Non-Fiction
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Isabel Wilkerson, 2020
Random House
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780593230251
Summary
As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative.
She tells us stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system—a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more.
Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day:
—she documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews;
—she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against;
—she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics.
Finally, Wilkerson points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A., Howard University
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize (twice); National Book Critics Circle Award; George S. Polk Award; Journalist of the Year Award from The National Association of Black Journalists.
• Currently—lives in in Boston, Massachusetts
Isabel Wilkerson is a journalist and the author, in 2010, of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, which won the Pulitizer Prize, as well as the Book Critics Circle Award. In 2020, she published Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, a book that also received wide critical acclaim.
Born in Washington D.C., Wilkerson studied journalism at Howard University, becoming editor-in-chief of the college newspaper The Hilltop. During college, Wilkerson interned at many publications, including the The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.
In 1994, while Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism, winning the feature writing award for her coverage of the 1993 midwestern floods and her profile of a 10-year-old boy who was responsible for his four siblings. Several of Wilkerson's articles are included in the book Pulitzer Prize Feature Stories: America's Best Writing, 1979 - 2003, edited by David Garlock.
Wilkerson has also won a George S. Polk Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Journalist of the Year award from the National Association of Black Journalists.
She has also held the positions of James M. Cox Professor of Journalism at Emory University, Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and the Kreeger-Wolf endowed lecturer at Northwestern University. She also served as a board member of the National Arts in Journalism Program at Columbia University.
Wilkerson is now a Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction in the College of Communications at Boston University.
After fourteen years of research, she has just released a book called The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, which examines the three geographic routes that were commonly used by African Americans leaving the southern states between 1915 and the 1970s, illustrated through the personal stories of people who took those routes.
During her research for the book, Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,000 people who made the migration from the South to Northern and Western cities. The book almost instantly hit number 11 on the NYT Bestseller list for nonfiction and has since been included in lists of best books of 2010 by many reviewers, including Salon.com, Atlanta Magazine, New Yorker, Washington Post, Economist, and The Daily Beast. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[A]n extraordinary document…an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far. It made the back of my neck prickle from its first pages, and that feeling never went away…. It's a book that seeks to shatter a paralysis of will. It's a book that changes the weather inside a reader.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
[E]legant and persuasive…. [Wilkerson] combines larger historical descriptions with vignettes from particular lives, recounted with the skill of a veteran reporter…. Its vivid stories about the mistreatment of Black Americans… prompt flashes of indignation and moments of sorrow. The result is a book that is at once beautifully written and painful to read.
Kwame Anthony Appiah - New York Times Book Review
Wilkerson’s book is a powerful, illuminating and heartfelt account of how hierarchy reproduces itself, as well as a call to action for the difficult work of undoing it.
Washington Post
Magnificent… a trailblazing work on the birth of inequality…. Caste offers a forward-facing vision. Bursting with insight and love, this book may well help save us.
Oprah Magazine
[Caste] should be at the top of every American’s reading list.
Chicago Tribune
(Starred Review) [A] powerful and extraordinarily timely social history…. Incisive autobiographical anecdotes and captivating portraits…reveal the steep price U.S. society pays for limiting the potential of black Americans. This enthralling expose deserves a wide and impassioned readership.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred Review) [Wilkerson] explains how a rigid social order, or caste, is about power.… Incidents of historical and contemporary violence against African Americans resonate throughout this incisive work. [Caste] is destined to become a classic, and is urgent, essential reading for all.
Library Journal
(Starred Review) This is a brilliant book, well timed in the face of a pandemic and police brutality that cleave along the lines of a caste system.
Booklist
(Starred Review) Wilkerson writes that American caste structures were broadly influential for Nazi theorists when they formulated their racial and social classifications…. A memorable, provocative book that exposes an American history in which few can take pride.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the beginning of Caste, author Isabel Wilkerson compares American racial hierarchy to a dormant Siberian virus. What are the strengths of this metaphor? How does this comparison help combat the pervasive myth that racism has been eradicated in America?
2. Wilkerson begins the book with an image of one lone dissenter amidst a crowd of Germans giving the Nazi salute. What would it mean—and what would it take—to be this man today?
3. What are some of the elements required for a caste system to succeed?
4. Wilkerson uses many different metaphors to explain and help us visualize the concept of the American caste system: the bones inside a body, the beams inside a house, even the computer program in the 1999 film The Matrix. Which of these metaphors helped the concept click for you? Why was it successful?
5. Caste and race are not the same thing. What is the difference between the two? How do casteism and racism support each other?
6. Discuss how class is also different from caste.
7. Who does a caste system benefit? Who does it harm?
8. "Before there was a United States of America," Wilkerson writes, "there was a caste system, born in colonial Virginia." How can Americans reckon with this fact? What does it mean to you to live in a country whose system of discrimination was cemented before the country itself?
9. Did learning about the lens and language of caste change how you look at U.S. history and society? How?
10. Wilkerson discusses three major caste systems throughout the book: India, Nazi Germany, and America. What are some of the differences that stood out to you among these three systems? What are the similarities? How did learning about one help you understand the other? For instance, did the fact that the Nazis actually studied America’s segregation practices and Jim Crow laws help underscore the depth of our own system?
11. Harold Hale, an African-American man, helped his daughter defy the "rules" of their caste in 1970s Texas by naming her Miss. As Wilkerson illustrates throughout the book, the dangers of being seen as defying one’s caste can range from humiliation to death. What do you think of the lengths he felt he needed to go to assure dignity for his daughter? What are the risks he put her in by doing so? Should Miss have had a say in her father’s quietly revolutionary act? Explain.
12. Discuss the differences and similarities between how Miss was treated in the South, where racism and casteism have historically been more overt, and in the North, where they still exist, but can be more subtle. Do you think these various forms of racism and casteism must be fought in different ways?
13. Wilkerson quotes the orator Frederick Douglass, who described the gestures that could incite white rage and violence: "in the tone of an answer; in answering at all; in not answering …" These contradict each other: One could incite rage by answering … or by not answering. Discuss the bind that this contradiction put (and still puts) African-American people in.
14. Wilkerson frequently uses her own experience as an African-American woman to illustrate her points regarding caste—and the confusion when someone "rises above" his or her presumed station. What do readers gain from hearing about Wilkerson’s personal experiences in addition to her deep historical research?
15. "Indians will ask one’s surname, the occupation of one’s father, the village one is from, the section of the village that one is from, to suss out the caste of whoever is standing in front of them," Wilkerson writes. "They will not rest until they have uncovered the person’s rank in the social order." How is this similar to and different from the process of determining caste in America? Have you ever, for instance, asked someone what they did for work or where they lived or went to school, and been surprised? Did you treat them differently upon hearing their answer?
16. Analyze the process of dehumanization and how it can lead to people justifying great acts of cruelty.
17. "Evil asks little of the dominant caste other than to sit back and do nothing," Wilkerson writes. Whether in the dominant caste or not, what are some of the ways that each of us, personally, can stand up to the caste system?
18. Wilkerson gives examples that range from the horrifying (lynching) to the absurd (the Indian woman who walked across an office to ask a Dalit to pour her water from the jug next to her desk) to illustrate caste’s influence on behavior. How do both of these types of examples—and everything in between—help cement her points? Why do we need to see this range to clearly understand caste?
19. Discuss how overt racism subtly transformed into unconscious bias. What are the ways that we can work to compensate for the unconscious biases inherent in a caste system?
20. Wilkerson writes about the "construction of whiteness," describing the way immigrants went from being Czech or Hungarian or Polish to "white"—a political designation that only has meaning when set against something "not white." Irish, Italian … people weren’t "white" until they came to America. What does this "construction of whiteness" tell us about the validity of racial designations and the structure of caste?
21. It is a widely held convention that working-class white Americans may often "act against their own interests" by opposing policies designed to help the working class. Discuss how the logic of caste disproves this concept and redefines that same choice from the perspective of maintaining group dominance.
22. How does the caste system take people who would otherwise be allies and turn them against one another?
23. Wilkerson describes dinner with a white acquaintance who was incensed over the treatment they received from the waitstaff. Why did the acquaintance respond the way that she did, and how did it hurt or help the situation?
24. What do we learn from Albert Einstein’s response to the American caste system upon arrival from Germany?
25. What are some of the steps that society, and each of us, can take toward dismantling the caste system?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir
Sara Seager, 2020
Crown Publishing
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525576259
Summary
An MIT astrophysicist searches for meaning in the wake of her husband's death, even as she scours the universe for an Earth-like exoplanet, in this powerful memoir of cutting edge science, unexpected discoveries, and new beginnings.
Sara Seager has made it her life's work to peer into the spaces around stars—looking for exoplanets outside our solar system, hoping to find the one-in-a-billion world enough like ours to sustain life.
But with the unexpected death of her husband, Seager's life became an empty, lightless space.
Suddenly she was a widow at forty and the single mother of two young boys, clinging to three crumpled pages of instructions her husband had written for things like grocery shopping—tasks he had done while she did pioneering work as a planetary scientist at MIT.
She became painfully conscious of her Asperger's, which before losing her husband had felt more like background noise. She felt, for the first time, alone in the universe.
In this probing, invigoratingly honest memoir, Seager tells the story of how, as she stumbled through the world of grief, she also kept looking for other worlds.
She continues to develop groundbreaking projects, such as the Starshade, a sunflower-shaped instrument that, when launched into space, unfurls itself to block planet-obscuring starlight, and she takes comfort in the alien beauty of exoplanets.
At the same time, she discovers what feels every bit as wondrous: other people, reaching out across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering consolation and advice; and her beloved sons, Max and Alex.
Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match with an amateur astronomer, with whom she finds renewed hope and love.
Equally attuned to the wonders of deep space and human connection, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is a light in the dark for anyone seeking meaning and solace. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 21, 1971
• Where—Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.S., University of Toronto; Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Sackler International Prize in Physics
• Currently—lives in Concord, Massachusetts, USA
Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and a professor of physics and planetary science at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She currently chairs NASA's Probe Study Team for the Starshade project.
Seager's research is focused on exoplanets and the search for the first Earth-like twin, and she has introduced many new ideas to the field of exoplanet characterization, including work that led to the first detection of an exoplanet atmosphere.
Seager won the prestigious Sackler International Prize in Physics, as well as a MacArthur fellowship, and she was named by Time as "one of the twenty-five most influential people in space."
In 2011 Seager's husband Mike was diagnosed with colon cancer and died not long after, which is the subject of her 2020 memoir, The Smallest Lights in the Sky. She lives with her sons in Concord, Massachusetts. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[S]tark, bewitching…. The merciless seesaw of [Seager's] grief makes for harrowing reading… [but also] gleams with insights into what it means to lose a partner in midlife…. [The book] beautifully dramatize[s] …the challenges of being female physical scientists in a male-dominated field, and convey[s] the struggle of operating in the vast scales of the universe at work, then commuting home to operate in the humbler scales of the domestic sphere…. [Seager] exemplifies the humanity of science.
(Starred review) [B]rilliant, emotionally wrought ... Seager’s openhearted prose is clean and exact, and her observations illuminate the human drive to connect with others. This wondrous tale of discovery, loss, and love is both expansive intimate.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Seager… has intertwined her lifelong love of the stars with her personal story of love and loss and renewal.… This thoughtful and affecting memoir… reads like a comforting novel, inspiring others to follow their dreams and never give up on the possibilities of discovery and self-reflection. —Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL
Library Journal
(Starred review) Seager’s writing is unfailingly accessible and compelling. Sometimes the chapters alternate between biographical and scientific developments, other times events are intertwined, but again, readers will remain fully engaged throughout.… Readers will cheer for the happy ending.
Booklist
(Starred review) For someone who has devoted so much of her life to exploring the possibility of life on other planets,… it was a more personal discovery—that she was autistic—that made her feel like "I’d been struck by something, a physical impact." … A singular scientist has written a singular account of her life and work.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The author opens the book by describing rogue planets; she uses them as a metaphor for her children, who she says have gone "halfway to rogue" following the death of their father. What else in her life appears "rogue"? Who or what in your life could be described as a "rogue planet," with no star to orbit?
2. Throughout the book, the author talks about the power of belief and of positive thought. Do you feel that belief is a type of magic? Why or why not?
3. The author is an extremely successful woman in a field dominated by men. Was there a point in the book when you thought this circumstance was especially affecting her? Do you think the fact that she’s a woman has had an impact on her career trajectory, for better or for worse? Why?
4. Is there anything in your life that you’ve pursued with blind faith despite opposition, in the way that the author is driven to find exoplanets in the face of backlash from her scientific community? What kept the author moving toward her goal? What keeps you moving toward your goal?
5. Later in her life, the author discovers something about herself that she had never considered before—she realized it only after she was featured in a major publication and a friend pointed out certain aspects of her personality that came through on the page. How might you have reacted to a surprise like this? Have you ever realized something about yourself only after seeing yourself from another person’s perspective?
6. The author relied on a dark sense of humor to cope when her husband was first diagnosed and throughout his illness. What do you make of this? Why is this her instinct? Does this form of humor appeal to you, or not?
7. When her husband passed away at home, unhindered by tubes and machines, the author says she felt she was able to help "build something beautiful." Do you agree that death can be beautiful? Why or why not?
8. What do you make of the use of metaphors throughout the book such as dark and light or the sun and stars? Was there a particular metaphor that was the most powerful to you?
9. The Widows of Concord become a supportive community for the author after her loss. Why do you think the author initially resisted their friendship? What did she ultimately gain from those relationships?
10. In her recurring dreams of her husband following his death, the author sees him return to her after long absences: he has been in a coma, missing, on long trips, and so on. What do you think is the meaning of this recurring dream?
11. Do you feel that the scene with the Green Flash is a moment of rebirth or closure for the author? Is it—or can it be—both?
12. The author has focused her life’s work on detecting life on other planets, only to find herself searching for new life after death. How are these pursuits related? How are they dissimilar?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir
Colin Jost, 2020
Crown/Archetype
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101906323
Summary
In these hilarious essays, the Saturday Night Live head writer and "Weekend Update" co-anchor learns how to take a beating.
If there’s one trait that makes someone well suited to comedy, it’s being able to take a punch—metaphorically and, occasionally, physically.
From growing up in a family of firefighters on Staten Island to commuting three hours a day to high school and "seeing the sights" (watching a Russian woman throw a stroller off the back of a ferry), to attending Harvard while Facebook was created, Jost shares how he has navigated the world like a slightly smarter Forrest Gump.
You’ll also discover things about Jost that will surprise and confuse you, like how Jimmy Buffett saved his life, how Czech teenagers attacked him with potato salad, how an insect laid eggs inside his legs, and how he competed in a twenty-five-man match at WrestleMania (and almost won).
You’ll go behind the scenes at SNL (where he’s written some of the most memorable sketches and characters of the past fifteen years) and "Weekend Update." And you’ll experience the life of a touring stand-up comedian—from performing in rural college cafeterias at noon to opening for Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall.
For every accomplishment (hosting the Emmys), there is a setback (hosting the Emmys). And for every absurd moment (watching paramedics give CPR to a raccoon), there is an honest, emotional one (recounting his mother’s experience on the scene of the Twin Towers’ collapse on 9/11).
Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy—with a face you can’t help but want to punch. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 29, 1982
• Raised—Staten Island, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Colin Jost is a head writer at Saturday Night Live, a "Weekend Update: co-anchor, and a touring stand-up comedian. His memoir, A Very Punchable Face (2020) is his first book.
He has five Writers Guild Awards, two Peabody Awards, and a PETA Elly Award for the sketch “Diner Lobster.” He’s also been nominated for thirteen Emmy Awards and lost every time. He lives in New York and in the hearts of children everywhere. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
There are no mainstream reviews for this title; listed below, instead, are dust jacket "blurbs" from colleagues:
Colin Jost is as funny as his face is punchable. Which is to say: very. He also knows a lot about Staten Island, soiling himself, internal parasites, and firemen’s pensions. He’s really the whole package. And if you care about comedy—writing it, performing it, watching it, or giving up any semblance of a normal adult life for it—so is his book.
Zadie Smith
Colin Jost is one of the best people I know and one hell of a writer. This book proves both to be true.
Seth Meyers
I was caught off guard by how much I enjoyed this book, considering how indifferent I feel about Colin as a person.
Amy Schumer
An inspiring story that reminds us that if you are born with looks and talent, you can still make it.
Conan O’Brien
I think this book is fantastic. I haven’t read a single word of it, but it’s got everything I want in a book—a front, a back, a good spine. And it’s got some heft. Whoever wrote this book knew what she was doing. Well done.
Michael Che
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for A VERY PUNCHABLE FACE … then take off on your own:
1. Which of Colin Jost's essays in his memoir …
- Most powerfully affected you (perhaps the story about his mother) …
- Made you laugh the hardest …
- Most revealed the most about who Colin Jost really is …
- Did you find…well, peurile, or childish …
- Made you wonder how Jost ever survived …
- Answered the question about whether Jost's success is due to talent, hardwork, or luck …
- Dished out the most interesting stuff on colleagues and what it is like working on SNL.
2. It's not uncommon for readers to pick up books by favorite comedians, only to find themselves let down by the lack of humor, lack of heft, or lack of good writing … or by the fact that it simply wasn't interesting. If A Very Punchable Face left you disappointed … how so? If, on the other hand, Colin Jost's memoir lived up to your hopes, even exceeded them … in what way did it do so?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
John Lewis and Michael D'Orso, 2015 (reissue, 2020)
Simon & Schuster
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476797717
Summary
An award-winning national bestseller, Walking with the Wind is one of our most important records of the American Civil Rights Movement. Told by John Lewis, who Cornel West calls a “national treasure,” this is a gripping first-hand account of the fight for civil rights and the courage it takes to change a nation.
In 1957, a teenaged boy named John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama for Nashville, the epicenter of the struggle for civil rights in America.
Lewis’s adherence to nonviolence guided that critical time and established him as one of the movement’s most charismatic and courageous leaders.
Lewis’s leadership in the Nashville Movement—a student-led effort to desegregate the city of Nashville using sit-in techniques based on the teachings of Gandhi—set the tone for major civil rights campaigns of the 1960s.
Lewis traces his role in the pivotal Selma marches, Bloody Sunday, and the Freedom Rides. Inspired by his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis’s vision and perseverance altered history. In 1986, he ran and won a congressional seat in Georgia, and remains in office to this day, continuing to enact change.
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The late Edward M. Kennedy said of Lewis, "John tells it like it was.… Lewis spent most of his life walking against the wind of the times, but he was surely walking with the wind of history." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 21, 1940
• Born—Troy, Alabama, USA
• Death—July 17, 2020
• Education—American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville
• Awards—National Book Award (more below)
Congressman John Lewis was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and played a key role in the struggle to end segregation. Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks, and serious injuries, Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence.
He is co-author of the first comics work to ever win the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel memoir trilogy MARCH, written with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell. He is also the recipient of numerous awards from national and international institutions including the Lincoln Medal, the John F. Kennedy "Profile in Courage" Lifetime Achievement Award, and the NAACP Spingarn Medal, among many others. (From the publisher.)
His 1998 memoir, Walking with the Wind, was reissued in 2015. Two years later, in 2017, after a very public spat with President Donald Trump, Amazon announced that copies of his memoir had reached #3 on its bestseller list—and were sold out. Used copies were going for nearly $100.
Book Reviews
In Walking With the Wind, John Lewis evokes, with simplicity and passion, how the 1960's transformed the United States. In the first half of that decade, the civil rights movement toppled the legal structure of racial segregation, held forth the hope of building a society based on reconciliation and justice and helped create the foundation for other social movements. Yet by the end of the 60's, assassinations, disillusionment with the political system and a tragic war 9,000 miles away had eroded optimism and a sense of possibility. In this powerful memoir (written with Michael D'Orso…), Lewis provides a compelling account of that topsy-turvy journey—an account rooted in his own history.
William H. Chafe - New York Times
Rep. John Lewis was among those who spilled blood on Bloody Sunday. He was among the civil-rights leaders who marched near Selma 50 years ago tomorrow… was struck down by the baton of official oppression…. [Lewis], a deep believer in nonviolent protest, lost consciousness and thought he was going to die that day. Instead, a half-century later, he stands tall as a symbol of change…. Congressman Lewis’ account in Walking With The Wind is vivid, and almost more important, reveal[s] the lens through which he processed the sights and sounds of the bridge.
Michael Cavna - Washington Post
For those too young to remember and those too old to forget, for everyone of race, we owe a debt of gratitude to this American hero, and the nameless, frightened (but ultimately fearless) multitudes that walked with him down those rugged roads of history.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Lewis imbues [this memoir] with his own observations as a participant. He…has a sharp eye, and his account of Selma and the march that followed is vivid and personal…. His book, a uniquely well-told testimony by an eyewitness, makes clear that such an impression is entirely inaccurate.
Publishers Weekly
[A] passionate, principled, and absorbing first-person account of the civil-rights movement—dramatic, well-paced history…. [Lewis] memorializes not only the drama [of the Selma March], but the patience and steely courage of "the days and days of uneventful protest" that laid the groundwork…. A classic, invaluable blockbuster history of the civil-rights movement.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion of WALKING WITH THE WIND … then take off on your own:
1. In reading his memoir, how would you piece together, what John Lewis was like as a person? How did the events of his childhood affect his strength and passion to fight for civil rights in the 1960s—especially, as written in his memoir, growing up on the family farm in "a small world, a safe world, filled with family and friends"? In what way did that safe environment propel him to become a leader in the Civil Rights movement? Consider, for instance, his reference to caring for the family's chickens and what ideals that instilled in him.
2. What it was like to live in the Jim Crow South society of the 1940 ad 50s, as recalled to us by Lewis?
3. What role did Lewis's faith play in his life, starting from the time he was a child? How did Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermon on the radio, entitled "Paul's Letter to the American Christians" affect Lewis?
4. What role did Lewis play in galvanizing the nation once Americans learned of the brutality meted out to demonstrators in Montgomery, Alabama?
5. In August, 1963, Lewis gave a speech as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at the March on Washington. What did he call for? Did the speech work? Would it have worked today? How did the Black Power movement undermine Lewis's goals?
6. Discuss what happened at the 1964 Democratic National Convention? Talk about how Lyndon Johnson's decision, or compromise, affected John Lewis and the momentum of the civil rights movement.
7. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, what affect did it have on the movement, and on Lewis himself?
8. How is Lewis's memoir relevant today?
9. How much did you know, or understand, about the history of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement before reading Walking with the Wind? Did John Lewis's memoir expand your knowledge or confirm your ideas of that era in history?
10. Why, in your opinion, has the Civil Rights movement persisted? Or has it persisted? What happened to the momentum of the 60s? Did it stall out? Did it continue? Why, after 50 years, are Black citizens still struggling for equality?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir
Michele Harper, 2020
Penguin Publishing
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525537380
Summary
An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself.
Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white.
Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her.
Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.
In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken—physically, emotionally, psychically.
How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process.
The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery.
• How to let go of fear even when the future is murky.
• How to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it.
• How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice.
As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present.
In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Michele Harper has worked as an emergency room physician for more than a decade at various institutions, including as chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and in the emergency department at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia.
She is a graduate of Harvard University and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. The Beauty in Breaking is her first book. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring.
New York Times Book Review
(Starred review) Taking on the painful topics of trauma, domestic abuse, and the "ubiquitous microaggressions faced by people of color," Harper… begins her own process of self-healing…. This powerful story will resonate with readers.
Publishers Weekly
Harper’s words inspire hope and understanding of the importance of peace and acceptance of the past. Poignant, helpful, and encouraging, [her] lessons… from life in… the emergency room ultimately teach readers how to trust the healing process. —Rich McIntyre Jr., UConn Health Sciences Lib., Farmington
Library Journal
An African American emergency room physician reflects on how "the chaos of emergency medicine" helped her… understand the true nature of healing.… [T]his eloquent book… chronicles a woman’s ever evolving spiritual journey. A profoundly humane memoir from a thoughtful doctor.
Kirkus Reviews
In this illuminating memoir, an African American emergency room doctor finds that her patients' stories lead her to make connections between her work and the larger world.
Shelf Awareness
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion of THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING … then take off on your own:
1. "If my brother’s body could be patched up, then certainly, in its own time, his spirit could mend, too." Talk about the ways in which this passage, young Michele Harper's musing about her brother's presence in the ER stands as the thematic concern of this work. How is it possible for physical healing lead to spiritual/emotional healing?
2. How did Harper's observations of her patients and their struggles teach her about human brokenness and resilience. Take her patients, one-by-one, and talk about their personal struggles and what Harper learned from them.
3. Harper is a Black woman in an overwhelmingly white profession. Talk about the roll that racism plays in Harper's own life and for the patients of color who enter the hospital's ER.
4. Harper realizes that "America bears… many layers of racial wounds, both chronic and acute." What specifically does she mean, and in what way does this realization inspire her?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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