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Between the World and Me

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Between the World and Me

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
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About this listen

 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT

Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone)

NAMED ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY • AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE PAST TWO DECADES

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, New York, Newsday, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. Americas Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences Discrimination Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking Nonfiction Social justice Africa Social Justice
All stars
Most relevant
i could go on and on about this. But I will not. it's a must-read. Period. Everyone should read and argue about this.

Poignant, Arresting, Tour de Force

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Loved this book and reading by the author. Could feel his passion and pain. Powerful.

Amazing personal heartfelt

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Moving and melancholy . Crafted with such depth and poetic truth I could not stop listening. Racism is the landscape of damaged minds .Dreamers
who believe themselves to be white.
Will black bodies ever be safe?

A work of timeless beauty

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

It felt like an incredible privilege to hear this man's words in his own voice. The truth of his experiences passed from his lips to my ears, enhancing the harsh reality of his world. The physicality of racism, the loss of control over your own body, hit me like a real blow. I have felt that way a few times as a woman, I cannot imagine it informing my whole life and restricting my choices.

This other world, so very different from my own, may have seemed to me like the 'evil past' if not for the evidence in front of my eyes every day. Not only in the news stories from the US, but those from the UK that say black boys are more likely to end up in prison than in a top university. And in the experience of my sister, who still gets stares and comments from strangers because she is white and her partner is black.

My thanks to Ta-Nehisi Coates for allowing me this opportunity, to be given this insight into another person's mind, and the possibility of a greater understanding.

Incredible, emotional, real

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Brilliantly written & narrated. Personal yet informative. Definitely a must read (or must listen) book.

Gets to the heart of the issue of racism

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