There are so many books I could choose for this prompt. I wish books like The Fire Next Time and Natives were more popular because I think they’re so important and such a wonderful way to understand experiences that we may not all have (particularly those of us who are white). They are also just such wonderful books and so well written that I found myself pausing frequently to mark a passage or just re-read bits a few times. Then there are books I love that aren’t as well known, like Bookworm by Lucy Mangan, which is such a poignant exploration of a life in reading and one I think every book lover will be able to see themselves in. And then there are celebrity memoirs by Hilarie Burton Morgan, Bobby Hall, Hannah Gadsby and Sandi Toksvig that were all brilliant reads, very emotional, interesting and that I learned something from. But they’re often discounted as celebrity memoirs rather than just being seen as great memoirs and great books. Each handles a lot of important and difficult issues in a unique way, such as neuridivergence, fertility, marriage, queerness, abuse, and trauma, just to name a few. They’re hard reads in places, but many are also funny or inspiring.
What about you guys? Which book or books do you wish were more popular? Which do you wish you could talk to someone about?
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I posted about the Bible, reacting to a public display of ignorance on the Internet, but I’d recommend people read James Baldwin’s books.
Hannah Gadsby and Sandi Toksvig’s autobiographies were great reads!
Oh very much so! I adore both of them.
If your open minded and do not see people with opposing views to you as inhuman blobs i.e. calling them bigots, racist, homophobe etc etc. Then reading outside your bubble can be enriching experience to a diverse range of thoughts and belief. It can challenge your views and make you see people as actual human beings instead of just someone sex or skin color.
Calling people names indicate you do Not see that person as a human being. The hateful rhetoric of calling a group of people, fascist, nazi, and white supremacist for the past nine years is what radicalize a young man to take a gun and attempt an assassination on the former president. A man who a father and firefighter by the name of Corey Comperatore was kill. Stuck by a bullet. What lead to this is the hateful rhetoric that dehumanize a group of people simply because they don’t have your pollical leaning.
About experiences, people are indivisible. To group people by the bassist of their skin to be homogeneous in their experiences is not seeing people as indivisible human beings. It is in fact dehumanizing.
I think there are indeed a huge range of human experiences and opinions that need to be seen as only a part of the person who holds them. As much as I do not condone any kind of violence or “hateful rhetoric” as you say, I do think I’d like to understand the people who are caught in these groups. I assume that they have had a lot of experiences themselves that have coloured their beliefs and have caused them to turn to violence, as misguided as that decision may be. I really wish we had more of a focus within society on trying to understand others, trying to see other points of view and trying not to assume that one thing about someone is all they are. I agree that grouping people on one feature (skin colour etc.) is dehumanizing. I’m sorry if my reference to white people particularly benefiting from reading works on racism seemed to be doing so – I merely meant that white voices have been more widely shared and heard, and that I think we all benefit from learning about other experiences – but particularly those of us whose experiences form a large portion of the culture in which we live. Ours is well represented already. But I agree with you. Thank you for your thoughtful comment.