Summer 2024 Reading List
We asked our CHOOSE 180 team to share a book recommendation, or two, that they consider essential reads!
If you’re looking for a great book to dive into this summer we put together a list of some of our favorites!
Wondering where to get one of these great reads? Try checking at one of our amazing local libraries:
Or an independent bookstore like Estelita’s Library or Twice Sold Tales!
The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander
“Will show you how the mass incarceration is the new slavery”
Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Y. Davis
“An excellent book for folks interested in learning more about abolition”
All About Love - bell hooks (multiple staff members recommended this book)
“The book is written in a way that clearly defines a version of love that involves community care, self love and revolutionary ideas surrounding the topic. This book was written by the author because they had only seen and read books about love from the male perspective.”
“Justice and love must go together, if we're committed to restoration and transformation of ourselves, our community, and our society. hooks puts it in plain terms: we need love in all of its forms.”
So You Want to Talk About Race - Ijeoma Oluo
“This book provides a REAL, clear, and honest conversation about systemic racism, and social justice. It's a great book that allows for readers to deepen their understanding in these areas.”
Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair - Danielle Sered
“This book explains clearly how violence impacts individuals, families, and communities while showing the need for restorative programs and, most of all, healing.”
Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods - Mariana Alessandri
“Under the light of ancient Western philosophies, our darker moods like grief, anguish, and depression can seem irrational. When viewed through the lens of modern psychology, they can even look like mental disorders. The self-help industry, determined to sell us the promise of a brighter future, can sometimes leave us feeling ashamed that we are not more grateful, happy, or optimistic. Night Vision invites us to consider a different approach to life, one in which we stop feeling bad about feeling bad.”
The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth - The Red Nation
“Provides how ecological justice is intersectional; it requires action that requires liberation from all systems of harm.”
Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture - Gabor & Daniel Maté
“Provides the impact of how systems of injustice impact all of us in our bodies. Our way to (physical) healing also requires to dismantle the intersecting systems of injustice that literally make us sicker each day.”
The Will to Change - bell hooks
“I believe this book is for everyone because it is about accessing compassion and vulnerability and how those strengths have been called weaknesses because of patriarchy. This book is an invitation to all to explore how we became a violent society, and how to reimagine relationships to lead to flourishing.”
Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo Freire
Hood Feminism - Mikki Kendall
The Abolitionist Handbook - Patrisse Cullors
We Do This Til We Free Us - Mariame Kaba
Abolition Geography - Ruth Wilson Gilmore
From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home - Tembi Locke
Happy Reading & Happy summer
from the CHOOSE 180 team