Interest in a nonfiction #resistance club?

February 7, 2017 11:35 AM

I am toying with this idea, in part because of chainsofreedom's new fictional "in these trying times" club and Miko's excellent recent ask. Except these days, most of what I read is nonfiction. Anyone up for a nonfiction #resisting club tackling useful works to know about? I'm thinking a mix of history, maybe some political thought, maybe some sociology kinds of things. Suggestions inside the cut.

Really, I just want someone to talk to as I read and think about things and to make sure I spend some time reading longform. One book a month sounds about right.

Works I have been looking into and which are on my current list:

Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
The Train to Crystal City, Jan Jarboe Russell
Triangle: The Fire that Changed America, David von Drehle
The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard J. Evans
March, John Lewis
Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted, Ian Millheiser
Why Torture Doesn't Work, Shane O' Mara

If there's interest, I am happy to take additional suggestions or votes on what to focus on first. I could probably keep adding, but these are what I currently have on my priority list.

posted by sciatrix (14 comments total)

I'm in! I'll take the non-fiction off my Google Docs list for the "Handmaid's Tale" book club and suggest them here!

Give Us the Ballot, Ari Berman (Nonfiction, Voting Rights, Civil Rights)
Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis (Essays, POC, Oppression, Police)
The Muslims Are Coming!, Arun Kundnani (Nonfiction, Islamophobia, Surveillence)
The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin (Nonfiction, Conservatism, America)
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Nonfiction, POC, Oppression, Police)
The Money Cult, Chris Lehmann (Nonfiction, Christianity, America, Politics)
Impossible Subjects, Mae M. Ngai (Nonfiction, Immigration, America, Oppression)
Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Russell Hochschild (Nonfiction, America, Conservatism)
The Story of Jane, Laura Kaplan (Nonfiction, Planned Parenthood, Hope)


I actually love non-fiction and tend to read it more than fiction, so I am all about this. :-D
posted by chainsofreedom at 12:03 PM on February 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'll be reading No Shortcuts with another study group and am into discussing here too if anyone else interested.

I am fine just going with whatever the curator wants to choose to read. Little energy for voting on this one :) Thanks for getting this going!
posted by latkes at 1:17 PM on February 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Autobiographies of Assata Shakur and Malcolm X.
Rev. Dr. William Barber's "The Third Reconstruction."
"Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky, maybe?
posted by duffell at 3:11 PM on February 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ooh, Rev Barber's book! Excellent. Uh, also, this looks good:

Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, Erica Chenoweth.

If I get five people who are down, I'll set up a Club. My current feel is to start with Hope in the Dark, but I'm okay if other folks feel strongly something else should go first.
posted by sciatrix at 6:20 PM on February 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm definitely down for this.

One more suggestion: How to Survive a Plague. Not an emotionally easy read, I'd imagine, but this article sold me on its relevance right now.
posted by duffell at 7:23 PM on February 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

The Post-Trump Fiction Club is up, btw!
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:26 AM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

In, in, in! I'm reading Rebecca Solnit (Hope in the Dark), David France (How to Survive a Plague) and Hannah Arendt (Origins of Totalitarianism). Yes, all at once!
posted by Sophie1 at 8:36 AM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's a new book coming out in 2 weeks called Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism. I've pre-ordered it and expect that it will be very useful.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:38 AM on February 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

I tried to do this in my neighborhood, but no one was really into it. I read Give Us the Ballot, all by myself. I'm totally up for this.

I'd also suggest This is an Uprising.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:09 AM on February 9, 2017

I just realized I never voted on books. I'm down for starting with Hope in the Dark, but I really, really, really want to read The Story of Jane. It's the history of abortion services in the US.
posted by chainsofreedom at 7:30 AM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

All right, then! I'm going to suggest we start out with... huh, let's see. I'd like us to be staggered in timing with our sister fiction club, In These Trying Times, so that folks who want to participate in both can do so. I was going to set up Hope in the Dark for a month from now so people have time to read it, but if interest is high now and people are reading it anyway and hell, it is pretty short... well, I've gone ahead and set up an event for Hope In the Dark to start us off and build off the existing enthusiasm. I'm not necessarily expecting folks to have read anything right this second, but I like the idea of having an open thread for dropping thoughts into as we read and think. I'll post a new book's discussion thread in about a month.

I've also stolen the name of Solnit's book for the club, because it seems like a good tone to set ourselves, and it sets up well alongside In These Trying Times' name. (Embarrassingly, it's actually Hope in the Dark, not Darkness, but I did not actually realize this until I had made all the club posts. Oops.)

Anyway, here's us! I'm working on our suggested book list as I speak based on suggestions here and the nonfiction choices that chainsofreedom so helpfully posted earlier this week.
posted by sciatrix at 7:38 AM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have actually gone ahead and made a private goodreads group in order to more effectively find things according to their tags. If you'd rather not use goodreads, that's also fine; I can also maintain the google drive list. But the goodreads thing looks more searchable.
posted by sciatrix at 8:33 AM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

Necessary Trouble by Sarah Jaffe is very good as is #Newsfail by Jamie Kilstein & Allison Kilkenny.
posted by Kitteh at 11:25 AM on February 10, 2017

Hillbilly Nationalists is a must read movement history about the path not taken for the United States;
The Many-Headed Hydra goes a bit deeper, if you really would like to pick apart the braided stream of Atlantic politics. It's a book that makes a lot of sense for decolonizing New Orleans and the Mississippi Valley, anyway.
posted by eustatic at 6:34 PM on February 12, 2017 [1 favorite]