#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE - PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST - ONE OF OPRAH'S "BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH" - NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT

Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race" (Rolling Stone)

NAMED ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY - NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN - NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, New York, Newsday, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Item Information Item Information

Format: TradePaperback
Author: Coates, Ta-Nehisi
ISBN: 9781925240702
Condition: Used
Number Of Pages: 166
Publication Year: 2015

Customer Reviews

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5 ★ 83%

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4.8

6 Ratings

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A must-read

Carmen C. - 7 months ago

Between the World and Me is one of the best things Ive read to date! It is a fathers letter to his son addressing the subject of race in America from historical stance and speaking to what it means to be a black man today. Coates recounts learning experiences from childhood, enlightenment throughout his college years, and his continued acquisition of knowledge and wisdom through adulthood and fatherhood. He challenges his son and readers alike to step away from the false dream that the world attempts to sell. He challenges us to be conscious of our decisions, to make ourselves aware of our surroundings, to understand how and where we as a whole have fallen short. And he lets the rest, the solution, be written by our future actions
HPB Staff Review
Father to Son: What It Means to Be Black in America

Elena A. - 8 months ago

Ta-Nehisi Coates masterfully writes his memoir, "Between the World and Me," as a series of letters to his teenage son on what it means to be a black man in contemporary American society. Coates engages difficult realities of white supremacy, state violence, and systematic racism through both current events and personal experiences. Although these topics are heavy and difficult, Coates writes in accessible language in an understandable and moving way. The entirety of this book is difficult, enlightening, heartbreaking, infuriating, and overall, touching. A must read for those interested in social sciences (race and gender studies) and political science (current events).
HPB Staff Review
Told from the loving & concerned point of view of a father.

Christopher T. - 1 year ago

Mr. Coates approaches the touchy subject of race in an interesting way. I've read many books on the subject, and most are angry and divisive; this book is told from the loving and concerned point of view of a father speaking to his son--Similar to the talk I and generations of young black men and women got from their parents about race in America ----but delivered far more eloquently. However despite the fact that it's written from a black man's point of view it could apply to any father speaking to his son or any human being who wants to begin truly to understand what it's like to be a person of color, or a person in general, in 2016 America. This is one I will definitely and gladly revisit
HPB Staff Review
The clearest description of the Black experience in America.

Joseph P. - 3 years 9 months ago

This is one of the millennium's best books so far. Toni Morrison calls it "required reading", and with good cause. Coates' breakdown of injustice in the U.S is spot on, and his intellectual coming of age story is reminiscent of 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' A review can't do his work justice, his words are the best argument for reading this book: "Race is the child of racism not the father." "Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman, who's mind is as active as your own, whose range of feeling is as vast as your own: who prefers the way the light falls on one particular spot in the woods...who thinks her sister talks too loud and has a favorite cousin and knows, inside herself that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone."
HPB Staff Review
Honest

Cory T. - 5 years 6 months ago

This book, as the quote on the front cover says, is required reading. Coates’s musings on race and his experience, trying to make sense of his place is enlightening. Written as a letter to his son, Coates is extremely vulnerable and honest. This book was very beneficial for me, an outsider. #BannedBook

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A must-read

Father to Son: What It Means to Be Black in America

Told from the loving & concerned point of view of a father.

The clearest description of the Black experience in America.

Honest