The Stacks Pairings: February 2024
From romance to abolition, what to read after you listen to The Stacks this month.
Every month I’m be sharing book pairings for The Stacks episodes. It will feature the books we covered on the podcast for the month matched to two books I think pair nicely with them. So if you loved the episode, loved the author, or loved the book, you will have a few more books to add to your TBR!
Dr. Uché Blackstock on The Stacks
At the start of February I got to sit down and talk with the radiant Dr. Uché Blackstock about her experiences as a Black woman physician. She outlines so much racism and institutional harm in her New York Times bestselling book Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, and getting to dig in deeper with her this month was illuminating.
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
I can not say enough good things about this book. It outlines centuries of anti-Black racism in medicine in the United States. Yes, it has a section on Tuskegee, but also a section on genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida. So yeah, get ready for nightmares and rage.
The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir by Michele Harper
In her memoir Dr. Michele Harper takes us inside the emergency room. She tells stories of her life as a Black woman physician and the stories of the patients that most impacted her outlook on life. This book is a personal look at what it is like to be a Black woman doctor in the United States.
Tia Williams on The Stacks
On Valentine’s day we got romantic with one of my favorite romance authors, Tia Williams. We talked about her fated mates time travel romance, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde. The book is set in present day and 1920’s Harlem, and it is as much about love as it is about Black history.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Hear me out, I know Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is decidedly not a romance novel, but it does play with time and space travel in a really interesting way. I couldn’t not think about this novel about a woman, Dana, who is repeatedly pulled into antebellum Maryland for reasons unknown, as I read Ricki Wilde’s story.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
A young couple tries to figure it all out in 1970’s Harlem. The story is very different from A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, but the longing and the place feel like they’re in conversation. If Beale Street Could Talk might not be a romance novel, but it is romantic as hell.
Lauren Markham on The Stacks
Lauren Markham dove into the world of immigration, myth making, and the obligations we have as readers and writers to tell better stories with me this month on the show. Her newest book A Map of Future Ruins: On Border and Belonging is an incredible work of creative nonfiction that asks important questions about borders and the stories we tell ourselves.
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer
This chunker of a book is a wow. The research is incredible, the storytelling is well balanced, and the way it made me think about the policies and politics of immigration in new and more complex way is unmatched.
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
So often immigration stories are linear and hold back from emotion and the personal. That is not the case with A Map of Future Ruins, and the main reason it pairs so well with The Undocumented Americans. Both books grapple not only with what to say in the work but how to say it. How do we bring these stories into the world holistically?
You can hear Karla Cornejo Villavicencio as a guest on The Stacks here, and you can hear our book club discussion of the book here.
The Stacks Book Club on Viral Justice
This month for The Stacks Book Club we dissected Ruha Benjamin’s 2022 book on abolition and community work, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want, with Dr. Uché Blackstock. We talked about viral justice vs. injustice, owning the power we have, and doing this work in a post 2020 world.
We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba
It’s hard to read, write, or talk about prison and police abolition without including Mariame Kaba. She is one of the most passionate and prolific voices in abolition today and is a guiding voice for many who do that work. She shows up multiple times in Viral Justice, and her collection of essays We Do This 'Til We Free Us is a great way to enter (and return to in) this work.
You can hear Mairame Kaba on The Stacks here.
Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell
What does it mean to be an abolitionist? Who decides when you’re truly ready to carry that mantle? What even is prison and police abolition? All of these questions are attended to in Derecka Purnell’s wonderful memoir/manifesto Becoming Abolitionists. The book thinks about what is possible in this world now and what could be possible if we are willing to change the systems from the ground up.
What books would you pair with this month’s episodes of The Stacks? Tell me in the comments.
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This looks and feels great. 💚
I love the concept of pairings. I actually spent the weekend reorganising my one big list of TBR (which I should rename: to be bought) into categories. My aim this reading year is to get a more rounded view of a topic in one go.