Best 2020 Book Prescriptions

If 2020 was a great year for you, stop reading.  This blog post is not for you.  If, however, 2020 presented you with some real challenges, and you are looking for some prescriptions in the form of book recommendations, here we go:

Worst year ever? If you are wondering if this is the worst period in American history because we are facing so many types of challenges simultaneously, try this antidote: These Truths: A History of the United States. This book will set you straight.  Harvard historian Jill Lepore will look you right in the eyes and tell you things you probably didn’t know about how close to self-destruction this country has been – not just once or twice, but many times before.

Rethinking race? What if you have come to the conclusion that we need a new way to think about race? If you are ready to do the hard work of changing your assumptions and responses, try this antidote: How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. This book might make you feel uncomfortable because it challenges you to see that the middle ground – where many of us feel most comfortable – is not the place to be when it comes to racism.

And what if you are in a position where you need to take your new-found ideas and share them with people – college students, for example – who offer strong resistance?  Cyndi Kernahan’s book Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom shows how you can accept your students with compassion while offering an evidence-based alternative perspective.

Respectable politicians? Is there such a thing as a politician who is worthy of your respect? Surely, I’m not the only one who has wondered if there has ever been a president who was willing to fight for policies that would help most Americans – not just the Americans who are wealthy enough to buy favors. I think that that reading Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris and The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin might provide antidotes to the disappointments and disillusions that many have about the reasons people enter politics.

Feeling burned out? I’ve never seen so many teachers limp their way to Winter Break.  I’m one of them. As a technical college instructor, I have a front-row seat to the dramas that play out in the lives of students who worry about money for food and rent. Many were sick and had sick family members. So what can we do to keep ourselves going?  Consider the wise words of my mentor, Maryellen Weimer, who wrote Inspired College Teaching. Though written in a different decade, this book’s recommendations for doing things that nourish us as teachers apply to our situation today.

Vicarious explorations? What if you are sick of your own problems and want to watch someone else find answers? Maybe you need a good novel – one that can be both engaging and satisfying because the story is so well-told.  I have three very different books to recommend, all by award-winning writers who have been around long enough to see wide range of possibilities. Consider Richard Russo’s novel about a mysterious friendship, Chances Are. Or, Elizabeth Strout’s novel, Olive Again, which pulls together many characters from her previous novels, which allows us to see them in new ways. And, then there is the inimitable Anne Tyler, whose Redhead by the Side of the Road can make you laugh and cry because you recognize exactly what she’s describing.