#collected essays of james baldwin

[luthienne]

James Baldwin, from Collected Essays; "Notes of a Native Son"

[Text ID: It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.]

#james baldwin #collected essays of james baldwin #notes of a native son #words #lit #essays

[wehavewords]

“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I'd been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the Earth as though I had a right to be here.”

James Baldwin

#wehavewords #james baldwin #Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son Nobody Knows My Name The Fire Next Time No Name in the Street The Devil Finds Work Other Essays #words #quotes #life quotes #life #quotes about life #true words #favorite quotes #self care #unlearning #earth quotes #self love #self reflection #quotes about a right to live #quotes about belonging #book inspiration #book quotes

[jadenvargen]

free online james baldwin stories, essays, videos, and other resources

**edit

James baldwin online archive with his articles and photo archives.

---NOVELS---

Giovanni's room"When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened - while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy. This book introduces love's fascinating possibilities and extremities."

Go Tell It On The Mountain"(...)Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves."

+bonus: film adaptation on youtube. (if you’re a giancarlo esposito fan, you’ll be delighted to see him in an early preacher role)

Another Country and Going to Meet the Man Another country: "James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit." Going to meet the Man: " collection of eight short stories by American writer James Baldwin. The book, dedicated "for Beauford Delaney", covers many topics related to anti-Black racism in American society, as well as African-American–Jewish relations, childhood, the creative process, criminal justice, drug addiction, family relationships, jazz, lynching, sexuality, and white supremacy."

Just Above My Head"Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni's Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work. Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses--and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land."

If Beale Street Could Talk"Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche."

also has a film adaptation by moonlight's barry jenkins

Tell Me How Long the Train's been gone At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty. 

---ESSAYS---

Baldwin essay collection. Including most famously: notes of a native son, nobody knows my name, the fire next time, no name in the street, the devil finds work- baldwin on film

--DOCUMENTARIES--

Take this hammer, a tour of san Francisco.

Meeting the man

--DEBATES:--

Debate with Malcolm x, 1963 ( on integration, the nation of islam, and other topics. )

Debate with William Buckley, 1965. ( historic debate in america. )

Heavily moderated debate with Malcolm x, Charles Eric Lincoln, and Samuel Schyle 1961. (Primarily Malcolm X's debate on behalf of the nation of islam, with Baldwin giving occassional inputs.)

----

apart from themes obvious in the book's descriptions, a general heads up for themes of incest and sexual assault throughout his works.

#james baldwin #motivated by i think people here think it's harder to find resources and read than it actually is. so much stuff online! #motivation nr 2 wtf

[psychosodomy]

Okay my fysical library needs to be supplemented with:

entire CD collection of joy harjos music and audiobooks

Two or three more akwaeke emezi books

farewell my concubine DVD

#my toni morrison and james baldwin collection are appropriately started but i need need need #That american classics edition of baldwins later fiction and essays and a separate copy of tell me how long the trains been gone #personal

[garadinervi]

James Baldwin, A Talk to Teachers, The «Saturday Review», December 21, 1963; in James Baldwin: Collected Essays, [ch. Other Essays], [note: «Toni Morrison selected the contents for this volume»], Library of America, New York, NY, 1998, pp. 678-686

#graphic design #newspaper #magazine #book #james baldwin #toni morrison #saturday review #library of america #1960s #1990s

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, James Baldwin! (August 2, 1924)

An acclaimed Black American writer and orator, James Baldwin was born in New York City as James Jones, to a mother who had left the South during the Great Migration. Baldwin's mother married a Baptist preacher and laborer named David Baldwin, whom the younger Baldwin would consider his father, despite an often contentious relationship. Bookish since childhood, Baldwin was encouraged in his literary pursuits by his teachers, and he read and wrote extensively. After ending his education, Baldwin became frustrated by the racial prejudice and discrimination he experienced in the United States, and in the late 1940s through the 1950s he settled himself in Paris, during which time he wrote several notable works, including his famous Notes of a Native Son. He returned to the US as the 1960s opened, where he became a vocal celebrity activist for the cause of Black civil rights. In 1963, his essay collection The Fire Next Time was published, and became one of the most important books on race relations of the decade. He organized with the Congress of Racial Equality and maintained friendly relations with figures in the movement such as Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Medgar Evers, all of whom would be murdered before the decade closed. Baldwin also considered himself a socialist, and spoke in favor of socialism coming to take root in the United States. As the 20th century bore on, Baldwin continued to write and speak, becoming an icon not just of the civil rights movement, but of the gay rights movement, as Baldwin was himself gay. He eventually left the United States for France once again, dying there of stomach cancer in 1987.

“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.”

#birthdays #james baldwin

[ftmtftm]

ftmtftm's reading (and watching) list

So I've been putting this list together to help people understand my beliefs and also to expand their own. This is a list of theorists, poets, authors, artists, and people that I often source from whose works have deeply impacted my framework of the world. I hope someone else can find them useful as well.

I've included several videos because I know how inaccessible academic text can be, but I do encourage you to read the text if you're able and seek out copies of books listed at your local libraries or independent book sellers/second hand book shops! When I could not find a PDF for a written work I have added Thrift Books links. Also double check the Internet Archive, Trans Reads, and The Anarchist Library for more readings!!

If any of these links break please let me know and I'll see what I can do to fix them. I'll be adding to this list as time goes on as currently these are just the books I can see on my bookshelf and videos I could remember I've seen before!

3.4.2024 - This list is slightly outdated in that there are several authors and works I need to add. Please seach the names James Baldwin and Audre Lorde or simply my reading list tag on my blog for additional resources.

Theory

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

Critial Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed The Movement - thrift books

Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color - PDF

The Urgency of Intersectionality - video

Kimberlé Crenshaw Intersectionality is NOT identity - video exerpt from her WOW keynote speech

Angela Davis:

Angela Davis Criticizes "Mainstream Feminism" / Bourgeois Feminism - video

Angela Davis What it means to be a Revolutionary (1972 Interview) - video

Roxane Gay:

Bad Feminist: Essays - Internet Archive

Roxane Gay: Confessions of a bad feminist - video

Roxane Gay, Feminism and Difficult Women - video

bell hooks:

Feminism is for Everybody - PDF

The Will to Change - Internet Archive / audio book - YouTube

All About Love - PDF / audio book - YouTube

Teaching to Transgress PDF / audio book - YouTube

Speaking Freely: bell hooks - video

bell hooks & john a. powell: Belonging Through Connection (Othering & Belonging Conference 2015) - video

bell hooks & Gloria Steinem at Eugene Lang College - video (intro ends 7:24)

Emi Koyama:

The Transfeminist Manifesto - PDF

Ijeoma Oluo:

So You Want to Talk About Race - thrift books

Ijeoma Oluo Talks at Google - video

Public Presentation with Ijeoma Olua - video

History / Journals

P. Carl:

Becoming a Man - thrift books

Library Labyrinth Live Presents: P. Carl Becoming a Man - video (intro ends approx. 3:20)

P. Carl Prologue UCCS - video (audio quality poor)

Keith Haring:

Journals - PDF

Keith Haring Documentary - video

Keith Haring On The Fence - video

Jack Lowery:

It Was Vulgar & It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic - thrift books

Susan Stryker:

Transgender History - PDF

Transitions, with Susan Stryker - podcast - YouTube

Lou Sullivan:

We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan 1961-1991 - trans reads

Trans Oral History: Meeting Lou Sullivan - video

A series of video interviews with Lou - playlist

Fiction / Poetry

Chinua Achebe:

Things Fall Apart (novel) - PDF

I'm trying hard to not add too much of my own commentary to this post but personally I really think it's helpful to read Things Fall Apart in theoretical conversation with The Will to Change by bell hooks and in direct conversation with one of the works it was written in response to, The Heart of Darkness

Arundhati Roy:

The God of Small Things (novel) - thrift books

Arundhati Roy talks about her life and views on the world - video

Warsan Shire:

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (poetry collection) - thrift books

Warsan Shire reads her poetry - video

Zadie Smith:

White Teeth (novel) - Internet Archive

White Teeth (4 part Real Drama adaptation) - videos

Zadie Smith Interview: On Bad Girls, Good Guys and the Complicated Midlife - video

A Conversation with Zadie Smith - video

Pamela Sneed:

Funeral Diva (poetry and prose collection) - thrift books

Pamela Sneed Discusses "Funeral Diva" - video

I offer you a secret meme for your time (with books I still need to add to this list):

#original post #long post/ #reading list

[jaydeiswriting]

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses is the best writing craft book I've ever read. It has completely reoriented what "craft" means to me by situating it as what it is: a set of cultural expectations about how stories should be told and to whom. There's sometimes a chasm, at least for me, between what I know theoretically and what I have adequately applied in all the relevant contexts in my life. Reading this book let me know that I was neglecting to apply what I knew about how language, culture, and literary traditions work together to my prose writing and recontextualized how I see "craft" and approach writing advice. I'd recommend reading even just the Google Books sample; the whole first section is included and introduces the concept well.

The biggest takeaway is that craft is not neutral. Craft is inherently cultural. It's obvious in hindsight with the literary traditions born out of very specific cultural movements that define "good craft" in specific periods of time. It's also obvious in hindsight because I've been well aware that language holds and is shaped by culture and worldview, so how we use language is always reflective of culture and culturally defined value systems. And yet, somehow, it was a revelation to me to learn that the "rules" of craft are also cultural, and the most prominent ones are those that reflect the dominant culture of the West. This, like the book says, means that "learning the rules before you break them" necessitates learning the expectations of the dominant culture before you're "allowed" to "deviate" and take on a voice formed by your own outside cultural values. This has destabilized all writing advice and craft concerns for me and made me deeply question what I hold as "experimental" (could it just be the unspoken traditions of the non-white, non-cishet, disabled or otherwise "non-normative" writers that I don't yet recognize?). I'm questioning so many of my past reading and writing and learning experiences and I'n getting a lot of value out of that questioning.

Several sections of this book stood out to me, but some significant ones are under this cut with some further resources I've looked at.

craft as cure or injury:

2. cultural expectations vs cultural exceptions

3. examining craft terms (conflict)

4. experimentalism vs. writing to other traditions

5. "the reader," and who we write to

This is not even half of what stood out to me, but it's a start. It also invested an interest in me to seek out other resources about craft written from a non-dominant perspective. I've found this incredibly helpful website linking to a bunch of other books and essays offering racialized perspectives on craft:

And to keep things in one place and obvious, another link to the Google Books sample of Craft in the Real World:

There's also a bibliography at the end of Craft in the Real World that has some relevant additional texts.

And I'm just on the lookout now to collect more. Suggestions welcome.

#amwriting #writing #writing advice #writing craft #writeblr #writing community

[halfmoth-halfman]

Can I ask why you hate Sarah J Maas? Genuinely asking

no 💜

anyway, here's the books by black authors i'm reading/re-reading for black history month:

Beloved - Toni Morrison The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations - Toni Morrison James Baldwin: Collected Essays - James Baldwin (includes Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street, and The Devil Finds) Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates The Broken Earth Series - N. K. Jemisin Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston Black Leopard, Red Wolf - Marlon James The Legacy of Orisha Series - Tomi Adeyemi The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes - Langston Hughes Well-Read Black Girl - Glory Edim The Mead Mishaps Series - Kimberly Lemming The Legendborn Cycle - Tracy Deonn

and here are some resources for donating and boycotting in support of gaza, congo, and sudan:

how to donate an e-sim with #ConnectingGaza

CareForGaza

BDS Movement & BDS Targeted Boycott List

what's happening in Congo: info + resources + how you can help

The War in Sudan & List of Sudanese Fundraisers

#anon #moth answers #answered #we're focusing on supporting the REAL people trying to live through REAL genocide and oppression #instead of asking about the racist authors who steal that oppression so they can rewrite it through a white lens #and water it down with a bunch of enemies to lovers grumpy x sunshine tall brooding monster man romantasy tropes

[alienejj]

Part 4: This is a collection of short stories, 50 penguin's modern classics.

31. THE GIGOLO by FRANÇOISE SAGAN. A middle-aged woman breaks with her young lover; a husband is suspected of infidelity; a dying man reflects on his extramarital affairs, in these shimmering, bittersweet tales of desire and disillusionment.

32. GLITTERING CITY by CYPRIAN EKWENSI. Untrustworthy, charming Fussy Joe spins tall tales and breaks hearts in this rollicking story set in the 'sensational city' of 1960s Lagos.

33. PIERS OF THE HOMELESS NIGHT by JACK KEROUAC. Soaring, freewheeling snapshots of life on the road across America, from the Beat writer who inspired a generation.

34. WHY DO YOU WEAR A CHEAP WATCH? by HANS FALLADA. Darkly funny, streetwise tales of low-lifes, grifters and ordinary people trying to make ends meet in pre-War Germany.

35. THE DUKE IN HIS DOMAIN by TRUMAN CAPOTE. This mesmerizing profile of an insecure, vulnerable young Marlon Brando, brooding in a Kyoto hotel during a break from filming, is a peerless piece of journalism.

36. LEAVING THE YELLOW HOUSE by SAUL BELLOW. A stubborn, hard-drinking elderly woman living in a desert town finds herself faced with an impossible choice, in this caustically funny, precisely observed tale from an American prose master.

37. THE CRACKED LOOKING-GLASS by KATHERINE ANNE PORTER. A passionate, unfulfilled woman considers her life and her marriage in this moving novella by one of America's finest short story writers.

38. DARK DAYS by JAMES BALDWIN. Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race, these searing essays blend the intensely personal with the political to envisage a better world.

39. LETTER TO MY MOTHER by GEORGES SIMENON. Georges Simenon's stark, confessional letter to his dead mother explores the complexity of parent-child relationships and the bitterness of things unsaid.

40. DEATH THE BARBER by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS. Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse, and made him one of the greatest twentieth-century poets.

#nejj bookblr #books #book review #bookworm #bookish #book blog #book haul #book photography #academia #classic academia #dark academia #reading #english literature #photography #gothic #literature #lit #fiction #bookblr #booklr

[djservo]

crashes in in a fashionably late kind of way.. january is finally over!! 31 days felt like 300 but now that we’re on the other side of it, what books did you read to start 2024? what was the vibe any standouts has it changed what’s on the horizon?

I've started keeping a physical calendar again so you'd think having the month splayed out in front of me so directly and constantly would be grounding but week after week I was just like Omg how is there More.... we made it thru tho god bless xx January was fun!!

in terms of my pre-planned monthly reading themes, January was a grace period where I let my whims guide me so I'm surprised at how many themes incidentally overlapped?? Naomi Klein referencing The Fire Next Time, the theme of internet doubles and online dark corners in Doppelganger essentially being the core of The Sluts, the dark spiraling mystery of The Sluts akin to the dark spiraling mystery of Mysterious Skin, yada yada yada. I luv when the dots inadvertently connect!! right place right time vibe!!

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

it's been really nice starting my reading off with Baldwin these past few years, something grounding about immersing myself in sharp indictments of the US amidst the usual new year wide-eyed blitheness. this one was only 2 essays but both gripped me just as much as his longer collections. I imagine it's hard to sort of reframe arguments, pleas, and points you've been talking about for years when things still haven't changed, but each new (to me) Baldwin essay reads so fresh in the way that he contextualizes these core points within different interactions + relationships. I think Ive said this before but it's also so rewarding to read an author's works chronologically because you can kind of follow how their frame of mind sharpens/adapts throughout the years and in a way you grow with them, and his first essay (a letter to his nephew) kinda feels like the culmination of that growth laid out with such care. super special

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

totallyyyyyy consumed + dizzied by this wow I can't believe it took me this long to read Naomi Klein. I think I'd been intimidated by the size of her books + my incorrect assumption that something so research-heavy (bc boy does she research!) will read too dense, but everything here was laid out and tied together so smoothly + accessibly (I feel like I use that word a lot for nonfiction which is probably my subconscious quest to entice ppl to read more nonfiction hehe) This read like partial investigative deep dive into the online world of conspiracy theories/Qanon cesspools + partial mystery novel about her own experience with Naomi Wolf (her 'doppelganger')?? idk it feels weird to relate someone's lived experience to a spectacle like that but it really was like edge of seat level curiosity/uncertainty/etc. just so engrossing and thorough and THRILLING, the epilogue made me gasp!!!

Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones

my one + only spotify audiobook experience, cut short amid the last chapter bc I ran out of hours and no longer am a spotify premium user so I just read the rest </3 but that turned out to be fun bc I saw what a stark difference it was to listen vs. read this. the audio rules bc Leslie totally goes off script to add anecdotes (one of the reviews was like 'she was NOT reading what was written!!' LMAO so true.. and I love her for that!!) + an emotional depth I don't think could've been sufficiently captured in written form - her laughter and her palpable anger and her literally crying over... such a robust journey! I was an SNL fan basically my whole life til I went to college so I always love stories about it and I really admire how she didn't hold back in her criticisms. I feel like former members (especially those somewhat fresh off the slab in a way) feel like they have to be eternally grateful to their experience when so much of it is so clearly draining and thankless. doubled expectations because she's a woman, tripled because she's a Black woman, and therefore expected to just bend over and take it (her words) but she never does!! she never tries to compromise her own experiences like "this happened... but at least this happened too and they actually were nice in this way-" NO!! she compartmentalizes the good and the bad so distinctly so there's no misunderstanding, and I just really really admire that, the lack of kissing ass in an industry where that's practically what fuels your career/reputation!! she rocks + is such a funny storyteller+ I'm so glad I listened to this

The Sluts by Dennis Cooper

ofc had to squeeze my old man in... I think this was actually the book to first put Cooper on my radar so it was super fulfilling to finally get to it (even tho I devoured it in just 2 days.. a shame bc it was a slay to read this in public) Supremely up my alley with its 2000s internet mystique, the perfect backdrop for a twisted mystery + ruminations of Internet As Performance Art™, the internet as roleplay, what's real + what's just fantasy/fetish, etc etc. so so so good and while still sick and horrifying as his writing is known for, perhaps the most readable for an uninitiated reader of Cooper's works?? even then I'd say this is still for a very particular reader tho idk i can never get a pulse on what a majority of readers are into these days!! I really loved this though and I'm sure it'll be in my top 5 for the year thank u once again for the twisted ride denny !!!

My People Shall Live by Leila Khaled, George Hajjar

feels more like political ethnography than personal memoir. there is some of Leila's backstory and family and personal relationships sprinkled in (her husband is given maybe 5 lines total LOL), but so much of her being is clearly centered around Palestinian resistance + revolution, so recounting her political work within a collective was her truest form of autobiography as that was indeed her life/livelihood. wild to read how intense she was even from childhood, how Down she was to sacrifice things and put herself on the line... literally getting plastic surgery after hijacking a plane in order to be able to get involved in more demonstrations without being recognized like god!!! intense life-altering decisions and it's like she doesn't even bat an eye or show any regrets/wistful 'what if i hard a 'normal' life?'!! that eric andre margaret thatcher meme but instead "do you think leila khaled effectively utilized girl power by hijacking a plane?'' LOL I mean... ! 🤭

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

SILLY + ABSURD!!! a bit of a hike to get there but once I hit it, it was hard to put this down (as is my experience with a lot of classics, I find) I think I really enjoy magical realism rooted in political/cultural landscapes, or maybe I just really like wacky shit (it made me think a bit of Catch-22 which I also had fun with!!) + this didn't disappoint!! truly giggled aloud at some parts, the ridiculousness of it all!!! makes me wanna deep dive into the history of the Soviet Union but I feel like I'll need to clear at least an entire month for that .... will have to plan accordingly 👩‍🔬

Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim

heartbreaking and dark but handled with a lot of care. I guessed the "twist" (which feels indelicate to call it that but I cant think of another word rn) early on but I think that just heightened the slow unraveling of it + made it that much more emotionally grueling to get thru. perhaps that was even the point! I'd been meaning to watch the movie for like over a decade at this point but wanted to read it first so now having read and watched it I'm glad it was now vs. me at 10 or whenever bc dumb tween me likely wouldn't have processed it well enough and the darkness would've overshadowed the journey itself. sometimes it's important to wait I guess is what I'm trying to say!!!

I definitely want to squeeze in another Naomi Klein this year if possible, maybe some Russian/Ukrainian lit. I've focused on Baldwin's nonfiction these past years so I might pick up a fiction of his this month + ofc Cooper wherever I can squeeze him <3

#january i told myself i'd write my thoughts immediately after a book so i'm not rambling/scrounging for thoughts on the spot during our #roundups .. did not stick to it clearly </3 FEBRUARY IT IS!! #asks #devitalise #rip to the cheesehair tag </3 #reads #<- thats my new book tag i'm tired of typing bobby book club + i can't exactly shorten it to BBC bc. well

[prophecyqueen]

Vandana Khanna, from Evening Prayer in “Train To Agra” // “I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes; on my face they are still together.”― Warsan Shire // Frank Bidart, from “Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016; ‘The Third Hour of the Night’", published c. 2017 // bless me father, for i have sinned; he fell. i should have followed. | j.s. // Reginald Dwayne Betts, from “Essay on Reentry,” in Felon // James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

#house of the dragon #houseofthedragonedit #hotdedit #aegon ii targaryen #alicent hightower #aegoniitargaryenedit #alicenthightoweredit #welighttheway

[girljeremystrong]

i’ve been reading a lot of essays recently and i was wondering if you have any that you’ve really enjoyed? i love digging through your book recs and you would love to know your thoughts<3

hiiiii <3 okay so first of all i admit i don't read a lot of essays! but here are some collections that i read and loved:

miami + slouching towards bethlehem + south and west + let me tell you what i mean by joan didion are all really good. joan didion's style is unique and reading her writing never gets boring. love all about these.

intimations by zadie smith is a little tiny collection of essays she wrote during the pandemic and the various quarantines, and i think zadie smith is a brilliant writer and i really enjoyed this.

what white people can do next by emma dabiri because i am a white person who wants to be better and this little book is filled with very well written and interesting essays.

the fire next time by james baldwin technically consists of two "letters" about racism and how americans (and all people) need to react to it and deal with it.

carry by toni jensen is a sort of memoir sort of collection of essays about her life as an indigenous woman in america and about race and police brutality and gun violence.

we are never meeting in real life + wow no thank you + quietly hostile by samantha irby are collections of very funny essays about her life and pop culture and they're light hearted and great.

little weirds by jenniy slate which has whimsical little essays as well as stories, i think she has a really delicate way of telling her point of view (really looking forward to her second book coming out later this year!)

minor feelings by cathy park hong is a very interesting and important collection of essays slash memoir about race and her experience as an asian american.

the collected schizophrenias by esmé weijun wang i first picked up because there's history of schizophrenia in my family and this book absolutely allowed me to see the issue from a very different perspective. it's very interesting and offers a unique point of view on chronic illness and mental health.

calypso + me talk pretty one day by david sedaris were very entertaining to me. sorry i like david sedaris! i really do think he's funny!

these precious days by ann patchett is a gorgeous collection of essays about writing and books and life and death by another one of my favorite authors. i think this one is so great.

genuinely though i would love it if you told me some of your favorites because i think i need to be reading more!!! hope you can find something you like among these and i hope you're having a great day!!!!!! 💖

#book recs #ask #faronnorth #everyone please feel free to answer with your favorite essays and collections!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[grandhotelabyss]

What are your favorite essays/collections of literary criticism?

Some favorite single essays:

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "A Defence of Poetry"

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet"

Herman Melville, "Hawthorne and His Mosses"

Matthew Arnold, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time"

Henry James, "The Art of Fiction"

Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny"

Walter Benjamin, "Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death"

T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent"

Viktor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique"

Mikhail Bakhtin, "Epic and Novel"

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, "In Praise of Shadows"

G. Wilson Knight, "The Embassy of Death: An Essay on Hamlet"

Simone Weil, "The Iliad, or, The Poem of Force"

Jorge Luis Borges, "Kafka and His Precursors"

Ralph Ellison, "The World and the Jug"

James Baldwin, "Everybody's Protest Novel"

Leslie Fiedler, "The Middle Against Both Ends"

Iris Murdoch, "The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited"

Flannery O'Connor, "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction"

Gilles Deleuze, "On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature"

George Steiner, "A Reading Against Shakespeare"

Derek Walcott, "The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory"

Toni Morrison, "Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature"

Louise Glück, "Education of a Poet"

Camille Paglia, "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf"

Michael W. Clune, "Bernhard's Way"

Some favorite collections:

Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays

Oscar Wilde, Intentions

Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

George Orwell, All Art Is Propaganda

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited

Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination

Cynthia Ozick, Art and Ardor

V. S. Pritchett, Complete Collected Essays

Gore Vidal, United States

Joyce Carol Oates, The Faith of a Writer

Tom Paulin, Minotaur

J. M. Coetzee, Stranger Shores

Michael Wood, Children of Silence

James Wood, The Broken Estate

Edward Said, Reflections on Exile

Gabriel Josipovici, The Singer on the Shore

Clive James, Cultural Amnesia

William Giraldi, American Audacity

#literary criticism #essays

[garadinervi]

James Baldwin, A Report from Occupied Territory, «The Nation», July 11, 1966; in James Baldwin: Collected Essays, [ch. Other Essays], [note: «Toni Morrison selected the contents for this volume»], Library of America, New York, NY, 1998, pp. 728-738

#graphic design #newspaper #magazine #book #james baldwin #toni morrison #the national #library of america #1960s #1990s

[tetw]

50 Great Essays by Black Writers

We've had several requests for a list of the best writing by black authors to read online, and we finally got around to putting one together. Click through for a huge collection of great reads, including classic essays from James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Roxane Gay and Malcolm Gladwell, plus hard-hitting articles by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nicole Hannah-Jones and much, much more. Enjoy!

#essays #articles #nonfiction #classics #lit #black writers