I picked up the book Between the World and Me not knowing anything about it. It won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction and I try to read the “best” books of each year, whenever those lists come out. It was written by Ta-Nehisi Coates as a kind of letter to his son about his own experiences growing up as an African-American in Baltimore. One of the main themes is that he was often in fear of bodily harm.
The book is quite bleak about race relations and doesn’t offer much hope for improvement. While it was interesting to read this perspective, it was difficult for me to identify with the author’s point of view. It almost reminded me of an essay one would read for a political science or sociology class.
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