Book picks similar to
Living While Black: Using Joy, Beauty, and Connection to Heal Racial Trauma by Guilaine Kinouani
race
psychology
nonfiction
non-fiction
Consumed: On Colonialism, Climate Change, Consumerism, and the Need for Collective Change
Aja Barber - 2021
And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn't (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth. In the second 'unlearning' half of the book, she will help you to understand the uncomfortable truth behind why you consume the way you do. She asks you to confront the sense of lack you have, the feeling that you are never quite enough and the reasons why you fill the aching void with consumption rather than compassion. And she makes you challenge this power disparity, and take back ownership of it. The less you buy into the consumer culture the more power you have. CONSUMED will teach you how to be a citizen not a consumer.
Checking In: How Getting Real about Depression Saved My Life---and Can Save Yours
Michelle Williams - 2021
After decades of sweeping her anxiety and depression under the rug—even during her years in the spotlight with Destiny’s Child—Michelle found herself planning her own funeral. Realizing that she needed immediate help and could no longer battle her anxiety and depression alone, she checked herself into a treatment facility. When she came home, she was energized and determined to check in on a regular basis with herself, God, and others. Practical, engaging, and full of wisdom, Checking In helps us understand thatbuilding walls around our vulnerability can hinder our healing; we need to reject the lies of anxiety and depression and replace them with the truth of God’s Word;joy can be found when we release toxic thought patterns;childhood wounds need to be healed;freedom can be found when we forgive ourselves and others; anda beautiful life comes from living honestly.An uplifting, behind-the-scenes look at one woman's path to healing, Checking In reminds you that you are not alone, and that God is not yet finished writing your story.
Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue
Ryan Holiday - 2018
Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private. This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental--it had been masterminded by Thiel.For years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem." When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuit--until it was too late. The verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean--for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture?In Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. It's a study in power, strategy, and one of the most wildly ambitious--and successful--secret plots in recent memory.Some will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after reading these pages--and seeing the access the author was given--no one will deny that there is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's shocking attempt to shake up the world.
Walking Miracle: How Faith, Positive Thinking, and Passion for Football Brought Me Back from Paralysis...and Helped Me Find Purpose
Ryan Shazier - 2021
But then Ryan was forced to redefine success. Suddenly, it was no longer measured by tackles or sacks, but by purpose and faith.WALKING MIRACLE is the story of this new definition of success, following the arc from December 4, 2017, when Shazier was injured playing the Cincinnati Bengals, to his retirement. For three years, Shazier doggedly pursued a return to professional football. He took small wins as “first downs” on the drive to return to the field: moving his toes, walking, dancing at his wedding, and ultimately running and returning to the team. What Shazier didn’t realize is that along the way, he was preparing himself for another purpose—that of father and husband, philanthropist, and football analyst. The journey was preparing him not for a renewed life as a middle linebacker, but a renewed life after the game.Here we see Shazier overcome childhood alopecia, which caused a great deal of emotional pain, and scoliosis, which nearly robbed him of his dreams of playing college and professional football. We gain insights into legendary coaches Urban Meyer and Mike Tomlin. And we see him star on the field. Shazier was one of the best defensive players in Steeler history—a history full of great defensive stars.WALKING MIRACLE—the message on a bracelet given to him by his godmother—is the story of Ryan’s comeback, but it’s also a book of life’s lessons, challenges, and a love letter to the power of positive thinking.
Dear William: A Father's Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love, and Loss
David Magee - 2021
The last time David Magee saw his son alive, William told him to write their family’s story in the hopes of helping others. Days later, David found William dead from an accidental drug overdose. Now, in a memoir suggestive of Augusten Burroughs meets Glennon Doyle, award-winning columnist and author David Magee answers his son's wish with a compelling, heartbreaking, and impossible to put down book that speaks to every individual and family. With honesty and heart, Magee shares his family’s intergenerational struggle with substance abuse and mental health issues, as well as his own reckoning with family secrets—confronting the dark truth about the adoptive parents who raised him and a decades-long search for identity. He wrestles with personal substance misuse that began at a young age and, as a father, he sees destructive patterns repeat and develop within his own children. While striving to find a truly authentic voice as a writer despite authoring nearly a dozen previous books, Magee ultimately understands that William had been right and their own family’s history is the story he needs to tell. A poignant and uplifting message of hope translates unimaginable tragedy into an inspirational commitment to saving others, as David founded the William Magee Institute for Student Wellbeing at the University of Mississippi. His mission to share solutions to self-medication and addiction, particularly as it touches America’s high school and college students, emphasizes that William’s story is about much more than a tragic addiction—it’s an American story of a family broken by loss and remade with love. Dear William inspires readers to find purpose, build resilience, and break the cycles that damage too many individuals and the people who love them. It’s a life-changing book revealing how voids can be filled, and peace—even profound, lasting happiness—is possible.
Hungry Hearts: Essays on Courage, Desire, and Belonging
Jennifer Rudolph WalshConnie (Milck) Lim - 2021
Well-known womxn (and the occasional man) from all walks of life shared their most vulnerable truths in a radical act of love, paving the way for healing in the face of adversity.Now, off the stage and on the pages of Hungry Hearts, sixteen of these beloved speakers offer moving, inspiring, deeply personal essays as a reminder that we can heal from grief and that divisions can be repaired. Bozoma Saint John opens herself up to love after loss; Cameron Esposito confronts the limits of self-reliance in the wake of divorce; Ashley C. Ford learns to trust herself for the first time. A heartfelt anthology of transformation, self-discovery, and courage that also includes essays by Luvvie Ajayi Jones, Amena Brown, Austin Channing Brown, Natalie Guerrero, Sue Monk Kidd, Connie Lim (MILCK), Nkosingiphile Mabaso, Jillian Mercado, Priya Parker, Geena Rocero, Michael Trotter and Tanya-Blount Trotter of The War and Treaty, and Maysoon Zayid, Hungry Hearts shows how reconnecting with our own burning, undeniable intuition points us toward our unique purpose and the communities where we most belong.
The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
Gad Saad - 2020
Dr. Gad Saad, the host of the YouTube show THE SAAD TRUTH, exposes the bad ideas—what he calls “idea pathogens”—that are killing common sense and rational debate. Incubated in our universities and spread through the tyranny of political correctness, these ideas are endangering our most basic freedoms—including freedom of thought and speech. The danger is grave, but as Dr. Saad shows, politically correct dogma is riddled with logical fallacies. We have powerful weapons to fight back with—if we have the courage to use them. A provocative guide to defending reason and intellectual freedom and a battle cry for the preservation of our fundamental rights.
The Comfort Book
Matt Haig - 2021
But then we never think about food more than when we are hungry and we never think about life rafts more than when we are thrown overboard.”The Comfort Book is Haig’s life raft: it’s a collection of notes, lists, and stories written over a span of several years that originally served as gentle reminders to Haig’s future self that things are not always as dark as they may seem. Incorporating a diverse array of sources from across the world, history, science, and his own experiences, Haig offers warmth and reassurance, reminding us to slow down and appreciate the beauty and unpredictability of existence.
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
Iain McGilchrist - 2009
In a book of unprecedented scope, McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain research, illustrated with case histories, to reveal that the difference is profound—not just this or that function, but two whole, coherent, but incompatible ways of experiencing the world. The left hemisphere is detail oriented, prefers mechanisms to living things & is inclined to self-interest. The right hemisphere has greater breadth, flexibility & generosity. This division helps explain the origins of music & language, & casts new light on the history of philosophy, as well as on some mental illnesses. The 2nd part of the book takes a journey thru the history of Western culture, illustrating the tension between these two worlds as revealed in the thought & belief of thinkers & artists, from Aeschylus to Magritte. He argues that, despite its inferior grasp of reality, the left hemisphere is increasingly taking precedence in the modern world, with potentially disastrous consequences.List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionAsymmetry and the brain --What do the two hemispheres 'do'? --Language, truth and music --The nature of the two worlds --The primacy of the right hemisphere --The triumph of the left hemisphere --Imitation and the evolution of culture --The ancient world --The Renaissance and the Reformation --The Enlightenment --Romanticism and the Industrial Revolution --The modern and post-modern worldsConclusionNotes BibliographyIndex
The Butterfly Bruises
S. Palmer SmithS. Palmer Smith - 2021
It is a meditation on miscommunication, childhood, Northeastern vs. Southern American culture, family, nature vs. technology, and the imagination of the introvert."From sonnets to somnambulance, from algae to oxytocin, from manatees to Manhattan, Stirling Smith rides the riptides of memory’s fictions and frictions in this prolific debut. Butterfly Bruises is a gem mine of poems and stories that write through grief and growing up, personal and planetary survival, with words rugged and glistening like seashell shards..." -Poetry Critic and Scholar, Professor Robert Dewhurst, PhD.
A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life
Ayelet Waldman - 2017
When a small vial arrives in her mailbox from "Lewis Carroll," Ayelet Waldman is at a low point. Her mood storms have become intolerably severe; she has tried nearly every medication possible; her husband and children are suffering with her. So she opens the vial, places two drops on her tongue, and joins the ranks of an underground but increasingly vocal group of scientists and civilians successfully using therapeutic microdoses of LSD. As Waldman charts her experience over the course of a month--bursts of productivity, sleepless nights, a newfound sense of equanimity--she also explores the history and mythology of LSD, the cutting-edge research into the drug, and the byzantine policies that control it. Drawing on her experience as a federal public defender, and as the mother of teenagers, and her research into the therapeutic value of psychedelics, Waldman has produced a book that is eye-opening, often hilarious, and utterly enthralling.
Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side
Eve L. Ewing - 2018
Underprivileged schools. Just plain bad schools.” That’s how Eve L. Ewing opens Ghosts in the Schoolyard: describing Chicago Public Schools from the outside. The way politicians and pundits and parents of kids who attend other schools talk about them, with a mix of pity and contempt. But Ewing knows Chicago Public Schools from the inside: as a student, then a teacher, and now a scholar who studies them. And that perspective has shown her that public schools are not buildings full of failures—they’re an integral part of their neighborhoods, at the heart of their communities, storehouses of history and memory that bring people together. Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open, to the point that some would even go on a hunger strike? Ewing’s answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Rooting her exploration in the historic African American neighborhood of Bronzeville, Ewing reveals that this issue is about much more than just schools. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs—as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
Patrisse Khan-Cullors - 2018
For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin. Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering in equality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country—and the world—that Black Lives Matter.When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele’s reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.
Miss Me With That: Hot Takes, Helpful Tidbits and a Few Hard Truths
Rachel Lindsay - 2022
For the first time, Rachel opens up about what it meant to be the first Black lead on ABC’s hit show and reveals everything about her life off-camera, from her childhood growing up in Dallas, Texas, as the daughter of a U.S. District Judge to her disastrous dating life prior to going on The Bachelor, to her career in law, her evolving female friendships, and her decision to become a reality TV contestant. She also brings her sharp wit and keen intellect to weigh in on issues such as the lack of diversity in reality television and the importance of political engagement, protest, voting, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Told in the down-to-earth, no-nonsense voice she’s become known for, Lindsay’s collection will provide an intimate look at the life of one of reality TV’s most beloved and outspoken stars, as well as advice and inspiration that will make her a role model for anyone who has ever tried to make sense of love and life and lost their way trying to do so.
What We Carry: A Memoir
Maya Shanbhag Lang - 2020
She had always been a source of support--until Maya became a mother herself. Then, the parent who had once been so capable and attentive turned unavailable and distant. Struggling to understand this abrupt change while raising her own young child, Maya searches for answers and soon learns that her mother is living with Alzheimer'sWhen Maya steps in to care for her, she comes to realize that despite their closeness, she never really knew her mother. Were her cherished stories--about life in India, about what it means to be an immigrant, about motherhood itself--even true? Affecting, raw, and poetic, What We Carry is the story of a daughter and her mother, of lies and truths, of receiving and giving care--and how we cannot grow up until we fully understand the people who raised us.Advance praise for What We Carry"A dazzling, courageous memoir about the weight we carry as women, daughters, and mothers--and what happens when we let go. Lang takes us deep into the heart of her relationship with her mother, a brilliant psychiatrist and Indian immigrant with long-buried secrets. After a health crisis brings mother and daughter under the same roof for the first time since childhood, Lang grapples with new information about the parent she'd idolized, and realizes it's time to tell the story of her own life. What We Carry is a love letter to everyone who has swum through turbulent water before reaching the shores of selfhood."--Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists