The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and our American Narratives by David Mura should be required reading in all high school and college classrooms – and for all Americans. Mura presents a cohesive, comprehensive, and uncompromising look into how white stories about race erase our true historical narrative and foster racism in the present.
Living on the North Shore of Lake Superior, a mere twenty miles from the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, commonly known as the Grand Portage Anishinaabe, I have a responsibility to learn and understand more about the first people that inhabited this area. They are my friends and neighbors, and I often don’t verbalize the questions I have because I don’t want to say anything offensive or reveal my ignorance. Treuer’s book is a straightforward path through what could be a minefield, one that to be honest, creates anxiety and for me and impairs genuine connection and communication.
During a time when laws protecting a woman’s body autonomy are being threatened, reading Allende’s book reminds me that throughout history, women have exhibited great strength and resolve, and when banded together, are a force to be reckoned with.
Reading SEVEN AUNTS, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for these women and the author’s commitment to truth telling. Drouillard writes with such integrity. I cared deeply about the aunties, and I didn’t want to leave them. Extraordinary women leading ordinary lives; they lived in a world that did not recognize their contributions, but the lessons of their lives changed the world for future generations.
Ken Follett is the massively successful author of 36 books – selling over 178 million copies worldwide. He writes thrillers and mysteries but his most popular books are the Pillars of the Earth Trilogy. That first book, PILLARS OF THE EARTH, was published in 1989 was about the building of a medieval cathedral. It was …
THERE’S A REVOLUTION OUTSIDE, MY LOVE should be essential reading for all Americans. Edited by Tracy Smith and John Freeman, the anthology gives us a glimpse into the beating heart of some of our most esteemed writers during a time of great unrest. Tracy Smith likens the Summer of 2020 to the Freedom Summer of …
Obama is a gifted storyteller; rather than letting the narrative get bogged down with rote policy and timelines, he leavens it with personal reflection. It would be easy to lose sight of oneself when you are the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world, but Obama is not afraid to look sideways at himself.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson examines the unspoken system of caste in America in her new book, CASTE: THE ORIGINS OF OUR DISCONTENTS. Wilkerson began writing Caste out of a desire to better understand the system of assigning meaning to the unchangeable physical characteristics that direct politics and policies and personal interactions. As I read, …
A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE by Sonia Purnell is billed as the never-before-told story of the American spy who changed the course of World War 2. You might imagine a James-bond like figure at the center of this true life story, but Virginia Hall was one of the first women to be recruited by the …
Some books are meant to be re-read, and it seems that for me the time was now to reread Eva Hoffman’s After Such Knowledge: Where Memory of the Holocaust Ends and History Begins. With everything going on in the world today, with global politics tipping right and an election bearing down on us, reading it again was a poignant reminder of that old trope, we must remember and understand history or we are destined to repeat it.
Superior Reads 