Reader’s Advisory Roundtable
6/8/2022
10 people in attendance:
Holley W, O’Neal
Pam J, Southside
Maura D, Trussville
Alisha J, BPL
Michelle, Irondale
Tisha, Leeds
Nicole, Tarrant
Reba W
Bridget T
S Lewis
The next meeting will be on Wednesday, August 10th at
9am. It will be hybrid so you can come
to O’Neal Library or join in via Zoom.
We were trying to come up with books that discuss civil
discourse and non-contentious approaches to leading/moderating
discussions. Here are a few:
Leading with Emotional Courage: How to Have Hard Conversations, Create Accountability, and Inspire Action on Your Most Important Work by Peter Bregman
Why Are We Yelling?: The Art of Productive Disagreement by
Buster Benson
Let’s Talk About Hard Things by Anna Sale
How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide
by Peter Boghossian
Mingling with the Enemy: A Social Survival Guide for Our Politically Divided Era by Jeanne Martinet
Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree With and Maybe Even Change the World by Justin Lee
We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter by
Celeste Anne Headlee
Compassionate Conversations: How to Speak and Listen From the Heart by Diane Mucho Hamilton
How to Have That Difficult Conversation: Gaining the Skills for Honest and Meaningful Communication by Henry Cloud
Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide, Skills and Strategies for Conversations That Work by Tania Israel
I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations by Sarah Stewart Holland
It’s Time to Talk (and Listen): How to Have Constructive Conversations about Race, Class, Sexuality, Ability and Gender in a Polarized World by Anatasia
Kim
The topic of our meeting was material on social justice issues. Before discussing titles, we talked briefly
about environmental activism, challenges and questions about LGBTQ+ displays
during Pride month, and First Amendment audits in libraries.
Inventing Human Rights: A History by Lynn Hunt
How were human rights invented, and how does their
tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them
today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and
intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection
of torture as a means for finding the truth. She demonstrates how ideas of
human relationships portrayed in novels and art helped spread these new ideals
and how human rights continue to be contested today.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped
America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human
divisions.
Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution by John Archibald
On growing up in the American South of the 1960s—an
all-American white boy—son of a long line of Methodist preachers, in the midst
of the civil rights revolution, and discovering the culpability of silence
within the church. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and columnist
for The Birmingham News.
Allies: Real Talk About Showing Up, Screwing Up, and Trying Again by Shakirah Bourne et al.
This book is for everyone. Because we can all be allies. As
an ally, you use your power—no matter how big or small—to support others. You
learn, and try, and mess up, and try harder. In this collection of true
stories, 17 critically acclaimed and bestselling YA authors get real about
being an ally, needing an ally, and showing up for friends and strangers.
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History by Mitch Landrieu
The New Orleans mayor who removed the Confederate statues
confronts the racism that shapes us and argues for white America to reckon with
its past. A passionate, personal, urgent book from the man who sparked a
national debate.
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham
By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The
Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a
deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black
identity in the rural South—and in America today.
The Experiment: Stories from an Unfinished Country podcast
from The Atlantic Monthlly and WNYC Studios
It's easy to forget that the United States started as an
experiment: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with
liberty and justice for all. That was the idea. On this weekly show, we check
in on how that experiment is going.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred
federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people,
descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land.
The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has
largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian
and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told
from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans,
for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.
American Indians in Children’s Literature
Established in 2006 by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, American
Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical analysis of
Indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books. Dr. Jean Mendoza joined
AICL as a co-editor in 2016.
Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine
Ceniza Choy (publishing August 2, 2022)
An inclusive and landmark history, emphasizing how essential
Asian American experiences are to any understanding of US history. Despite
significant Asian American breakthroughs in American politics, arts, and
popular culture in the 21st century, a profound lack of understanding of Asian
American history permeates American culture. Choy traces how anti-Asian
violence and its intersection with misogyny and other forms of hatred, the
erasure of Asian American experiences and contributions, and Asian American
resistance to what has been omitted are prominent themes in Asian American
history. This ambitious book is fundamental to understanding the American
experience and its existential crises of the early 21st century.
