Recommendations based on "Are Prisons Obsolete?"
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By Baldwin James
Published in 1962, this is an emotionally intense novel of love, hatred, race and liberal America in the 1960s. Set in Greenwhich Village, Harlem and France, ANOTHER COUNTRY tells the story of the suicide of jazz-musician Rufus Scott and the friends who search for an understanding of his life and death, discovering uncomfortable truths about themselves along the way.
By Kate Elizabeth Russell
'the Book Everyone Will Be Talking About' Louise O'neill 'a Package Of Dynamite' Stephen King A Stylist Best Book Of 2020 An Era-defining Novel About The Relationship Between A Fifteen-year-old Girl And Her Teacher All He Did Was Fall In Love With Me And The World Turned Him Into A Monster Vanessa Wye Was Fifteen-years-old When She First Had Sex With Her English Teacher. She Is Now Thirty-two And In The Storm Of Allegations Against Powerful Men In 2017, The Teacher, Jacob Strane, Has Just Been Accused Of Sexual Abuse By Another Former Student. Vanessa Is Horrified By This News, Because She Is Quite Certain That The Relationship She Had With Strane Wasn't Abuse. It Was Love. She's Sure Of That. Forced To Rethink Her Past, To Revisit Everything That Happened, Vanessa Has To Redefine The Great Love Story Of Her Life - Her Great Sexual Awakening - As Rape. Now She Must Deal With The Possibility That She Might Be A Victim, And Just One Of Many. Nuanced, Uncomfortable, Bold And Powerful, My Dark Vanessa Goes Straight To The Heart Of Some Of The Most Complex Issues Our Age.
By Kate Manne
Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics by the moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the "bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it's compatible with rewarding "the good ones," and singling out other women to serve as warnings to those who are out of order. It's also common for women to serve as scapegoats, be burned as witches, and treated as pariahs.Manne examines recent and current events such as the Isla Vista killings by Elliot Rodger, the case of the convicted serial rapist Daniel Holtzclaw, who preyed on African-American women as a police officer in Oklahoma City, Rush Limbaugh's diatribe against Sandra Fluke, and the "misogyny speech" of Julia Gillard, then Prime Minister of Australia, which went viral on YouTube. The book shows how these events, among others, set the stage for the 2016 US presidential election. Not only was the misogyny leveled against Hillary Clinton predictable in both quantity and quality, Manne argues it was predictable that many people would be prepared to forgive and forget regarding Donald Trump's history of sexual assault and harassment. For this, Manne argues, is misogyny's oft-overlooked and equally pernicious underbelly: exonerating or showing "himpathy" for the comparatively privileged men who dominate, threaten, and silence women.
By Caleb Azumah Nelson
'A tender and touching love story, beautifully told' Observer 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2021'A beautiful and powerful novel about the true and sometimes painful depths of love' Candice Carty-Williams, bestselling author of QUEENIE'An unforgettable debut... it's Sally Rooney meets Michaela Coel meets Teju Cole' New York Times'A love song to Black art and thought' Yaa Gyasi, bestselling author of HOMEGOING and TRANSCENDENT KINGDOMTwo young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.'An amazing debut novel. You should read this book. Let's hear it for Caleb Azumah Nelson, also known as the future' Benjamin Zephaniah'A very touching and heartfelt book' Diana Evans, award-winning author of ORDINARY PEOPLE'A lyrical modern love story, brilliant on music and art, race and London life, I enjoyed it hugely' David Nicholls, author of ONE DAY and SWEET SORROW'Caleb is a star in the making' Nikesh Shukla, editor of THE GOOD IMMIGRANT and BROWN BABY'A stunning piece of art' Bolu Babalola, bestselling author of LOVE IN COLOUR'For those that are missing the tentative depiction of love in Normal People, Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water is set to become one of 2021's unmissable books. Utterly transporting, it'll leave you weeping and in awe.' Stylist'An exhilarating new voice in British fiction' Vogue'A poetic novel about Black identity and first love in the capital from one of Britain's most exciting young voices' Harper's Bazaar'An intense, elegant debut' Guardian
By Sohn Won-Pyung
A BTS fan favorite! A WALL STREET JOURNAL STORIES THAT CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE PICK * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S STAY HOME AND READ PICK * SALON'S BEST AND BOLDEST * BUSTLE'S MOST ANTICIPATEDThe Emissary meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime in this poignant and triumphant story about how love, friendship, and persistence can change a life forever.This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster.One of the monsters is me.Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother provide him with a safe and content life. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you," and when to laugh.Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school, and they develop a surprising bond.As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life at risk, Yunjae will have the chance to step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become the hero he never thought he would be.Readers of Wonder by R.J. Palaccio and Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig will appreciate this "resonant" story that "gives Yunjae the courage to claim an entirely different story." (Booklist, starred review)Translated from the Korean by Sandy Joosun Lee.
By Oliver Burkeman
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." ―Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street JournalThe average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society―and that we could do things differently.
By Yann Martel
NOW ON BROADWAYThe international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play.After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan—and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again.The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional—but is it more true?Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.
By Etaf Rum
An NPR Best Book of the Year“A moving meditation on motherhood, inter-generational trauma and how surface appearances often obscure a deeper truth. . . . A stunning second novel from a writer who set the bar very high with her first!”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and Community BoardThe acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of a Palestinian-American woman, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents."After Yara is placed on probation at work for fighting with a racist coworker, her Palestinian mother claims the provocation and all that’s come after were the result of a family curse. While Yara doesn’t believe in old superstitions, she finds herself unpacking her strict, often volatile childhood growing up in Brooklyn, looking for clues as to why she feels so unfulfilled in a life her mother could only dream of. Etaf Rum’s follow-up to her 2019 debut, A Woman Is No Man, is a complicated mother-daughter drama that looks at the lasting effects of intergenerational trauma and what it takes to break the cycle of abuse." —Time magazine, "The Most Anticipated Books of the Year"
By Brit Bennett
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' story lines intersect?
By Octavia E. Butler
Octavia Butler makes Faulkner's aphorism about the past not being past literal in this tale of a modern black woman, Dana, who is drawn unwittingly back through time to the Antebellum South to interact with her ancestors. Dana is pulled back and forth between past and present, each stay in the slave quarters lasting longer and becoming more dangerous, and as the tension and brutality rises she struggles to understand the connections that are drawing her back in order to escape. Originally written in the?70s, Butler?s portrayal of the ways that the injustices of the past are woven intimately into the fabric of our present? and our inability to move forward until we gain an understanding of that? rings truer than ever.