Ep. 171 Trusting in Optimism with Mira Jacob
Mira Jacob is an author, illustrator, and cultural critic. Her 2019 graphic memoir, Good Talk, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her writing can be found in places like The New York Times Book Review and Vogue. Today we talk with Mira about the ways optimism is a form of bravery, the alignment of form, function, and story, and the system that leads to authors writing blurbs for books.
The Stacks Book Club selection for July is The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. We will discuss the book with Mira Jacob on Wednesday July 28th.
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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
The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob
Good Talk by Mira Jacob
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Field Study by Chet'la Sebree
Citizen by Claudia Rankine
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Seek You by Kristen Radtke
Ulysses by James Joyce
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Khabaar by Madhushree Ghosh
Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu
The Greatest Marlys by Linda Berry
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
Lupita Aquino (@lupita.reads)
100 Notable Books of 2019 (The New York Times)
"Ep. 165 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy -- The Stacks Book Club (Jenny Lee)" (The Stacks)
"The Short Stacks 12: Damon Young//What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker" (The Stacks)
"What It Is I Think I'm Doing" Kaitlyn Greenidge on Substack
"Ep. 3 Talking Books with Sarah Fong" (The Stacks)
Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)
Cafe con Libros (Brooklyn, NY)
Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuaron, 1998)
Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994)
Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
By the Book (The New York Times)
"Mira Jacob, Kiese Laymon, and Saeed Jones on the Art of Memoir" (Bookable, LitHub)
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