Sponsored by Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See
The beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths during WWII. “Stunning… Uplifting… Not to be missed.” –Entertainment Weekly | “Hauntingly beautiful.” –The New York Times | “Each and every person in this finely spun assemblage is distinct and true.” –USA Today | “Intertwines secret radio broadcasts, a cursed diamond, a soldier’s deepest doubts into a richly compelling package… Irresistible.” –People | “Gorgeous… Moves with the pace of a thriller.” –San Francisco Chronicle | “Enthrallingly told, beautifully written.” —Amanda Vaill, The Washington Post | “Dazzling . . . Startlingly fresh.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe
Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. I’m so excited because I’m headed down to San Diego for a couple of weeks to see my family, and you know what that means: snuggles with my nephew and niece! Translation: I am going to get kicked in the face by a toddler who loves to wrestle and feel my arms go numb from holding a little chonk of an almost-three-month-old. Oh, and tacos. TODOS LOS TACOS. It’s also going to be 90 degrees so…. let me just start applying the sunscreen now.
To the club!!
Nibbles and Sips
You all know I’m the most basic when it comes to my love of brunch, and I own that basic status because brunch is awesome. I’ve been making these cheesy eggs recently (I’ve seen them referred to as “keto friendly breakfast tacos” but I couldn’t care less about the keto part). In a small nonstick saucepan over medium-low heat, add a layer of cheese (I fill the whole saucepan, so I have a circle of cheese) and then crack one or two eggs on top of that. Place a lid on the saucepan and let the eggs cook to your desired consistency–I like a runny yolk, but you could flip and cook on the other side for a bit if you want the eggs hard over. Season with a tiny bit of salt and other spices of your choice, then slide that whole concoction onto a plate. I top mine with crushed red pepper flakes, some sliced avocado, and a little bit of Cholula or fresh green salsa, then fold it up and eat it like a taco. The bottom layer should be crisp, golden, just-shy-of-burnt cheese cooked just to your liking. So easy, so cheesy, so delish.
In Celebration of Juneteenth
Juneteenth, a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and declare the abolition of slavery. Sadly, I’ve found that A TON of white folks and non-Black POCs still don’t know about about Juneteenth and its historical significance (I didn’t learn about it until after college, yikes). Since June 19th is right around the corner, I thought I’d suggest reads that dive into the history of Juneteenth and the legacy of slavery.
A note on my picks: this time last year, copies of titles like How to be an Anti Racist and White Fragility topped all the anti-racist reading lists and flew off the shelves. Part of me wanted to see those sales as hope for the future, but another part of me feared those purchases were just displays of performative allyship. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. I say all that to say that those books are certainly worth reading in one’s anti-racist journey. Here though, I’ve tried to select ones that really dive into the history of slavery and its aftermath, ones I didn’t see making the rounds with as much frequency and/or ones that are newer.
My Book Club Bonus is the same for all three of these titles. A hard lesson 2020 taught me is that I didn’t have enough knowledge in my toolkit for combatting that good ol’ “slavery was forever ago, why can’t you just get over it” refrain and all its hateful variants. I knew that slavery shaped this country and does till this day, I knew that systemic racism wasn’t (and isn’t) an accident. But I made a goal for myself to be able to cite examples of these truths with more specificity (events, policies, laws, trends, etc). So as you read these books, make note of some of these specifics for yourself and draw connections to the racial disparity we still see today.
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
The title of this book is a reference to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” a song still widely known as the “Negro national anthem.” It is a living history of the Reconstruction era, the period between the abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow. This isn’t your average history, though; Gates dissects and catalogues the visual culture of the era—postcards, photographs, newspaper cartoons, political broadsides, theater posters, playing cards, children’s books, and more—to paint a vivid portrait of white supremacy and its virulent backlash to the end of slavery.
How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
I am a huge, huge fan of writer and poet Clint Smith’s wonderful work in The Atlantic. This is his debut work of nonfiction, a “deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history.” He starts with his hometown of New Orleans and takes readers on a tour of moments and landmarks that tell an intergenerational story of how slavery was central in shaping this nation from the ground up. Yeah, slavery ended in theory; but it was’t that long ago at all and other racist policies have just replaced it to disenfranchise Black Americans at every turn.
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Texas native Annette Gordon-Reed combines American history, family chronicles, and memoir to create a a historian’s view of the long road to Juneteenth, from its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured (and continue to endure) in the aftermath. Gordon-Reed, who is herself the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s, “shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African-Americans played an integral role in the Texas story.”
Suggestion Section
Oprah selects Emancipation-era novel The Sweetness of Water as her next book club pick
from the L.A. Times book Club Newsletter: How an ER doctor found her purpose
over at Book Riot: take book club on an armchair travel expedition to the Emerald Isle and brush up on its classics – lots of book club discussion in these titles!
This piece isn’t about a specific book, but has excellent potential for discussion in any book club, especially if not everyone enjoyed the read: Books Don’t Have to Explain Themselves To You
Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.
Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa