Ep. 232 What Should the Rules Be with Andrea Elliott

September 14, 2022April 3, 2023 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

Andrea Elliott joins us to discuss her investigative reporting career and her Pulitzer Prize winning book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City. We go over how this remarkable story came to be, and how it shifted from what Andrea first anticipated. We also get into what can and should change about the ethics of journalism, and the challenge of protecting children from themselves in the media.

The Stacks Book Club selection for September is The Trees by Percival Everett. We will discuss the book on September 28th with Lisa Lucas.

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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.

Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott

Pulitzer Prize
Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
Invisible Child – Girl in the Shadows: Dasani’s Homeless Life (Andrea Elliott, The New York Times)
“Ep. 180 Fifty Years After Attica with Heather Ann Thompson” (The Stacks)
“Here are Barack Obama’s top 13 book recommendations of 2021” (Megan Sauer, CNBC)
“An Imam in America: A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds” (Andrea Elliott, The New York Times)

Ruth Fremson
Doritos
Oreos
All the President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz
Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Evicted by Matthew Desmond
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
Jon Krakauer
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
Invisible Child audiobook

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Ep. 208 A Mercy by Toni Morrison — The Stacks Book Club (Imani Perry)

March 30, 2022September 6, 2022 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

Today on The Stacks Book Club we speak again with Imani Perry, author of the New York Times bestselling South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of a Nation. In our discussion of Toni Morrison’s novel A Mercy, we talk destroying ourselves over heartbreak, treating people tenderly and the book’s central metaphor of the house. We also touch on the seduction of beauty, and breathlessness.
There are spoilers on this episode.

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our April book club pick will be!

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

A Mercy by Toni Morrison
South to America by Imani Perry
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
“Ep. 34 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison – The Stacks Book Club (Renée Hicks)” (The Stacks)
Beloved by Toni Morrison
“Ep. 60 Beloved by Toni Morrison – The Stacks Book Club (DaMaris B. Hill)” (The Stacks)
Sula by Toni Morrison
“Ep. 126 Sula by Toni Morrison – The Stacks Book Club (Brit Bennett)” (The Stacks)
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
“Ep. 191 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison – The Stacks Book Club (Dawnie Walton)” (The Stacks)
Passing by Nella Larsen
Dreaming Emmett by Toni Morrison
Desdemona by Toni Morrison
The Century Cycle by August Wilson
DaMaris B. Hill
Joe Rogan
Mama’s Maybe, Papa’s Baby by Hortense Spillers
The Bible
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (David Mallet & Steven Pimlott, 2000)
Roots (ABC)
The Gilded Age (HBO)
Bridgerton (Netflix)
Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
Vivien Leigh
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Lehman Trilogy (Stefano Massini, 2013)
“Ep. 200 Passing by Nella Larsen – The Stacks Book Club (Cree Myles)” (The Stacks)
Join The Stacks virtual book club!
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Jesmyn Ward
James Baldwin
The Case for Rage by Myisha Cherry
Belly of the Beast by Da’Shaun L Harrison
Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
“Original Sins” (David Gates, The New York Times)
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Doppelgangbanger by Cortney Lamar Charleston

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

Ep. 180 Fifty Years After Attica with Heather Ann Thompson

September 8, 2021September 6, 2022 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

Today we are joined by Pulitzer Prize winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, Heather Ann Thompson. We discuss her process in researching and writing this epic civil rights story, and the legacy of the uprising 50 years later.

The Stacks Book Club selection for September is Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson. We will discuss the book with Derecka Purnell on Wednesday September 29th.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
“Heather Ann Thompson, “Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy” (Pantheon, 2016)” (NBN)
Russell Oswald
Nelson Rockefeller
Whose Detroit? by Heather Ann Thompson
“Movie in the Works on Attica Prison Riots Legal Fight” (Dave McNary, Yahoo Finance)
“Ernest Goodman, 90, Civil Rights Lawyer” (The New York Times)
Scottsboro Boys
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Blood in my Eye by George L. Jackson
Attica (Stanley Nelson, 2021)
Zellnor Myrie
The Pulitzer Prize
Guggenheim Fellowships
Mister Rogers Neighborhood (PBS)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
Bullet and Burn by Heather Ann Thompson
“Discovery of Bones From MOVE Bombing Jolts Philadelphia Once Again” (Michael Levenson, The New York Times)
Blood in the Water on Goodreads
America on Fire by Elizabeth Hinton
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
Elizabeth Fink
Tom Wicker

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks Book Club — September 2021

August 30, 2021August 29, 2021 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve been a fan of The Stacks for a while you may know that there was one book that sparked my desire to start the show. I talk about the book all the time, but have never featured it on the show. The timing never seemed right, I never felt like I had the guest to take on such a transformational book. However, September 2021 marks the 50 year anniversary of the uprising at Attica Prison, and so this month, I am proud to say, we are finally reading Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson for The Stacks Book Club.

In her Pulitzer Prize winning book Blood in the Water, Thompson takes the reader through the history of an event that has shaped the criminal legal system over the last 50 years. The book explains the conditions that led to the unrest in the prison, the five days of negotiations, the violent retaking of the prison, and the years of litigation that followed. The book is a master class in research and storytelling. Blood in the Water gives voice to the people who fought for over 45 years for the truth of Attica to be exposed.

We will be discussing Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson on Wednesday, September 29th. You can find out who our guest will be for that discussion by listening to the podcast on September 1st. If you’d like even more discussion around the book consider joining The Stacks Pack on Patreon and participating in The Stacks’ monthly virtual book club.

Order your copy of our August book on Bookshop.org or Amazon.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

Ep. 170 The Undying by Anne Boyer — The Stacks Book Club (Mychal Denzel Smith)

June 30, 2021September 6, 2022 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

It’s time for another installment of The Stacks Book Club. This month we’re discussing The Undying: A Meditation on Modern Illness by Anne Boyer with Mychal Denzel Smith (Stakes is High). Our conversation explores the commodification of cancer, the ways sexism is entrenched in the language of breast cancer, and how form and content can work together and fight against one another in the same text.
There are no spoilers in this episode.

Be sure to listen until the end of the podcast to find out The Stacks Book Club pick for July!

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

The Undying by Anne Boyer
Stakes is High by Mychal Denzel Smith
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith
The 2020 Pulitzer Winners
Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag
The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
The Undying by Anne Boyer (Audiobook)
“Your Success Probably Didn’t Come From Merit Alone” (The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times)
The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams
“Ep. 64 The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams — The Stacks Book Club (Lori Gotlieb)” (The Stacks)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Angelina Jolie
“My Medical Choice” (Angelina Jolie, The New York Times)
The BRCA Gene (The National Breast Cancer Foundation)
The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn
The Woman in the Window (Joe Wright, 2021)
A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deception (Ian Parker, The New Yorker)
Bookshop.org
Amazon
Open Form (Mychal Denzel Smith, Lithub Radio)
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks Book Club — June 2021

June 1, 2021June 1, 2021 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

After reading an 800+ page classics novel in May, I’m thrilled to be getting back to nonfiction in June with the 2020 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction, The Undying: A Meditation of Modern Illness by Anne Boyer.

At the age of 41, poet Anne Boyer was diagnosed with an aggressive form of triple-negative breast cancer. This memoir comes out of the experience of being diagnosed, going through treatments, and ultimately undying from breast cancer. Boyer looks at the ways terminal illnesses are portrayed in art, the media, and the ways that the cancer industrial complex is flawed and erroneous. The Undying is full of emotion and lyrical writing that enhances Boyer’s observations and experiences.

We will be discussing The Undying on Wednesday, June 30th. You can find out who our guest will be for that discussion by listening to the podcast on June 2nd. If you’d like even more discussion around the book consider joining The Stacks Pack on Patreon and participating in The Stacks’ monthly virtual book club.

Order your copy of our June book on Bookshop.org or Amazon.

Ep. 161 The Tradition by Jericho Brown — The Stacks Book Club (Reginald Dwayne Betts)

April 28, 2021September 6, 2022 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

On today’s episode of The Stacks we’re talking with poet, lawyer, and activist, Reginald Dwayne Betts about The Tradition by Jericho Brown for The Stacks Book Club. We discuss poems as fact or fiction, what happens when you hear a poem out loud, and the ways different poems can take on different meanings to different people.

Donate to Million Book Drive as part of The Stacks $50,000 fundraising drive.

The Stacks Book Club selection for May is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, we will discuss the book on Wednesday May 26th.

LISTEN NOW

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.

The Tradition by Jericho Brown
Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Million Book Project Fundraiser
“Ep. 158 Reaching for Answers with Reginald Dwayne Betts” (The Stacks)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Pulitzer Prize
DMX
Open by Andre Agassi
Nate Marshall
Mad Dog 20/20
Petty Cash Taqueria (Los Angeles, CA)
“Ghazal” by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Haki R. Madhubuti (Don L. Lee)
Jet Magazine
Nikki Giovanni
Simon and Garfunkel
” Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel (1970)
” Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Aretha Franklin (1984)
Bruce Springstein
Queen
Sonia Sanchez
William Shakespeare
Romeo + Juliet (Baz Lurhmann, 1996 )
“Jericho Brown – Small Truths and Other Surprises” (On Being Studios)
“Hustle” by Jericho Brown
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

Connect with Dwayne: Twitter | Instagram | Website | Million Book Project

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one time contribution go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks Book Club — April 2021

April 1, 2021June 1, 2021 ~ TheStacksPodcast ~ Leave a comment

April is National Poetry Month so we’re going all in with an award winning poetry collection.

The Tradition by Jericho Brown won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and is our book club pick for April. This collection examines the many intersections of life, safety, ancestry, and Blackness. Brown’s collection has range and moves between the power of the past, the intimacy of the personal, and the strength of the collective. In under 100 pages, Brown is able to ask questions around queerness, Blackness, fatherhood, trauma, legacy, and so much more. It is also worth nothing that this collection shows diversity not only in the content of the poems but in the style choices and form each poem takes one. The Tradition is not to be missed.

We will be discussing The Tradition on Wednesday, April 28th. You can find out who our guest will be by listening to the podcast on April 6th. If you’d like even more discussion around the book consider joining The Stacks Pack on Patreon and participating in The Stacks’ monthly virtual book club.

Order your copy of our March book on Bookshop.org or Amazon.