Books So Far
Featuring good books that have wrapped up the end of my year.
The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes
This memoir follows Rhodes’ journey into the White House, detailing his first moments meeting Obama to the strong friendship they would go on to build over time. He also gives us insight into the moments that inspired him to commit to public service, his relationships with the most powerful colleagues in the world of D.C, policy, and global affairs, and moments of doubt and insecurities that came along the way. Still, in the face of some of the most pivotal challenges, in his story lies a near perfect balance of optimism and realism. A must read for any budding public servant.
After The Fall by Ben Rhodes
And if it happens that you can’t get enough of Rhodes, his latest book gives us a path ahead. As I write this, we sit at a terrifying point in history. One filled with authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, and corrupt leadership that touches every corner of the globe. But in this masterpiece Rhodes applies the lessons he’s learned in traveling around the world and meeting with activists and peace fighters, who believe that a better world is possible and within our reach.
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Vuong has quickly become one of my favorite writers, and I’m eagerly awaiting his newest collection to hit my local book store. In Night Sky, Vuong gifts us his musings on sexuality, family, identity, grief, memory, war, nationality, history, and more. Some of my favorite poems included “Threshold”, “A Little Closer to the Edge”, “Immigrant Haibun”, “Headfirst”, “Homewrecker”, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, “Untitled”, and “To My Father/To My Future Son”. His poems read like confessionals, or prayers, or an undoing on paper. Either way, I’d pick this collection up soon before his new one comes out next year.
Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About It by Heather Boushey
Boushey is now a member of the Council of Economic Advisors for the Biden administration, but before she did that, she was the president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She has also worked as an economist at the Center for American Progress and the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee. She is known as “one of the nation’s most influential voices on economic policy and a leading economist who focuses on the intersection between economic inequality, growth, and public policy”.
In Unbound, Boushey provides detailed and strong documentation for why inequality is harmful to economic growth, innovation, and progress.
I was introduced to her work last year, when the Economics Department at my alma mater hosted her for a lecture on the findings of Unbound. I knew I had to pick it up, and I felt as though my current graduate course in Microeconomics with Dr. Justin Wolfers, would make a perfect compliment to her work (and guess what: they’re colleagues!).
UnWell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World by Elinor Cleghorn
I’m going to be honest: I haven’t finished this book yet, but I’m making my way through it and really savoring it. After reading books like Killing the Black Body and Medical Apartheid, I’ve become more and more interested in the ways social and political concepts/stigmas, and histories perpetuate some of the biggest medical disparities and crises of our life time. In Unwell, Cleghorn goes on an accessible deep dive into the roots of misunderstanding and misdiagnosis of women’s bodies, illnesses, and pain. She even draws on her own story to rewrite and challenge the perpetual medical misgony that still permeates our health systems today.
Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
Can I share a moment of vulnerability? Before I read this book, I don’t know if I actively or outwardly considered myself a feminist. I mean, of course I am in the textbook definition sense of the word, but when it translated to real life, the movement outside rarely looked or felt like one that I could be apart of. Most feminists I knew, were white, middle/upper class, talked about leading corporate spaces, or dominating in the workplace. All important things. But rarely did I hear feminists talk about poverty, food insecurity, gun violence, or intersectionality. Not at least until I read Kendall’s gorgeous exploration as to how growing up in Chicago helped frame her identity. This book is a must read.
102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the event that rocked our nation out of it’s orbit, I’ve been taking myself through books that try and capture that moment in time both in the U.S and abroad. It’s taking me a while to get through my list, but one of my first is 102 Minutes, which chronicles the intimate and heartbreaking details of what it meant to be trapped in the Twin Towers.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
I’d go on and on about this book if you’d let me, but I recently did a full post on the genius of this novel. You can check it out here.
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
Wow. Did someone say investigative journalism that reads like a fast paced novel? Keefe does not disappoint in unraveling the well known philanthropic family by starting at the top of the family tree and going all the way down. I’d check out his New Yorker article to get a taste of what the book is about.
What have you been reading lately?