Subscribers to the ‘Field Notes’ are cool people. And you’re a well-read bunch!
In my recent post about favorite books, plays and speeches – the texts that might best help us all cope through this crazy time of division, distrust and devilment in America – I was curious what you might recommend back to me.
All I had to do was ask. Boy, did you let me know!
First, my sincerest thanks to these subscribers for their cool suggestions: Rachel Louise Martin, John H. Bailey III, Saralee Terry Woods, Bill King, Teena Cohen, Keith Simmons, Karri Morgan, John Rowley, Thom Donavan, Ronnie Steine, Sandra Shelton, Jack Feldmann, Ronnie Osborne, Roy Biberdorf, William Woodruff, Sally Carlson-Bancroft, and Henry Walker.
As a result of all the feedback, let’s add these vital works to our running list…
A Will to Be Free by Frederick Douglass
In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938-1961
Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
“Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman
FDR’s “The Four Freedoms” speech, 1941
General Douglas MacArthur’s “Duty, Honor, Courage” speech at West Point, 1962
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
John Hope Franklin’s From Slavery to Freedom
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois
Henry Lewis Gates’ Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour by Lynne Olson
Robert Kennedy’s “Ripple of Hope” speech, 1966.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Harry Caudill’s Night Comes to the Cumberlands
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee
Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America
President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 concession speech
The Autobiography of Malcolm X co-authored with Alex Haley
Ta Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me
Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow
Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, especially Master of the Senate.
Jon Meacham's The Soul of America
George Orwell’s Animal Farm
The Burden of Southern History by C. Vann Woodward
American Nations by Colin Woodard
Jill Lepore’s This America
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X Xendi
William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”
Each one of these titles is a classic, or ought to be. As in our previous ‘Words that Matter’ posts, this is in no particular order to these. I feel there’s a charm to its grab-bag nature of this list, like the treasured covers on a bookshelf at home. Just jump in anywhere.
And remember: Our heroes the booksellers and the librarians (God love them all!) can help you find any and all of these.
Wishing you a Happy (and healthy) Thanksgiving!
© Keel Hunt, 2020
