sense of the senseless. While explaining to his son, it becomes clear that there is a sort of sense in the chaos, but only to those who are so invested in making sure the ‘other’ oppressed.” (7 Stillwell review, January 16, 2017)
Then came The Beautiful Struggle about his chaotic upbringing in Baltimore surrounded by his father’s collection of Black Panther and black power movement books. The only thing I could really identify with was being the nerd wanting to be left alone to read. For Coates, it was comics. For me, books. And we were both greedy for them.
These two books offer an insight into a world I could never know, and never truly understand. But Coates’ writing is eloquent, teaching many things along the way.
During interviews, he is gracious and thoughtful. At one point, he mentioned driving to the venue and seeing a billboard with his face on it. “It’s just unreal,” he said.
There was his infamous Twitter fight with Cornel West, a professor of philosophy at Harvard, and professor emeritus at Princeton. In 2003 (ish) a friend and I were moseying the Stanford Campus when we happened upon a lecture by Dr. West. I found it to be obtuse and inexplicably over-complicated. All I remember of it now is how he would lean into the lectern after a question from the audience and say, “I think the brother (or sister) for asking that question.” And would go off on an answer which made no sense to me. The upper class white people around us nodded their heads in sage agreement. My friend and I looked at each other quizzically.
To be sure I hadn’t missed something, I grabbed a copy of one of his books and diligently slogged my way through it. No wiser than before. Maybe Philosophy just ain’t my thing.
Anyway, Dr. West and Ta-Nehisi Coates got into this righteous Twitter feud which ended with Coates leaving Twitter for good after Dr. West called him a “house n….r.” I still don’t know what to make of that, or understand what prompted that particular epithet.
Coates’ third book, We Were Eight Years in Power languishes on my to be read stacks. Sometimes I nip over to The Atlantic website and read his columns from there.
I was reminded of his work in a Brain Pickings post about Coates, in which Maria Popova highlights the “terror of kindness” where we have been culturally conditioned to expect the worst from those we encounter and must face our disbelief that people can actually just be kind.
New to the Stacks: Shadow Ops, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Other Goodness
They by Janet Mason – Read
The Art of Fiction by John Gardner ~ #LitCrit ~ Read
Darkness Visible by William Styron
The Annotated Alice – annotated by Martin Gardner
Shadow Ops: Breach Zone by Myke Cole – Read
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates – read
Book List: Black in America
This is an incomplete list of books I’ve read which have helped me understand what it means to be “other,” based on skin color. They make my heart ache, and think more deeply about my own privilege of being white.
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Beautiful Struggle – Ta-Nehisi Coates
We Should All Be Feminists Now – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Not a Genuine Black Man – Brian Copeland
By Any Means Necessary – Malcolm X
Beloved – Toni Morrison
2017 Reading in Review
Everyone’s got one. This is my reading year in review.
Total read: 23
Total acquired: 56
Number of pages read: 5906
Publishing year count: 15 unique years
Author Count: 21 unique authors (7 women)
- Favorites: (in no particular order)
- (Links to 7Stillwell reviews or What’s Auntie Reading Now? photos)
-
- The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith
- The BurgerMeister’s Daughter by Steven Ozment
- Obsessive Genius by Barbara Goldsmith
- Ghachar, Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
- Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
- Zealot by Reza Aslan
New (to me) authors I want to read more of:
Pat Conroy
Andrew Smith
Vivek Shanbhag
Tobias Buckell
Elizabeth Bear
Banana Yoshimoto
Review: The Beautiful Struggle
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
#ReadingIsResistance to racism, and economic inequality.
Title: The Beautiful Struggle
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Published: 2008
ISBN-13: 9780385527460
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
What’s Auntie Reading Now picture
To be a black male is to be always at war …. because … we are met by the assumption of violence, by the specter of who we might turn on next. (p192)
This is the last #ReadingIsResistance book for January’s theme of social and economic justice. It seems appropriate to end the month with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
It’s hard to know how approach this book. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ experience is so far from mine, I just as well be from another country.
His memoir of life in Baltimore is colloquially written, exploring family life and growing up in a confusing family dynamic, in neighborhoods where the danger was palpable. His father had children by several women, and their lives wove in and out of each other’s in ways different from what one would expect. My life has taught me that family is who you chose, blood or no, and the family dynamic doesn’t follow a proscribed route.
Coates was surrounded by his father’s books from the Black Panther black power movement and historical treatises teaching the Knowledge of being black in America. His parents’ world was just as fraught with peril too, and Coates was meant to learn that and apply it to his own everyday survival.
My default position was sprawled across the bed staring at the ceiling or cataloging an extensive collection of X-Factor comic books. This never cut it for Dad, who insisted I learn the wavelengths of my world. In the quiet chaos of my room, everything was certain. (p. 51)
That, I can relate to. It wasn’t comic books, I didn’t know those existed in a form other than the Archie and Jughead comics available in the check-out line at the grocery store. But I was surrounded by books, and paper for writing was always available. My parents didn’t insist I go out and play. I stayed in my room and read voraciously. There was no wavelength of the community to pick up on.
But I lived in small-town America during my formative years, not the teeming, crowded life of Baltimore. My family life was unstable, but I was never forced to learn the history of anything other than what I was taught in school and the books I chose to read.
In some ways, I envy Ta-Nehisi Coates’ upbringing. It was unsafe, unpredictable, and hard but he had someone who made sure he was taught about the Knowledge and the things which were important to know about surviving in his world.
But envy is a useless emotion, especially when taken in the context of this:
The most ordinary thing – the walk to school, a bike ride around the block, a trip to the supermarket – could just go wrong. (p. 55)
A white girl couldn’t possibly know, much less understand, what it was like to be unsafe just by walking out the door. I couldn’t possibly have known why belonging to a gang of some sort was often the only option for survival. “The streets” meant nothing to me other than something cars drove on.
I can only thank Ta-Nehisi Coates for sharing his life so honestly. For opening himself up so I could get a glimpse of what it means to be something other than what I am. He has given me insight which grounds my liberal tendencies in something other than the theoretical. He is the story teller I would most love to sit and ask questions of as I learn what his world is like.
There is no way I can give a comprehensive review of The Beautiful Struggle. What I can say is that I understand the meaning of the beautiful struggle as it applies to my own life and the evolution of my self, and world. I know every one of us has a beautiful struggle going on.
I encourage you to read Ta-Nehisi Coates and open yourself to the deeply personal way in which he writes about being black, male, and in America. His is important work, and must continue to be disseminated, especially in the turbulent times we find ourselves in under the Trump administration.
Thank you Mr. Coates, thank you.
What’s Auntie Reading Now: The Beautiful Struggle
Review: Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Title: Between the World and Me
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Published: 2015
ISBN-13: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Hate gives identity. (p. 60)
I rarely say this about any writer I read. Clearly, I enjoy many authors and have learned quite a bit from reading. But I rarely say I think their work is important to anyone but me. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ work is important, and it should be read by everyone.
Written in the form of a letter to his son, Coates explains what it means to be a black male in America. The fragility of a black man’s body, based on the need to know how to navigate the physical world without incurring the wrath of anybody along the way.
It was hard to for me to imagine how fraught life could be for someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates. How could I? My experiences growing up white in mostly safe neighborhoods where I could concentrate on enriching my life would never have prepared me for understanding what it’s like to be black, and male, in America.
To yell ‘black-on-black crime’ is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding. (p. 111)
There’s a lot to think about here, and Coates does it so elegantly and eloquently. Between the World and Me changed my understanding . Having to explain to his son what to it’s like to grow up black and male in America, to explain why his parents are hard on him, or why their reactions often seem overly harsh, is to be uncommonly self-aware.
Never have I read such a powerful work. Never. His description of navigating his Baltimore neighborhood was rife with literal boundaries and secret codes, any violation of which could get him beat up. Ta-Nehisi Coates attempts to make sense of the senseless. While explaining to his son, it becomes clear that there is a sort of sense in the chaos, but only to those who are so invested in making sure the “other” oppressed.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ work is important, his words are important. They’re important because they point to the nonsensical and say, “How can this make sense?”
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