Books with Betsy – Details, episodes & analysis

On this episode, Rebecca Schinsky and Jeff O’Neal of Book Riot sit down and talk to me about their reading lives. We talk about their professional work in the world of books, how Oliver Burkeman would feel about my bad bookish habit, and how any book can be interesting if you’re curious enough. 

Listen to the Book Riot Podcast 

Listen to First Edition

Better Living Through Books Newsletter (and the rest of the Book Riot Newsletters!) 

Jeff and Rebecca Live at Powells!

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

B.F.F.: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found by Christie Tate 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 

Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker

Books Highlighted by Rebecca & Jeff:

Sula by Toni Morrison 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel

The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt 

Lab Girl: A Memoir by Hope Jahren 

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes 

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

The Street by Ann Petry

How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Schur

The Orchard: A Memoir by Adele Crockett Robertson

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman 

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams 

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott 

Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values by Fred Kofman 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson 

House of Cotton by Monica Brashears 

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy 

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros 

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman by Callum Robinson 

Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchinson 

Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life by Shigehiro Oishi 

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman 

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card 

The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien 

The Shining by Stephen King 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante 

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover 

All Fours by Miranda July 

Passing by Nella Larsen

On this episode, Betsy Kipnis, a multi-hyphenate who loves a wide variety of authors, and I discuss some shared favorites, great Chicago bookstores, and she has some great stories. She discusses books that are multi-sensory and we get spicy about a beloved author. 

Betsy’s Blog - Bookisshh

Barbara Kingsolver’s Recovery Center 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

The Road to the Salt Sea by Samuel Kọláwọlé

Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis  

Books Highlighted by Betsy:

Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris 

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 

Forty Rooms by Olga Grushin

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak 

The Vegetarian by Han Kang 

Human Acts by Han Kang 

Native Son by Richard Wright 

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Chocolat by Joanne Harris 

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer 

Hum by Helen Phillips 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 

Colored Television by Danzy Senna

We Do Not Part by Han Kang 

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews 

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume 

Rouge by Mona Awad 

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind 

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang 

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano 

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu 

Breasts and Eggs by Meiko Kwakami 

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka 

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance 

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy 

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover 

The Guest by Emma Cline

The Girls by Emma Cline 

Luster by Raven Leilani 

The Bean Trees by Barabara Kingsolver 

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 

There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America by Alex Kotlowitz 

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles 

There are Rivers in the Sky by Eilf Shafak 

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee 

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

On this episode, Stephanie Majercik, a reader who reads widely, and I discuss our shared tricks for Book of the Month, why passing around books is great, and how her reading chair revolutionized her reading life. We also discuss her book club and the bookish names she has for her collection of house plants. 

Read & Run Chicago - The Great Believers  

Stephanie’s Reading Chair

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner 

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Books Highlighted by Stephanie:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal 

Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habcek

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 

People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd

Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate 

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie 

Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple’s Last Case by Agatha Christie 

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls 

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls 

BFF: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found by Christie Tate 

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager 

The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough 

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes 

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer 

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

On this episode, Bernie Lombardi, a professor and researcher, discusses how his popular bookstagram and award lists are intertwined, along with his experiences reading the lists and even getting to go to the final ceremonies of a few awards! We also hear about his new author obsession and a very cool way that he tracks his reading each year. 

Bernie’s Instagram

The Read & Run Chicago Gift Guide 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Held by Anne Michaels 

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner 

Books Highlighted by Bernie:

Milkman by Anna Burns 

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli 

The Road by Cormac McCarthy 

We the Animals by Justin Torres 

The Promise by Damon Galgut 

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman 

Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan 

Atonement by Ian McEwan 

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro 

The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden 

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell 

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney 

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch 

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray 

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein 

Orbital by Samantha Harvey 

James by Percival Everett 

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar

Blackouts by Justin Torres

On this episode, Jenn Moland-Kovash and I discuss our shared interest in thrift-store book sections, the joy of walking around a bookstore and pointing out the books we have read, and her theories about why romantasy is popular. Jenn also gets me on a roll about the difference between book collecting and reading and why sprayed edges mean nothing to me. 

The Mail-a-Book program is still alive and well!

The Read & Run Chicago Gift Guide 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

The City and It’s Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix 

Yr Dead by Sam Sax 

Not my Father’s Son by Alan Cumming 

Still Life by Louise Penny 

Books Highlighted by Jenn:

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman 

The Winners by Fredrik Backman 

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese 

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston 

The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland 

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil & Fumi Nakamura 

Take What You Need by Idra Novey

The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing by Kevin Young

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies that I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Nora Goes off Script by Annabel Monaghan 

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker 

Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger 

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey 

The Abominable by Dan Simmons 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros 

Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe 

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 

Divergent by Veronica Roth 

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar 

How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair 

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln & Claire Powell 

The Wren in the Holly Library by K.A. Linde

On this episode, Cynthia Okechukwu, the founder of Black Girls Read Chicago, and I discuss books that make you cry, her love of hardcover books, and what kinds of audiobooks work for both of us. She also gets to share an incredible story of getting a critical book put into her hands at a young age. 

Black Girls Read Chicago Instagram 

The Read & Run Chicago Gift Guide 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

The City and It’s Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix 

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Books Highlighted by Cynthia:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Little House Box Set by Laura Ingalls Wilder 

Matilda by Roald Dahl 

Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe 

Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing 

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by Eve L. Ewing

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson 

Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport that Wasn't Built for Us by Alison Mariella Désir

Will by Will Smith & Mark Manson

The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey 

Caucasia by Danzy Senna 

It by Stephen King

The Help by Kathryn Stockett 

On this episode, Susanna Chapman, an illustrator who loves picture books, discusses her career in books, her love for an audiobook mausoleum, and why she loves the beginning of a book. We also destigmatize her concern around her main reading format and she tricks me into answering one of my own questions. 

The Fastest Drummer: Clap Your Hands for Viola Smith 

Pre-Order Dragonflies of Glass: the True Story of Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley 

The City and It’s Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix 

Books Highlighted by Susanna:

Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang

Twenty Questions by Mac Barnett & Christian Robinson

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki 

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst & Ray Cruz

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

The Bear & The Moon by Matthew Burgess & Catia Chien

I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott & Sydney Smith

Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni

Daughters & Rebels by Jessica Mitford

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Where Butterflies Fill the Sky: A Story of Immigration, Family, and Finding Home by Zahra Marwan

It Came From the Trees by Ally Russel

This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work by Tiffany Jewel & Aurelia Durand

Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious by David Dark

Exvangelical & Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back by Blake Chastain 

How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi 

The People’s Plaza: Sixty-Two Days of Nonviolent Resistance by Justin Jones 

Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams & William Nicholson 

After the Fall by Dan Santat 

Roaming by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Snail and Worm: Three Stories about Two Friends by Tina Kügler 

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander & Dawud Anyabwile 

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney 

Winnie-The-Pooh by A.A. Milne 

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats 

Seeing, Saying, Doing, Playing by Taro Gomi 

Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford 

Spinning by Tillie Walden 

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong 

The Napping House by Audrey Wood & Don Wood 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

East of Eden by John Steinbeck 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 

Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman 

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears 

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib

It Won’t Always Be Like This: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshefgh 

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin 

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl 

Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl 

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña & Christian Robinson 

Milo Imagines the World by Matt de la Peña & Christian Robinson 

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein 

Ulysses by James Joyce 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster & Jules Feiffer

On this episode, Annette LaPlaca, a self-proclaimed church lady who loves mysteries and thrillers, discusses her career in editing, how she developed a love of reading in her children, and why it’s ok to have a lot of books. We also discuss the moral and empathetic benefits of a murder book and why people shouldn’t shy away from them. 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

Dearest by Jacqui Walters 

Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix 

Books Highlighted by Annette:

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers 

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt 

The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey

The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman 

The Storied Life A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis 

Matilda by Roald Dahl

1984 by George Orwell 

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 

Leap Over a Wall by Eugene H. Peterson 

The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta 

Puritan Pleasures of the Detective Story by Erik Routley

Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott 

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger 

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger 

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson 

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton 

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster 

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle 

Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle 

Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard 

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt 

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne 

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun 

Moby-Dick by Herman Mellville 

Trust by Hernan Diaz 

The Chosen by Chaim Potok 

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson 

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt 

Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey 

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey 

The Schwa Was Here by Neal Shusterman 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 

Silas Marner by George Eliot 

Middlemarch by George Eliot 

Emma by Jane Austen 

The Keeper of Lost Causes: The First Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen 

The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell 

Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G.K. Chesterton 

Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas & Mark Olshaker 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

On this episode, Amie Medley, who loves a long book, discusses her big reading project, which is reading every author who has won a Nobel Prize in Literature, and what she has discovered through that endeavor. We also discuss the ups and downs of book clubs, the benefits she finds from ereaders, and her love for a book that I can’t help but roll my eyes at. 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda

Nora Goes off Script by Annabel Monaghan 

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Books Highlighted by Amie:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace 

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein 

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich 

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Faith, Hope, and Carnage by Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan 

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai

Beloved by Toni Morrison 

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 

North Woods by Daniel Mason 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 

2666 by Roberto Bolaño 

Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk

The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White 

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White 

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle 

Animal Farm by George Orwell 

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 

Jack by Marilynne Robinson

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson 

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen 

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk 

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann 

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante 

Erasure by Percival Everett 

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid 

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesamyn Ward 

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk 

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson 

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich 

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe 

Verity by Colleen Hoover 

The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai 

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño 

M Train: A Memoir by Patti Smith 

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

On this episode, Cat Shieh, a Caliornian transplant to Chicago and former ethnic studies professor, discusses her hesitancy when people ask for recommendations and recommend books to her. She’s not afraid to drink the haterade, give a hot take, and make me guess what her answer is going to be to my questions. We talk about sad books (about reality) and some of our shared pet peeves about the reading world. 

Here is the Claudia Rankine excerpt that Cat read on the episode. 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

What Betsy’s reading: 

Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson, trans. Saskia Vogel 

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio 

Books Highlighted by Cat:

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris

NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette by Nathan Pyle

A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata

Red State Revolt: The Teacher’s Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics by Eric Blanc

Pruitt-Igoe by Bob Hansman

Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue by Nicholas Teich

White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret Hagerman 

The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall  

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde 

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.  

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chan 

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine 

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib 

Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico by Rick Bayless 

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer 

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer 

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen 

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin Diangelo 

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by Eve L. Ewing 

Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle 

How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi 

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love 

Serve the People; Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka & Jeff Chang 

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas 

The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race by Anthony Christian Ocampo