Ep. 166 Who Do We Want to Be with Mychal Denzel Smith
Our guest this week is Mychal Denzel Smith, the author of one of Traci’s favorite books from 2020, Stakes is High. Mychal’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications, and now he hosts the Open Form podcast. Today we talk about the difference between accountability and punishment, abolition, and what it means to want better for America.
The Stacks Book Club selection for June is The Undying by Anne Boyer. We will discuss the book with Mychal Denzel Smith on Wednesday June 30th.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon
Stakes is High by Mychal Denzel Smith
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith
Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
Perfect Peace by Daniel Black
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Educated by Tara Westover
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton
The Other Side by Lacy M. Johnson
The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams
One Drop by Yaba Blay
The Vulture by Gil Scott-Heron
The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott-Heron
A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib
Finna by Nate Marshall
In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Long Division by Kiese Laymon
Bird Uncaged by Marlon Peterson
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broome
Virtue by Hermione Hoby
Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
I'm Telling the Truth, But I'm Lying by Bassey Ikpi
The Undying by Anne Boyer
Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
Fredrick Douglas by David W. Blight
Evicted by Matthew Desmond
Race Matters by Cornel West
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Open Form (Mychal Denzel Smith, Lit Hub Radio)
Jamilah Lemieux (Instagram)
Open Form (Mychal Denzel Smith)
Rocky III (Sylvester Stallone, 1982)
A League of Their Own (Penny Marshall, 1992)
Gimme Shelter (The Rolling Stones, 1969)
Tressie McMillan Cottom (Twitter)
"Ep. 165 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy -- The Stacks Book Club (Jenny Lee)" (The Stacks)
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