on my bookshelf & recommended for you
currently reading
I am always reading/listening to a few books at a time; I just can't help myself!
Here is what is currently on my (proverbial) nightstand.
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds - adrienne maree brown
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants - Robin Wall Kimmerer
Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals - Aurora Levins Morales
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom - bell hooks
bookshelf
The following are a list of some of my favorite books. This is not an exhaustive list and will always be adding more.
Social Justice
Anti-racism
Thick: And Other Essays - Tressie McMillan Cottom
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness - Austin Channing Brown
How To Be Antiracist - Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption - Bryan Stevenson
Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation - Angel Kyoto Williams, Lama Rod Owens, Jasmine Syedullah
The Witches Are Coming - Lindy West
Freedom is a Constant Struggle - Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundation of a Movement - Angela Y. Davis
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - Michelle Alexander
Mother's Of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy - Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color - Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua
Mindful of Race:Transforming Racism from the Inside Out - Ruth King
A Burst of Light: And Other Essays - Audre Lorde
See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love - Valerie Kaur
Disability Justice
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice -Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha
Brilliant Imperfection + Exile and Pride - Eli Clare
Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty First Century - Alice Wong
Memoir
Heavy: An American Memoir - Kiese Laymon
Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist - Judith Heumann
Raising a Rare Girl: A Memoir - Heather Lanier
Know My Name: A Memoir - Chanel Miller
Ask Me about My Uterus: A Quest to Make Doctor's Believe in Women's Pain - Abby Norman
Hunger: A Memoir - Roxanna Gay
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved - Kate Bowler
When Women Were Birds: Fifty Four Variations on Voice - Terry Tempest Williams
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir - Saeed Jones
The Unwinding Of A Miracle: A Memoir of Life Death and Everything that Comes After - Julie Yip-Williams
The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir - Samantha Powers
The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying - Nina Riggs
Becoming - Michelle Obama
Educated: A Memoir - Tara Westover
The Chronology of Water: A Memoir - Lidia Yukanavitch
Mama's Boy: A Story for Our Americas - Dustin Lance Black
Once More We Saw Stars: A Memoir of Life and Love After Unimaginable Loss - Jayson Greene
The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood - Trevor Noah
Devotion + Hourglass + Inheritance - Dani Shapiro
Illness & Health
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - Elisabeth Tova Bailey
How to be Sick: A Buddhist Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers - Toni Bernhard
That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour - Sunita Puri
The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love - Sonya Renee Taylor
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors - Susan Sontag
Dancing with Elephants: Mindfulness Training for Those Living with Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain - Jarem Sawatsky
Doing Harm: The Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed and Sick - Maya Dusenbery
In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of Chronic Illness in America - Laurie Edwards
Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology - Deirdre Cooper Owens
Through the Shadowlands: A Science Writer's Odyssey into an Illness Science Doesn't Understand - Julie Rehmeyer
Compassion & Spirituality
A Fearless Heart: How The Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives - Thupten Jinpa
Einstein and the Rabbi: Searing for the Soul - Naomi Levy
No Mud No Lotus: That Art of Transforming Suffering - Thich Nhat Hanh
Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet - Joan Halifax
Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself - Mark Epstein
Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up - Koshin Paley Ellison
Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN - Tara Brach
Shameless + Pastrix - Nadia Bolz Weber
Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection - Sharon Salzberg
Embracing the Unknown: Life Lessons from the Tibetan Book of the Dead - Pema Chodron
Fiction
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Saenz
A Woman is No Man: A Novel - Etaf Rum
Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
Blue Boy - Rakesh Satyal
Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid
Turtles All the Way Down - John Green
The Overstory: A Novel - Richard Powers
The Kiss Quotient - Helen Hoang
Parenting
Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive - Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzell
Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution - Adrienne Rich
The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves Empowering Our Children - Shefali Tsabary
Necessary Losses: - Judith Viorst
The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children - Ross W. Greene
For Goodness Sex: Changing the Way We Talk to Our Teens About Sexuality, Values, and Health - Al Vernacchio
Antiracist Baby Picture Book - Ibram X. Kendi
What Makes a Baby + Sex is a Funny Word - Cory Silverberg
Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness - Anastasia Higginbotham