2023, the year that brought the “Deinfluencer” influencer trend, a trend which ostensibly began with actual trending posts encouraging people to consume less or avoid certain overhyped (over compensated) products, quickly morphed into yet another marketing strategy of cheeky talking points (“don’t buy this, it will make your skin too clear”) or straight up pivoting to selling other products, seems to have spilled over into the book world making 2024 the year of rejecting reading goals.
It’s traditional in bookish communities to kick off the new year by setting intentions for the reading year ahead. Label them what you will, but setting a quantitative reading goal, pledging to read more from your own shelves, identifying titles to be read in 2024, even pledging to read less in the year ahead, these are all reading goals.
This year I noticed a trend with many book influencers pledging to read less in 2024 and/or rejecting the concept of reading goals completely, confoundingly this was often followed by a whole list of “goals” for the year ahead.
Look, I am totally a fan of relieving unnecessary pressure from any and all possible areas of your life. If eschewing goals makes you happy, be happy.
Also, if you’re a casual reader, like most readers are, (nearly half of American adults did not read a single book in 2023. If you read 2 books you’re already in the top half of U.S. readers.) you might not be interested in setting any goals or intentions for your reading life, and that’s completely reasonable!
However, most readers in bookish spaces of the internet are not casual readers, they are in the top fraction of 1% of all readers (if you read more than 50 books last year, congrats! You’re a 1%er! At least when it comes to reading.) We are steeped in books, our TBRs are never-ending, we are juggling front- and backlist books, advanced reading copies and new release days. We are not typical readers and I think it’s reasonable, if not recommended, to approach reading with intention; to challenge ourselves in an enjoyable way, or just to identify what is most important to our reading lives.
Knowing yourself as a reader brings benefits to your reading life. Knowing yourself involves reflection: knowing what you like, what you’d like to explore, where you can afford to be challenged, what will help you to feel accomplished, and how much leniency to give yourself to mood read, or browse bookstore shelves, or scoop up hyped new releases.
When you read hundreds of books a year and are aware of thousands of new and upcoming releases I think approaching your reading life intentionally, setting some goals, is not just recommended, but important. We only have so much reading time to go around and so many, many books to be read! Reading intentionally helps you know what to prioritize and where to allocate your limited time.
In 2003, an unsigned postcard arrives at the Berest home addressed to author Anne Berest’s recently deceased maternal grandmother, Myriam, with no message, just four names listed: Ephraim, Emma, Noemie and Jacques, her grandmother’s parents and siblings, all killed in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. This true event as well as the unraveling of the mystery of the postcard, which inextricably involves the unraveling of her family history, becomes The Postcard, a work of auto-fiction.
The Postcard is one of the most moving, impactful stories of the Holocaust I’ve ever read. Tracing the experiences of Ephraim, Emma, Noemie, Jacques, and Myriam in the lead up to, during, and following WWII is gripping, harrowing, and all too real. There are many WWII stories in existence (too many), plenty focusing on Jewish families, this one is exceptional. What makes The Postcard a truly brilliant, peerless work is the nuanced portrayal of Jewish identity in all its complexities both then and now, as well as the impact of our experiences then on our identity now.
When seventeen-year-old Marley moves to the small rust belt town of Mercury, Pennsylvania in 1990 she soon becomes part of the Joseph family for better or worse.
Marley, an only child of a single mother, is enamored with the Josephs, a roofing family with three sons. She begins joining the family for dinner and eventually ends up dating one brother, marrying the other, and becoming something of a surrogate mother to the third. Years on a discovery in the church attic will test the bonds of this family like never before.
Mercury {#gifted @celadonbooks} is a small town family saga full of complex relationships, secrets, loyalty, perception, roles, and expectations, those prescribed by others and ourselves; a story of the complicated web of family dynamics, dynamics which both shape us and are shaped by us.
I just loved this story and truly fell in love with the characters as the story unfolded. The structure allows the reader to know several of the characters both as others perceive them and then shifts providing a more intimate perspective of how they see themselves. This dichotomy provides so much nuance and depth to the story and its characters. There’s love, mystery, coming-of-age, trauma, and quite a bit of reflection on women’s roles in family. Really a lot to chew on and appreciate.
Recommended for fans of Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful and anyone who appreciates a good family drama.
I don’t know if you’ve checked your weather app lately or been outside (I hope not!) but (assuming you’re located in the U.S.) temperatures are quite frigid right now. Friday brought warnings, watches, and advisories for the entire contiguous United States and now that the blizzard producing system is moving out a polar vortex has moved in bringing extremely cold temperatures from sea to shining sea.
While I don’t like to be out in the winter, I do like to stock up on wintery reads, stories that transport me to chilly places, books that feel like winter. My favorite way to experience winter is from the comfort of my home, cozied down with a book that pairs well with the season.
Here are 7 backlist recommendations:
Beartown by Fredrik Backman (2017)
When I think winter, I think Beartown. Hockey rinks and wintery forest, a violent act and a mystery that upends this small town filled with memorable characters. Beartown is the first in a trilogy that could hold you rapt all winter.
The Drift is a backlist book, but just barely, published in January of last year. This gripping horror thriller is essentially 3 locked-room survival mysteries set against the backdrop of a snowy viral apocalypse. I could not turn the pages fast enough!
This historical fiction offers a story within a story within a story featuring a brother and sister in 1950 England, references to the children’s classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (also an excellent wintery read!), and interweaves real events from author C.S. Lewis’s life. A supremely cozy story centering the magic of storytelling.
Literary CliFi set in a near future world where most of the animal kingdom is wiped out due to human interference. A young woman boards one of the last deep sea fishing vessels to follow what is predicted to be the last migration of Arctic Terns, birds who have an unfathomably long migration route, traveling between the North and South Poles each year. Atmospheric, tense, layered, and gorgeously written.
An Irish neighborhood in NYC is hit by a blizzard. Amidst heavy snows and power outages, Malcolm, proprietor of a local bar, struggles under the weight of his business and a deal gone sour, grapples with the news that his wife, Jess, who recently left him, is now dating a fellow lawyer. Jess is wrestling with disappointments of her own after years of infertility struggles. Just as everything shuts down Malcolm and Jess hit an inflection point which will determine their path forward. An emotional story about small town life and community, dreams and the realities that come after the happily ever after.
These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant (2021)
A man and his young daughter live alone together in a remote cabin in the woods. They have no outside contact with the world save for an old army buddy who owns the property and stops by on the same day once a year to restock them with food and other essentials. One year he doesn’t show, threatening their existence in unforeseen ways. I inhaled this atmospheric suspense story.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherin Arden (2017)
An enchanting fairytale inspired by Russian folklore. Set in the medieval Russian wilderness in the deep of winter about a young woman able to communicate with and derive powers from traditional mythological creatures at a time when the Orthodox Church was trying to end paganism. This incredibly atmospheric historical fantasy is the first in a trilogy, but can be appreciated as a stand alone.
Three citizens of small town Bethlehem, Pennsylvania struggle with grief and loss their paths eventually knitting together in unexpected and beneficial ways.
A widower in his 70s lost his wife to illness; a young woman lost her father to random, unexpected violence; a mother’s young daughter is lost to her amidst a custody dispute.
The wintery setting and themes of interconnectedness, community, and kindness make for a supremely cozy read.
A Quiet Life was the perfect book to kick off the new year with.
This heartwarming story would make for excellent snowy weekend reading!
Tell me: what’s the weather like where you are?
In Ohio we have cold, windy, rain with some flurries on the way along with bitterly cold temps and windchills.
Inspired by the diaries of real life 18th century midwife Martha Ballard The Frozen River is a fictionalized account of Ballard’s involvement in the case of a man accused of rape found dead in the frozen river of post-Revolutionary Maine.
In 1789, 54-year-old midwife Martha Ballard is called to examine a body recovered from the freezing river running through town. The obvious assumption is death by drowning, though upon Martha’s examination she determines he was beaten then hanged before entering the river. When called before the court to testify to her findings Martha encounters pushback from those in authority seeking to discredit her. This case is further complicated by the body’s relevance to a concurrent rape case in which Martha is also entangled.
I don’t read a ton of historical fiction, but felt called to The Frozen River by a combination of trusted reviews, the post-Revolutionary setting, and feature of a historical midwife. So much can be understood about society by entering the sphere of women. I ended up rapt by this story and Martha Ballard.
This was my final read of 2023 and hybrid I read it in single day {thanks to Libro.fm for the gifted audio!} both print and audio format are excellent.
Centuries of history as told by the various inhabitants of a single house standing in the remote north woods of Massachusetts from its 17th century construction by young Puritan lovers absconding from their settlement right up to near present day. Not only does the story inhabit a range of characters and their stories, it’s also supplemented with additional media such as journals, letters, songs, and even case notes at one point.
Author Daniel Mason penned North Woods in twelve installments, one per month, over the course of a single year and the novel follows a similar structure with the interconnected stories spanning hundreds of years told across twelve months. The lush description of the natural world surrounding the cabin is just as important to the story as the characters and cabin itself.
This was something of a sneaky read for me. It was one of my last reads of 2023 and ended up a favorite. I liked it right from the start, but my impression grew and grew as the story unfolded and I became so impressed by the layers and echos, the interconnected stories knit so well together and had so much to say about time, succession, history, the cycle of seasons, humanity, and nature.
Plus, oddly enough, reading North Woods recalled both Black River Orchard and The Vaster Wilds, also 2023 favorites and wildly different books! Random and appreciated.
I read about 80/20 fiction vs. non-fiction and my format of choice is print with about 1/3 of my reading being audiobooks.
2023 Standouts & Shoutouts
I find it very challenging to choose favorites always and with all things, books are no exception! I read 268 books last year across many genres, it’s hard to select just a few favorites! I prefer to review my year of reading with the goal of identifying two categories:
Standout books (Basically favorites by any other name.) These are stories and characters that have really stayed with me, excellent overall reading experiences, books I continue to recommend often.
Shoutout books: Reads that I really enjoyed and think deserve more attention than they received!
On The Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel
Loosely inspired by a series of unsolved murders in Chillicothe, Ohio On the Savage Side is the beautifully tragic story of twin sisters, beginning in 1979, navigating a world ravaged by poverty, addiction, violence, and loss as told with author Tiffany McDaniel’s trademark prose.
A poignant, compassionate, and deeply touching family saga beginning in 1969 and spanning four decades including cultural touchstones along the way. An intimate look at family, motherhood, and the beginning, middle, and end of a marriage. A story about love, forgiveness, and transformation woven with little stories and human moments the way real life is. I was utterly captivated by this achingly beautiful novel.
A brilliant work of autofiction centering two sisters who are carrying pregnancies and not at different points in the story incorporating the experiences of other women they encounter lending a sort of interconnected short story format. Hogland’s characters show pregnancy is anything but black and white, it’s an experience painted in every shade of gray imaginable, the most intimate and extraordinary and common experience to be lived.
An extraordinary story of a very ordinary woman from a small town in Indiana whose life spans much of the 20th century. An enchanting novel with an outsized impact (161 pages in length) Zorrie’s story, one of tragedy and bliss, survival and resilience, love and loss, as most are, infuses beauty and grace into the mundane.
An exceptional family saga spanning 1908-2038 and 4 generations of the Greenwood family whose roots are inextricably entwined with the forests which sustain them. From an empire built on clear cutting forests to a dendrologist living among some of the last surviving old growth trees, Greenwood is a story of interconnectedness and rebirth.
A teenaged servant girl flees 17th century Jamestown for the surrounding wilds with little more than the clothes on her back. The Vaster Wilds is a survival story in the traditional sense whose themes explore ideas of feminism and faith, colonization in various forms, the stories which shape our understanding of the world and our reality, and the ways keepers of those stories also contour our perception.
The story of a couple and a marriage, yes, but it’s really the story of the evolution of our culture, and really our very reality, over the last 20 years; what it is to live in modern times. Information constantly streaming, stories we tell to and about ourselves, a society always striving for more, new, better, best. Well written and an incredibly fascinating mix all packaged up within characters and a story that are compelling and recognizable.
This manifesto posits poverty in America, something impacting more than 1 in 9 of us, is not an unfortunate byproduct of our system or a choice made by individuals who just won’t bootstrap harder, but rather a reality by design: some are intentionally kept small so that others can prosper. In other words, ours is a system of exploitation. Desmond outlines how the structure is skewed and what can be done about it.
A town an its people are consumed by a delicious apple with a long and deadly legacy. A delicious and complex read not unlike the apple at its core. Rich with historical and social commentary, relevant to past and current events, a mysterious and suspenseful plot that moves quickly thanks to multiple points of view, and bonus gift with read: a lot of actually interesting facts about apples.
Centuries of history as told by the various inhabitants of a single house standing in the remote north woods of Massachusetts from its 17th century construction by young Puritan lovers absconding from their settlement right up to near present day. Well knit interconnected stories spanning hundreds of years shape the narrative.
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham that Changed America by Paul Kix
Narrative non-fiction detailing the 1963 direct action campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama during which Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested, jailed, and penned the now infamous “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” The events of these 10 days changed the trajectory of history forever and Kix’s account brings this history to life.
An epic speculative CliFi dystopia following a cast of characters who intersect at various times and in various ways as they navigate the fallout of climate change. Spanning more than 3 decades and impressive in scope alone The Deluge is also well researched and crafted with developed characters and remarkably believable speculative elements.
Set in a near and familiar future where humanity is bearing the weight of darkness in many forms a new pandemic called “The Grey,” a sort of deadly depressive malady, is spreading and no one knows how to stop or reverse it. A climate change scientist finds herself on an unexpected quest through time and space where she will discover the secret to survival. A unique blend of genres, an entertaining and approachable adventure, and a philosophical exploration of existence, connection, happiness, and finding hope amidst darkness.
An emotional romance about two people who meet as teens. Will and Rosie have undeniable chemistry and the beginnings of a blossoming romance until tragedy strikes, tethering them together and pushing them apart for decades as they come of age while grappling with grief and life. Beautiful, melancholy, and deeply affecting.
A quiet yet gripping saga about a working class Boston family. Complicated relationships, complex dynamics, particularly the relationship between mothers, daughters, and sisters, and the ties that hold us. A poignant look at the impact of growing up beneath the specter of mental illness.
The Rachel Incident is told from an adult Rachel’s present day perspective about a 2009 incident that happens as she’s graduating college featuring a complex romantic entanglement involving Rachel, the college professor she has a crush on, her roommate, James, her college professor’s wife, and eventually a man Rachel begins dating. But truly the narrative swirls around the intense and platonic friendship between Rachel and James, the real love story at the center of this novel; a kind which can only exist at a certain time in your life. Brilliantly crafted, compelling, and oddly nostalgic.
A multigenerational saga chronicling three generations of one Californian family from the founding of a 50s/60s matriarchal Commune in the woods turned cult to seeking a more traditional life in 80s/90s LA and coming full circle in the new millennium. Told with elements of magical realism and a hint of dark fairytale.
When his sister goes missing a sports journalist Harper tracks her to a small island off the coast of Wisconsin inhabited by a tiny, insular community perplexingly stuck in the 90s. The eerie and accessible narrative is enhanced by “found footage” containing diary entries, text threads, interviews, and articles throughout. An excellent balance of horror, humor, suspense, and deeper themes.
A multigenerational family story spanning many members and across time, even offering glimpses back to their patriarch in late 18th century Senegal who is captured, enslaved and brought to America. Throughout all and central to the story are the family’s talisman: monkeys carved from a peach seed. I appreciate the bits of history incorporated throughout the story.
The Dunnes don’t just visit the Jersey Shore, they live there year round and run a vacation rental business using their properties to make other people’s vacation dreams come true, but this year, as the season winds down, the family is in tumult as their patriarch descends further into illness with a terminal brain tumor. His business partner/wife and their two teenaged daughters are trying to juggle the family business, caretaking, the impending loss of their husband/father, and, for the girls, being teenagers with very adult responsibilities. Inspired by experiences of author Katie Runde’s life and very well done.
Hannah, a successful horror novelist struggling with new motherhood. Those around her think she may be in the midst of a challenging transition, but Hannah’s anxiety is so immense she starts experiencing blips where it seems to her as though her baby is missing. When he disappears from his crib one night and she’s not the only one to experience the loss, she knows she must find him, even if that means testing the bounds of the universe as we know it.
An incredible blend of literary/speculative sci-fi/suspense thriller, motherhood, multiverse, heroine’s quest, Jewish representation, written by a Jewish author with a background in parent-focused psychotherapy. I just adore the way Goldstein-Love applies a sci-fi lens to explore the disorientation and multitudes of motherhood.
An actress rapidly approaching middle age is desperate to be pregnant. Just as her star is rising so too does Anna succeed in getting pregnant after an arduous IVF journey, but her dreams soon turn to nightmares beginning with a stalker breaking into her apartment and later strange pregnancy symptoms: Is Anna hysterical, or is something seriously wrong?
A feminist update to Rosemary’s Baby I just loved this sinister exploration of pregnancy as well as the all too real horror of rampant misogyny in pregnancy care; layered and thoughtful and so well done.
A few weeks into motherhood, Alice, a young Mohawk woman, is struggling despite appearing to have it all. She can’t seem to do anything right when it comes to caring for her baby, is haunted by her mother’s recent death, and then begins hearing voices.
A bold, smart blend of horror and speculative sci-fi incorporating so many layers: motherhood, mental health, indigenous culture and experience, racism, and traditional storytelling. The writing style is almost conversational, irreverent and funny at times, heartbreaking at others.
A rich, engrossing, layered, multigenerational family saga about parents and children, liberation and legacy. Three generations of one Black family are seeking home and community, freedom, and self-determination in a variety of ways. Author Ayana Mathis interweaves fictionalized versions of history into the story with a Black owned town in Alabama as well as a commune in Philadelphia.
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher
A very compelling look at the negative implications of social media from the way it taps into our psychology to make us slaves to our feeds to the way these platforms have been used to foment genocide and other violence with no responsibility taken or changes made on the part of the private companies who own them. The division and extremism bred by social media algorithms are not merely an unfortunate byproduct but are instead features upon which these companies’ profit models are predicated upon. One of the scariest books I’ve ever read and one I can’t stop thinking about.
A breathtaking page turner about star-crossed lovers Leah and Charlie whose relationship is messy, codependent, and exhilarating. Leah is a MFA student leaving behind complicated family dynamics and Charlie struggles with drug addiction. I couldn’t put this book down.
Set five years after a microplastics storm caused a mass extinction Katie is holed up in her apartment with her son born after the storm. But Katie’s health is deteriorating forcing them to leave the safety of their apartment on a cross country trek and the hope they may be able to reunite with Katie’s fiancé, once thought lost to the storm. A quietly captivating apocalyptic novel, a deeply character driven meditation on motherhood, hope, love, and resilience.
Time’s Mouth {gifted, thanks Counterpoint Press} opens in the 1950s with teenage Ursa fleeing a difficult childhood in New England for the counterculture of California. Ursa, who has the ability revisit points in her past, soon settles a matriarchal commune in the woods, a place meant to be a safe haven for women who are drawn to her powers, but the next generation, the children of the commune don’t experience this mystical house in the woods as the safe space it’s meant to be.
Time’s Mouth is a multigenerational saga chronicling three generations of one Californian family from the founding of a 50s/60s matriarchal Commune in the woods turned cult to seeking a more traditional life in 80s/90s LA and coming full circle in the new millennium.
About motherhood and the way secrets, trauma, and fear reverberate and cycle through generations; time and its passage, the gift of the present, and memories that have the power to both heal and harm. There is a really intriguing element of magical realism where some characters have the ability to revisit their past in a very visceral/time travel sort of way, and the whole story has a hint (it’s subtle, but I so appreciated it!) of dark fairytale about it.
A unique story with a strong sense of place and the vibes felt like they called right to me. Loved this one!
In Poverty, by America sociologist Matthew Desmond shifts the typical perspective from who is poor, how, and why, to who benefits from poverty.
The answer?
All of us.
In this manifesto Desmond posits poverty in America, something impacting more than 1 in 9 Americans, is not an unfortunate byproduct of our system or a choice made by individuals who just won’t bootstrap harder, but rather a reality by design: some are intentionally kept small so that others can prosper. In other words ours is a system of exploitation.
I found this entire book interesting, I probably made more notations while reading this book than ever before, but I found a few points especially enlightening:
Government aid is primarily spent on the wealthy.
Wealth is needlessly subsidized in America. We spend an incredible amount of money giving tax breaks that benefit the middle and upper classes. Tax breaks for things like mortgage interest, college savings, wealth transfers, and IRAs (don’t even get me started on capital gains and dividends, or the whole corporate welfare topic) subsidize affluence.
For example, let’s examine a single one of these tax breaks: mortgage interest. This is common, right?
Roughly 2/3 Americans are homeowners. But all homeowners don’t automatically receive the mortgage interest tax deduction, in order to qualify you have to itemize your tax deductions. In order to itemize you have to have enough deductions to benefit beyond the standard deduction most of us take. In fact, after the GOP under Trump passed 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which benefitted corporations and wealthy Americans, fewer than 14% of Americans itemize their tax deductions (this down from somewhere around 1 in 3 before.) [Forbes]
How’s that trickle down going? Still waiting?
We spend $190 billion per year on mortgage interest tax deductions compared with $50 billion on housing subsidies for the poor. Only about 1 in 4 people who qualify for housing subsidies actually receive them, waiting lists are years long to participate in the program.
There are certainly theories behind these types of incentives, but investing the massive amounts of money into these tax credits that really aren’t make or break for those taking advantage of them makes no sense when that money could be spent lifting people out of poverty and ensuring basic needs are met.
1% of income earners are responsible for an estimated $175 billion per year in unpaid taxes.
That’s BILLION, with a B, $175,000,000,000 PER YEAR. [WaPo] Expanded to the top 5% and it adds up to $305 billion. That’s a lot of food stamps and housing vouchers.
I’m already approaching this topic from the perspective of money being a construct and poverty being a construct, but a lot of people want to be all, “I’d love for millions of children to not go hungry BUT HOW WILL WE PAY FOR IT?!” I’m team ‘eat the rich’ myself, but it sounds like if the ultra wealthy were expected to simply pay their taxes just like the rest of us are that would go a long way to paying for things. In fact, it would roughly be enough to solve poverty entirely. I want you to think about this the next time you hear someone complaining about Biden funding the IRS with the Inflation Reduction Act. (Or anyone complaining about raising the debt ceiling. I’ve got a way to balance your budget right here with, read my lips: no new taxes!)
I was also surprised by the statistics on welfare avoidance and lack of uptake as well as the shocking amount of unspent federal dollars some states are sitting on. (I’m looking right at you Tennessee with your $790 million; must not be any needy families there.)
Poverty is a systemic problem in need of systemic solution, but small steps really do add up to great change and Desmond offers the concept of individuals becoming “anti-poverty” as an important piece of poverty abolition. He essentially says we’re all culpable for the rampant disparity in the US by ignoring the ways we benefit from the status quo, by not demanding better, and by not being involved in the work of change.
This ostensibly looks something like: consumer activism, for example, shopping at stores you know pay living wages; showing up to community meetings where angry suburbanites are opposing low-income housing to express your support; pointing out we could fund a lot of things with an extra $175 billion/year the next time someone you know is pushing a conspiracy theory about IRS funding; wearing a slow fashion ‘eat the rich’ shirt (just kidding, mostly, but it might make you feel better personally.)
I don’t think he’s wrong about any of this, but I do think we have to take one step further back: we have to imagine better for ourselves. I think it’s much too easy to give into division and despair, to see this as an individual issue rather than a systemic one, to buy into the bootstrapping ‘American Dream’. I mean, we recently saw Congress allow a policy to expire that cut child poverty in the US by 50%, thrusting those same children right back to where they started with nary a peep of pushback. (This the expanded child tax credit which gave eligible families $250-300/month.)
This all makes me think about a study recently conducted by the Wall Street Journal which shows “traditional values” such as religion, patriotism, family, and community involvement have declined in importance over the last 25 years, but what has increased in self-reported importance? Money. I imagine things like lack of economic confidence and increasing income disparity among other things are responsible for these findings which hint that this division has an impact on what we consider core values, the things that make us us. It’s hard to prioritize having children if you are already having trouble making ends meet. Likewise it’s hard to care about something like community involvement when you’ve been sold the idea that others are coming to take what’s yours and you must defend it at all costs.
We’re a better version of ourselves when we aren’t constantly confronted by and asked to abide the realities of disparity, when we aren’t operating from a mindset of scarcity, when we are actually working towards living up to our democratic values of liberty, equality, and justice for all.
First we have to see that poverty doesn’t have to exist and our reality is not zero sum; we all do better when we all do better. Then we must confront the ways we’re complicit with the status quo.
(If it isn’t already clear, I think this is a must read.)
Also, Matthew Desmond was recently interviewed about this book and topic on The Ezra Klein Show and I would highly encourage a listen either in place of or as supplement to reading the book.
That Bookish Life 