1 Happen HeRe
SIncLaIR LewIS, It can’t (Signet classics, $9.99)
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BookS to eDUcate anD InSpIRe yoU to actIon
By Rachel Leibrock
rachell@newsreview.com
(Haymarket Books, $15.99)
And yet, you’ve tried to stay on point. You check your confirmation biases, have devoured Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell’s 1984 and subscribed to the Washington Post, the Atlantic and Teen Vogue. Still emotionally, intellectually and spiritually exhausted? Here are 10 must-read books to renew your commitment to the resistance.
Recommended if you like: Naomi Klein’s No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need, Amanda Sussman’s The Art of the Possible, calling your senators and marching in the streets.
illustration/sarah hansel
RN&R
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08.03.17
ReBecca SoLnIt, Hope In tHe DaRk: UntoLD HIStoRIeS, wILD poSSIBILItIeS
Read it because: Solnit writes smartly on myriad topics—feminism, climate change, art—and this book is no exception. Hope in the Dark, originally published in 2004, is just that: a guiding spotlight on activism and commitment in a time of despair. Placing personal experiences against the broad tapestry of history, Solnit makes a case for optimism and action as the path to real, transformational change. “Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win,” Solnit writes in the foreword to the book’s latest edition. “Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender.”
Trumpcare remains a dire threat. Reproductive and LGBTQ rights are in peril. People of color and those who are—or appear to be—Muslim live their lives in constant danger. Meanwhile, our continued abuse of the environment produces real consequences, and every time you turn on a TV, a bunch of talking heads are yelling political nonsense. It’s difficult to tell alternative facts from fiction, much less stay focused on figuring out real change.
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Recommended if you like: Philip K. Dick’s terrifyingly prescient The Man in the High Castle, Orwell’s 1984 or not sleeping thanks to crippling anxiety.
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It’s nearly six months into the current presidential regime and, let’s be frank, things feel worse than ever.
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Read it because: The New Yorker called Lewis’ 1935 novel “one of the most important books ever produced in this country” and that assessment still holds true today. Lewis’ book tells the story of a fascist politician who stirs up fears, foments distrust and, basically, promises to make America great again and accordingly defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It once seemed like a chilling glimpse at an alternate American reality; now it reads like a primer on the last election and current administration.
BRooke GLaDStone, tHe 3 RUmInatIon tRoUBLe wItH ReaLIty: a on moRaL panIc
In oUR tIme
(workman publishing Group, $8.95)
Read it because: Fake news, alternative facts and other lies make it difficult to parse real life from politics. Gladstone, who co-hosts On the Media, a weekly radio news magazine show with Bob Garfield, lays out Trump’s authoritarian communication strategy, including a look at his beloved Twitter account. Whether he’s pushing send on “trial balloon tweets,” “deflection tweets” or “diversion tweets,” Gladstone posits that when it comes to the current president, “lying is the point.” Still, she adds, we’re part of the problem, too: “If fake reality is the problem, the logical first step is to track down its sources,” she writes. “But that is a very short, very frustrating expedition, because fake reality begins at home. In your head.” Oof. Recommended if you like: Gladstone’s graphic nonfiction book, The Influencing Machine, Hannah Arendt’s 1973 classic The Origins of Totalitarianism or yelling at TV news.
wHIte tRaSH: 4 oftHecLaSS 400-yeaR UntoLD HIStoRy In ameRIca nancy ISenBeRG,
(penguin Books, $17)
Read it because: You want to get a better understanding of at least part of Trump’s base but found J.D. Vance’s much-praised memoir Hillbilly Elegy to be myopic and frustratingly superficial. Published just months before the 2016 election, Isenberg’s book deconstructs this country’s class system with a precise eye. And, looking back on the contentious 2008 election that wrought Sarah Palin, she cements the future, writing, “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win.” Recommended if you like: Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? and a better understanding of the inevitable arguments you’re going to have at the family holiday dinner table.
