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Personal Experiences and the Exploration of Identity
Belonging: A Daughter’s Search for Identity Through Loss
Michelle Miller with Rosemarie Robotham / 2023 / Memoir
The result of her Black father’s affair with her Chicana mother, Michelle Miller chronicles her quest to find her mother, voice, and sense of belonging. Living in a segregated Los Angeles and then working in newsrooms with mostly White males, Miller charts her journey as a daughter, wife, mother, and award-winning journalist.
Gender Queer: A Memoir
Maia Kobabe / 2019 / Graphic Memoir
This book is a simple, approachable story about a young person (who uses e/em/eir pronouns) understanding eir gender and sexuality. The author shares eir evolving self-awareness and relatable experiences. It’s a beautiful story for those on a similar journey and others seeking to understand different gender identities.
Hijab Butch Blues
Lamya H. / 2023 / Memoir
Lamya H takes the reader through an enlightened memoir of their gender and sexual identity, paired with their exploration of their faith and what the teachings of the Quran mean to them.
Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole
Julia Watts Belser / 2023 / Nonfiction
“Loving Our Own Bones” offers fresh readings of the Bible and Torah. The author challenges the biblical and cultural stigma around disability. She dreams of a world where disabled bodies are considered as beautiful and sacred as every other one. She shares her own experiences as a disabled feminist rabbi.
Warrior Girl Unearthed
Angeline Boulley / 2023 / Fiction – Young Adult
When Perry Firekeeper-Birch, an Anishinaabe teen, learns that a museum has the remains of “Warrior Girl,” one of her ancestors, she begins a journey to bring back the remains while uncovering the truth about missing women in her community. This fictional story speaks about real Native peoples’ struggles.
Historical Context Intersecting with Today’s Reality
Dream Country
Shannon Gibney / 2018 / Fiction
The book tells the story of five generations of young people from a single African and American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom. This fictional book shows, in a very personal way, the impact of enslaving people across generations and continents and the hope that can be found through determination and family.
Everyone Who is Gone is Here: The United States, Central America and the Making of a Crisis
Jonathan Blitzer / 2024 / Nonfiction
This book examines the complex immigration issues at the U.S. southern border through the lives of four individuals escaping death squads and violent gangs. It highlights how U.S. meddling in Central America and related policy decisions has often rendered the immigration system ineffective and inhumane.
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State
Lawrence Wright / 2018 / Nonfiction
Pulitzer-prize-winning author and native Texan explores the complexity of the Lone Star State’s history, culture, economics, and politics and how its exponential growth will continue to shape the future of our country.
No Guilty Bystander: The Extraordinary Life of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Frank Fromherz, PhD and Suzanne Sattler IHM / 2023 / Biography
This important book reflects the justice movements of the 1970s, 80s, and beyond through Bishop Gumbleton’s thoughts and actions. “No Guilty Bystander” captures his holiness, courage, and commitment to Gospel nonviolence. His story reminds us that true servant leadership is still possible in our broken world.” —Marie Dennis, co-president of Pax Christi International.
The Book of Unknown Americans: A Novel
Christina Henriquez / 2014 / Fiction
This novel explores what it means to be an American, focusing on immigration, the American dream, and first love. Through intertwined vignettes set in a low-income apartment building, it follows Mexican-born Maribel Rivera as she heals from a traumatic injury as she interacts with her family, neighbors and the attractive boy next door, Mayor Toros.
Understanding and Changing Systems
Class, Race, and Gender: Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism
Michael Zweig / 2023 / Nonfiction
Using his decades-long career as an economics professor and activist, Michael Zweig delves into the historical systems of capitalism, the history of activism, and labor movements in America and discusses how coming together across intersections of identity is our only way forward.
How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America
Priya Fielding-Singh / 2021 / Nonfiction
In this book, the author investigates the story of inequality in America. Told through the lens of food access and opinions on what constitutes healthy eating, the book focuses on a cross-section of American mothers and what they are able and willing to feed their children.
Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World
Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce / 2023 / Nonfiction
A book for activists, organizers, and anyone hoping to win the fight for a better society. “Practical Radicals” is a deeply informed resource designed to help us win on the big issues of our time.
Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair
Danielle Sered / 2021 / Nonfiction
A pragmatic look at possible alternatives to prison, this book analyzes the purpose of prison and pathways for people who have committed violent crimes to repair the harm and make amends.
Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises
Marjorie Kelly / 2023 / Nonfiction
We live in a capitalist system that gives capital and accumulation of capital many rights and advantages and places it before people and the environment. This has led to the situation where the richest 5% of Americans own two-thirds of the wealth while most people struggle to get by. Only by examining the rules, some written and some unrecognized, can we understand how to reshape our economy so all can have a comfortable life.