415 Sister Outsider

by Audre Lorde, 1984

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read an LGBTQ+ history book.

I’m not certain that this book truly qualifies as a history of LGBTQ people or the movement, but as Audre Lorde was certainly one of the most outspoken voices on sexuality, race, and gender and, therefore, highly important to the movement, I feel this book fulfills the spirit of the task, if not the specifics of it. I was first introduced to Audre Lorde when I was in grad school, but I sadly remember nothing of what I read, and she has remained a blind spot in my knowledge of feminist writers. When I saw this book as a suggestion for the task on the Goodreads thread, I jumped at the chance to get to know more about this pivotal writer and what her teachings could offer us today. The book is a collection of essays and speeches, spanning from 1976 through 1984, and covering a wide range of topics that deal with blackness, womanhood, lesbianism, motherhood, classism, and the need for allyship among all who are oppressed. Much of what she says is surprisingly still relevant, as we continue to deal with the same problems of inequality that have plagued us for centuries.

408 Shrill

by Lindy West, 2016

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read a fat-positive romance book.

Shrill has been on my Want-to-Read list for quite some time, so when I decided that I wasn’t going to force myself to read romance books anymore (I’ll read them if they sound interesting to me, but not just because they fulfill a task), I decided that this book would be a good way to complete this one particular part of the challenge. While West does talk about romantic love, the main focus is on her experiences as a woman, as a fat person, and the intersection of the two. The result is a collection of essays that is unapologetic, feminist, and, at turns, blisteringly hilarious and devastatingly exacting in its criticism of the way society demands all who do not fit into some made-up ideal simply shrink themselves into nothingness.

406 Disability Visibility

edited by Alice Wong, 2020

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read an own voices book about disability.

Alice Wong has a long history of activism for the disabled. In addition to being the founder of the Disability Visibility Project and host and co-producer of the Disability Visibility podcast, she was also appointed to the National Council on Disability by President Barack Obama. This collection of essays is a natural extension of her work, and it serves to shed light on living with a variety of disabilities in a world that largely disregards the fact that disabled people exist. I first became familiar with Wong when I saw her on a episode of United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, and the thing that has stuck with me from that hour of TV is Bell’s assertion that disability is the one demographic to which all of us have the potential to belong, yet it is the one demographic that we routinely ignore. Disability Visibility builds on that premise, promoting the idea, which is distressing in that it can be considered revolutionary, that people with disabilities are people too.

396 Nothing Personal

by James Baldwin, 1964

In 1964, Baldwin collaborated with the photographer Richard Avedon to produce a collection of photographs underscored by Baldwin’s prose. That essay has since been republished as a stand-alone work, allowing the focus to be entirely on Baldwin’s critique of the problems plaguing America. As is often the case, his words seem to reach out from beyond the years to describe us as we are today. Although only about 50 pages, the essay is a grand introduction to Baldwin’s most frequently visited topic: the problem of race in the supposed “land of the free.”

382 No Name in the Street

by James Baldwin, 1972

Like The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street is a short collection of two essays, both of them aimed at the ever-present race problem in America. As is always the case, this is a mix of personal experiences and political criticism, a recounting of times spent with some of the biggest names in the civil rights movement and what their assassinations meant for the country. It is a vilification of America and its nickname as the “Land of the Free” and a recognition that this problem is not limited to the New World. It is, in some ways, the same old song, but it one that needs to continue being played.

368 Nobody Knows My Name

by James Baldwin, 1961

Now this is the kind of fierce cultural punch I was expecting to get from James Baldwin. As is the case with most of his books, Nobody Knows My Name is an unflinching look at and dissection of race in America. The collection of essays covers a number of topics, from literature to poverty to Baldwin’s own troubled relationship with fellow writer Richard Wright. Coursing through all of them is the issue that continues to plague us today: the fight for equality in a world that thrives on hierarchies, domination, and oppression.

364 Notes of a Native Son

by James Baldwin, 1955

This first collection of Baldwin’s nonfiction comprises ten essays that were previously published in various magazines. While I was looking forward to some of the fierce sermonizing that Baldwin delivered in The First Next Time, I was a bit disappointed to find that these essays seem to be a bit unconnected, as if Baldwin were just beginning to find his steps as a writer and determine what it was he wanted to say, which, essentially, is exactly what this is. Even so, Baldwin still offers undeniable criticism of the country and the “conundrum of color,” which, despite what many continue to believe, he asserts is the inheritance of every American, regardless of whether they are black or white. “This horror has so welded past and present that it is virtually impossible and certainly meaningless to speak of it as occurring, as it were, in time,” he writes in the preface to the 1984 edition. More than 30 years later, these words continue to be true, and his early essays give readers the chance to witness a writer just starting to develop a voice that would resonate through time to reach us today.

361 Intimations

by Zadie Smith, 2020

The year 2020 was one for the history books for all the wrong reasons. With the ink on those pages barely dry, Zadie Smith had already come to shine her critical eye on the layers of wrongdoing that plagued our world and our nation. In some ways, it seems premature to publish a book of essays on an ongoing crisis–I would love to hear what she has to say about the election, the  January 6 events in Washington, and Trump’s subsequent impeachment–but the essays work well to capture an emotion about a specific moment in time. They don’t get the benefit of a year or five of reflection. They are raw and express what many of us are feeling right now about this strange amalgamation of the ravages of a novel virus and the eruption of centuries-old civil unrest that has been brewing since the country’s inception. Though the essays are personal in nature, there is much to be gleaned from Smith’s words.

231 Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler, 2007

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: An essay anthology.

I’m a big fan of eating and of cooking and of reading so, naturally, I also love to read about the two subjects. I’ve lived by myself for most of my adult life and have never subscribed to the idea that I don’t warrant a nice meal. Sure, I have my share of scrambled eggs, grilled cheeses, and other quick fixes to fill me at night, but I also consider this my time to experiment, to try new recipes and new ingredients so that when I do cook for others, I’ll have some proven wins in my arsenal. Thus, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone immediately appealed to me when I first saw it years ago. I’m glad that I finally took the opportunity to read it.

175 Playing in the Dark

by Toni Morrison, 1992

To round out my Year of Toni Morrison, I thought I would dip into one of her nonfiction books. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination is a compilation of three lectures on, you guessed it, whiteness in literature. This is a topic I’ve often pondered myself, as you can walk into any bookstore and find an “African-American” or “Hispanic” or “Asian” section, but there is no “White” section. While finding a “White” books section would be, no doubt, horrifying, the truth is that it does not exist because white is considered to be the default and every other race or ethnicity is positioned as the other. “African-American” is a demographic, not a genre, and yet we treat these authors  – and readers – as if it were. “Until very recently, and regardless of the race of the author, the readers of virtually all of American fiction have been positioned as white,” she writes. “I am interested to know what that assumption has meant to the literary imagination.” Me too, Ms. Morrison. Me too.