Top 5 Books to Stay Woke “The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race” by Jesmyn Ward “You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain” by Phoebe Robinson “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide” by Carol Anderson “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement” by Angela Y. Davis “From #BlackLivesMatters to Black Liberation” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor —Negesti Kaudo
Top 5 Books to Keep You From Staring Into the Abyss “The Portable Veblen” by Elizabeth McKenzie “Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live” by Peter Orner “Here Comes the Sun” by Nicole Dennis-Benn “The Farmer’s Daughter” by Jim Harrison “Dodger Blue Will Fill Your Soul” by Bryan Fierro —Christine Sneed
Top 5 Books Celebrating Femme Fortitude, Because You’ll Need It “The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine and Motherhood” by Belle Boggs “I Have Devoted My Life to the Clitoris,” by Elizabeth Hall “Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It,” by Brittany Gibbons “Another Brooklyn” by Jacqueline Woodson “All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation” by Rebecca Traister —Negesti Kaudo
Top 5 New Books by Chicago Authors To Escape a Holiday Brawl With Your Relatives “Third Party” by Steven Nemerovski “The Lego Animation Book” by David Pagano and David Pickett “The Chicago Coloring Book” by Chris Arnold “This Is Modern Art” by Kevin Coval and Idris Goodwin “No One Told Me Not to Do This” by Jay Ryan —Toni Nealie
Toni Nealie is the Literary Editor of Newcity and the author of the essay collection “The Miles Between Me.” A Pushcart Prize nominee, her essays have appeared in Guernica Magazine, Rust Belt: Chicago, The Rumpus, The Offing, Essay Daily, Chicago Quarterly Review, Hobart, Entropy and elsewhere. She worked in magazine journalism, politics and PR in her native New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Singapore and now edits, writes and teaches in Chicago. Find her at toninealie.com and on Twitter @tnealie. She can be reached at toni@newcity.com.
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