Between the World and Me

Short Review: This is a book that will be on my best of 2015 list, and I think many others as well. It is a hard book to read because of the difficult reality it is dealing with. But that makes it more important, not less. It is formatted roughly as a letter to his 15 year old son. Occasionally that format really brings an additional level of poignancy to the book, but also occasionally just seems like a excessive narrative structure.

I listened to the audiobook, which is read by Coates. His passion carries through well in the audiobook format, but I will re-read in print to make sure I am forced to be more careful with his thoughts.

There are a few places where I think he is overly self-indulgent with his writing. But this is a short book and it is easy to forgive those places.

I want to say, that I spend a fair amount of time arguing with Coates in my head. But I think that also forced me to pay closer attention to the broader point, that systemically the US is a racist nation that has always treated its African American citizens differently. Coates is not that interested in an individual's racism. He is more interested in the system that does not solve the problems of the individual's racism and that regardless of what a person feels, there is a resulting action that exists.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/between-the-world-and-me-by-ta-nehisi-coates/

I plan on reading this again before the end of the year.