The Stacks Pairings: August 2024
Books to pair with all The Stacks episodes from this month, from celebrity memoirs to NYC novels and more!
Every month I’m 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 go 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! Please know, I have not always read every book suggested here.
Jay Ellis on The Stacks
Actor turned memoirist Jay Ellis joined the show to talk about his debut book, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?: Adventures in Boyhood. It’s a memoir from a celebrity that doesn’t really focus on fame, but rather on childhood and where he came from.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
This is one of my favorite celebrity memoirs that isn’t actually about being a celebrity, but about the childhood of the celebrity. There is humor here (duh) and also so much thoughtfulness about race, belonging, and family.
The Deeper the Roots: A Memoir of Hope and Home by Michael Tubbs
Parts of Jay’s book takes place in Sacramento which neighbors Stockton, where Tubbs is from and grew up. Both deal with childhood and imagination, though Tubbs’ book is more of a political style memoir as he was the mayor of Stockton in the 2017 (at the age of 26).
LaDarrion Williams on The Stacks
Debut YA author LaDarrion Williams came on the podcast to talk about his fantasy book Blood at the Root which is set at a magical HBCU and centers a Black boy, Malik, as the hero.
HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience by Ayesha Roscoe
Maybe you’re looking for a little bit more about HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities)? This nonfiction book takes you deeper into the world of HBCU’s and their cultural significance.
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
One of the things LaDarrion really wanted to drive home about his book is that it is for Black boys. A writer who has been seeing and writing toward Black boys for years now, is Jason Reynolds. This one, Ghost, is about a kid who finds a track team to help him deal with problems at home.1
Regina Porter on The Stacks
The Rich People Have Gone Away is maybe the first successful COVID novel I have read. It balances the twin tragedies of the pandemic and 9/11 to explore trauma, community, wealth, and race. It also has a missing white woman storyline, which is explored in a really interesting way.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
This is one of my favorite 9/11 novels and also beautifully captures the early attempts at writing toward a major event in American culture. It was written a little less than four years after 9/11, which is similar publishing timing to The Rich People Have Gone Away.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
You might not know this about me, but I love a missing white woman story. This one might just be my favorite.
The Stacks Book Club on Master Slave Husband Wife
We got to talk about colorism, the brutality of slavery, and the deeply fucked up “family” dynamics that were found on plantations across the American South, plus a lot a lot more for this month’s book club conversation of Master Slave Husband Wife with Jay Ellis.
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
One of the often overlooked players in American chattel slavery are the white women who owned slaves. We get to encounter one such woman in Master Slave Husband Wife, and Jones-Rogers takes us into the history of slave owners in her incredible book.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
I couldn’t help but think of Sethe, the main character in Beloved, as I read Master Slave Husband Wife, because of the ways Woo depicts the traumas of motherhood and the choices enslaved mothers were forced into making.2
What books would you pair with this month’s episodes of The Stacks? Tell me in the comments.