POETRY
SOCIETY AND SCIENCE
MAGICAL NEGRO
Morgan Parker
Positioned as a rebuttal to
the problematic “magical
negro” trope prevalent
in film, wherein a black
character is used to
save a white character’s
soul, Parker instead
finds magic in the daily
existence of black people.THE TRADITION
Jericho Brown
When he writes, “My body is
a temple in disrepair,” Brown
is speaking not only about
his corporeal form but also
about society’s treatment of
him as a queer black man.
His collection engages sev
eral kinds of tradition, includ
ing form and mythmaking.OCULUS
Sally Wen Mao
Mao plays with the sub
jective reality of screens,
exploring what isn’t visible
and what could be. In
one fictionalized piece,
Mao imagines Chinese
American movie star Anna
May Wong as a “prudish”
webcam performer.HOW TO BE AN
ANTI RACIST
Ibram X. Kendi
Kendi, a scholar
of racism through
history, writes there’s
no such thing as not
being racist. Rather,
he posits, there is
only racism and that
which works against
it. In a reverberant
challenge to readers,
Kendi explains how to
practice anti racism.HOW TO HOLD
A GRUDGE
Sophie Hannah
Rather than forgive
and forget, Hannah
wants us to under-
stand the power of
holding grudges.
Irreverent, meditative
and surprisingly
optimistic chapters
describe how to invite
negative feelings in
to better prepare for
dealing with conflict.
THREE WOMEN
Lisa Taddeo
Taddeo tracked
three women’s sex
lives for eight years,
witnessing mistakes,
moral confusion and
bad men. Her often
fraught depiction,
though limited in
the diversity of its
subjects, adds to the
discussion of what
men and women do
and do not want.SELF-PORTRAIT
IN BLACK
AND WHITE
Thomas Chatter
ton Williams
Analyzing our concep-
tion of race, Williams
urges people not
to let it determine
identity or behavior.
Instead, he counsels
that we should all be
aware of group identi-
ties while limiting
their influence.THE MOMENT
OF LIFT
Melinda Gates
Gates explains how
she came to believe
that the best way
to fix a society is to
empower its women,
detailing her own
life—including strug-
gles to be an equal at
home—as well as the
lives she has helped
change through her
philanthropy.THE
UNINHABITABLE
EARTH
David Wallace
Wells
Wallace-Wells offers
a vividly explained
portrayal of what
awaits our changing
planet—that is,
unless readers
(and their families,
their communities
and their countries)
commit to change.BECAUSE
INTERNET
Gretchen
McCulloch
Lol, the Internet,
amirite? Linguist
McCulloch explains
the pervasive
phenomena reshap-
ing how we use the
English language
online and, inevitably,
how we think, feel
and respond to one
another.THE AGE OF
SURVEILLANCE
CAPITALISM
Shoshana Zuboff
Part urgent mani-
festo, part deeply
researched modern
history, the former
Harvard Business
School professor’s
book examines
the tech industry’s
exploitation of human
experience for the
sake of revenue.
HOW TO DO
NOTHING
Jenny Odell
Professor, artist and
archivist Odell offers
a self-help guide to
the joys of detach-
ment and the beau-
ties of observation—
but also a decree on
the personal, and
thus political, import
of separating oneself
from the Internet and
its everlasting noise.MAYBE YOU
SHOULD TALK
TO SOMEONE
Lori Gottlieb
Psychotherapist Gott-
lieb uses real (anony-
mous and altered)
patient stories as
well as her own ses-
sions with a therapist
to demystify the pro-
cess, putting readers
in the room as people
work through their
problems.THE GREAT
PRETENDER
Susannah
Cahalan
The Brain on Fire
author, who was
once misdiagnosed
with bipolar disorder,
revisits a 1970s
experiment that
changed the course
of modern mental-
health care, and calls
for improvements to
a damaged system.DIVERSITY, INC.
Pamela Newkirk
Newkirk, a journalist,
interrogates a
shameful reality:
despite the existence
of a multi billion-dollar
industry nominally
dedicated to ensuring
that American
companies and
institutions are more
inclusive, diversity is
still largely an empty
buzzword in 2019.112 Time December 2–9, 2019