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What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat
This is a galvanizing, paradigm-shifting book. In 8 chapters that also function as stand-alone essays, Gordon clearly and doggedly...

aolundsmith
Feb 3, 20212 min read


Spirit Run
Spirit Run by Noé Alvarez Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been running. I started with the aim of running a half marathon and, once I...

aolundsmith
Dec 2, 20203 min read


The Purpose of Power
The Purpose of Power by Alicia Garza The Purpose of Power is a guidebook to navigating political power, organizing, and movements....

aolundsmith
Nov 23, 20202 min read


Tonguebreaker
Tonguebreaker by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha This book is a soft, wild, aching spell. It is glitter and guts. It is relentless...and...

aolundsmith
Nov 5, 20201 min read


God's Shadow
God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World by Alan Mikhail Though God’s Shadow is the first book...

aolundsmith
Oct 31, 20202 min read


Big Friendship
Big Friendship by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman When, in the course of one week, this book appeared all over my Goodreads page’s ad...

aolundsmith
Oct 12, 20205 min read


Lose Your Mother
Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman “What place in the world could sate four hundred years of longing for a home? Was it foolish to long...

aolundsmith
Sep 2, 20202 min read


The End of Policing
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale A clearly and articulately written rundown of the major areas in which police exert their power and...

aolundsmith
Aug 16, 20202 min read


Belonging
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug While a graphic memoir as opposed to a work of narrative political...

aolundsmith
Jul 30, 20202 min read


How We Get Free
How We Get Free edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Compiled by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Combahee...

aolundsmith
Jul 23, 20203 min read


White Rage
White Rage by Carol Anderson Over and over again through the history of the USA, the advances of Black US Americans towards achieving...

aolundsmith
Jul 6, 20202 min read


Breathe
Breathe by Imani Perry In an extended letter to her two sons, Imani Perry cleaves to the motions and demands of the heartmind more than...

aolundsmith
Jun 27, 20202 min read


Underland
Underland by Robert McFarlane Early in my reading of Robert McFarlane’s Underland I decided to approach the book more as a book-length,...

aolundsmith
Jun 8, 20202 min read


Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman I enter every book I read hoping that it will in some way change me. And most of...

aolundsmith
Apr 28, 20202 min read
How to Be an Antiracist
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi A book with such a title promises much—certainty, guidance, a sort of moral compass— but...

aolundsmith
Apr 15, 20203 min read


Uncanny Valley
Uncanny Valley by Anna Weiner As seductive and stylish as the tech industry she chronicles, Anna Weiner’s memoir Uncanny Valley looks...

aolundsmith
Apr 2, 20202 min read


No Visible Bruises
No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder Clear and aching, empathetic and analytical, reported out with journalistic standards of...

aolundsmith
Jan 3, 20202 min read


In the Dream House
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Facing the archival silence around the subject after her own experience of abuse in queer...

aolundsmith
Dec 16, 20192 min read


She Said
The experience of reading She Said is one of two sides. On one hand, the turning of each page can bring on a sense of disgust and dread...

aolundsmith
Nov 25, 20192 min read


Looking for Lorraine
Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry Imagine you are lying in a field of grass as evening falls. Imperceptibly, even as the light goes...

aolundsmith
Nov 16, 20192 min read
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