Books with category 🤝 Community & Society
Displaying 9 books

A Land With a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism

A Land With a People is a collection of personal stories, history, poetry, and art that elevates rarely heard Palestinian and Jewish voices and visions. Eloquently framed with a foreword by the dynamic Palestinian legal scholar and activist, Noura Erakat, this book began as a storytelling project of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and subsequently transformed into a theater project performed throughout the New York City area.

Stories touch hearts, open minds, and transform our understanding of the “other”―as well as our comprehension of own roles and responsibilities. A Land With a People emerges from this reckoning, bringing us the narratives of secular, Muslim, Christian, and queer Palestinians who endure the particular brand of settler colonialism known as Zionism. It relays the transformational journeys of Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, queer, and Palestinian Jews who have come to reject the received Zionist narrative.

Unflinching in their confrontation of the power dynamics that underlie their transformation process, these writers find the courage to face what has happened to historic Palestine, and to their own families as a result. Contextualized by a detailed historical introduction and timeline charting 150 years of Palestinian and Jewish resistance to Zionism, this collection will stir emotions, provoke fresh thinking, and point to a more hopeful, loving future―one in which Palestine/Israel is seen for what it is in its entirety, as well as for what it can be.

Praying to the West

2021

by Omar Mouallem

Praying to the West: How Muslims Shaped the Americas is an insightful and perspective-shifting journey by celebrated journalist Omar Mouallem. In the book, Mouallem explores his personal connection with Islam, delving into its influence on his values, politics, and heritage. Having grown up in a Muslim household, he later adopted atheism and used his voice to critique organized religion. However, as a father, Mouallem is confronted with the challenges his children may face due to their heritage in an increasingly nativist Western world.

Mouallem embarks on a quest to uncover the untold history of Islam across the Americas, visiting thirteen unique mosques from California to Quebec, and Brazil to Canada's icy north. Through his travels, he encounters diverse Muslim communities, each providing varied perspectives on what it means to be Muslim in the Americas. This exploration reveals the significant role Islam has played in shaping the continent, influencing everything from industrialization to political shifts.

Ultimately, Praying to the West uncovers a hidden narrative of home and belonging. It highlights the ongoing struggle for acceptance in towns and cities across the Americas, advocating for a more inclusive future for all.

Os Maias

Os Maias é uma das obras mais conhecidas do escritor português Eça de Queiroz. O livro foi publicado no Porto em 1888. A ação de Os Maias passa-se em Lisboa, na segunda metade do século XIX, e apresenta-nos a história de três gerações da família Maia. A ação inicia-se no Outono de 1875, quando Afonso da Maia, nobre e pobre proprietário, se instala no Ramalhete com o neto recém formado em Medicina. Neste momento faz-se uma longa descrição da casa - "O Ramalhete," cujo nome tem origem num painel de azulejos com um ramo de girassóis, e não em algo fresco ou campestre, tal como o nome nos remete a pensar.

Afonso da Maia era o personagem mais simpático do romance e aquele que o autor mais valorizou, pois não se lhe conhecem defeitos. É um homem de carácter, culto e requintado nos gostos. Em jovem aderiu aos ideais do Liberalismo e foi obrigado, por seu pai, a sair de casa e a instalar-se em Inglaterra. Após o pai falecer regressa a Lisboa para casar com Maria Eduarda Runa, mas pouco tempo depois escolhe o exílio por razões de ordem política.

Há em Os Maias um retrato da Lisboa da época. Carlos, que mora na Rua das Janelas Verdes, caminha com frequência até ao Rossio (embora, por vezes, vá a cavalo ou de carruagem). Algumas das lojas citadas no livro ainda existem - a Casa Havaneza, no Chiado, por exemplo. É possível seguir os diferentes percursos de Carlos ou do Ega pelas suas da Baixa lisboeta, ainda que algumas tenham mudado de nome. No final do livro, quando Carlos volta a Lisboa muitos anos depois, somos levados a ver as novidades - a Avenida da Liberdade, que substituiu o Passeio Público, e que é descrita como uma coisa nova, e feia pela sua novidade, exactamente como nos anos 70 se falava das casas de emigrante.

O romance veicula sobre o país uma perspectiva muito derrotista, muito pessimista. Tirando a natureza (o Tejo, Sintra, Santa Olávia...), é tudo uma choldra ignóbil. Predomina uma visão de estrangeirado, de quem só valoriza as civilizações superiores - da França e Inglaterra, principalmente. Os políticos são mesquinhos, ignorantes ou corruptos; os homens das Letras são boémios e dissolutos, retrógrados ou distantes da realidade concreta; os jornalistas boémios e venais; os homens do desporto não conseguem organizar uma corrida de cavalos, pois não há hipódromo à altura, nem cavalos, nem cavaleiros, as pessoas não vestem como o evento exigia, as senhoras traziam vestidos de missa. Para cúmulo de tudo isto, os protagonistas acabam vencidos da vida. Apesar de ser isto referido no fim do livro, pode-se ver que ainda há alguma esperança implícita, nas passagens em que Carlos da Maia e João da Ega dizem que o apetite humano é a causa de todos os seus problemas e que portanto nunca mais terão apetites, mas logo a seguir dizem que lhes está a apetecer um prato de paio com ervilhas, ou quando dizem que a pressa não leva a nada e que a vida deve ser levada com calma mas começam a correr para apanhar o americano (eléctrico). Mais do que crítica de costumes, o romance mostra-nos um país - sobretudo Lisboa - que se dissolve, incapaz de se regenerar. Quando o autor escreve mais tarde A Cidade e as Serras, expõe uma atitude muito mais construtiva: o protagonista regenera-se pela descoberta das raízes rurais ancestrais não atingidas pela degradação da civilização, num movimento inverso ao que predomina n'Os Maias.

How the Word Is Passed

2021

by Clint Smith

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic, Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave-owning nation.

Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history and ourselves.

It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.

In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view—whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted.

Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.

Noise

From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and the coauthor of Nudge, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment is a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments and how to make better ones. Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients, or that two judges in the same courthouse give markedly different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different interviewers at the same firm make different decisions about indistinguishable job applicants, or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to answer the phone. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same interviewer, or the same customer service agent makes different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical.

In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein show the detrimental effects of noise in many fields, including medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, bail, child protection, strategy, performance reviews, and personnel selection. Wherever there is judgment, there is noise. Yet, most of the time, individuals and organizations alike are unaware of it. They neglect noise. With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions.

Packed with original ideas, and offering the same kinds of research-based insights that made Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers, Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment—and what we can do about it.

Black Water Sister

2021

by Zen Cho

A reluctant medium discovers the ties that bind can unleash a dangerous power in this compelling Malaysian-set contemporary fantasy.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke, and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life, Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god—and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.

Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she'll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.

Hana Khan Carries On

2021

by Uzma Jalaluddin

From the author of Ayesha at Last comes a sparkling new rom-com for fans of “You’ve Got Mail,” set in two competing halal restaurants. Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighbourhood. Hana waitresses there part time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job.

In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she’ll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters. When her mysterious aunt and her teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret.

A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana’s growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant—who might not be a complete stranger after all. As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be.

Firekeeper's Daughter

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley is an exhilarating young adult novel that delves into the life of Daunis Fontaine, a biracial, unenrolled tribal member who finds herself in the midst of a harrowing FBI investigation.

Daunis's world is already complicated, being caught between her hometown and the nearby Ojibwe reservation. After a family tragedy, she is forced to put her own dreams aside to look after her mother. The only glimmer of hope comes from Jamie, the alluring new member of her brother's hockey team.

The story takes a dark turn when Daunis witnesses a chilling murder, catapulting her into a convoluted criminal investigation. Agreeing to go undercover, she navigates a labyrinth of deceit, with the death toll rising and danger closing in on her own life. Daunis must confront a crucial question: how much is she willing to risk for her community, even if it means unraveling the threads of the world she knows?

Four Hundred Souls

An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Souls is a chronological account of four hundred years of Black America as told by ninety of America's leading Black writers.

Curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the number one bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and fellow historian Keisha N. Blain, Four Hundred Souls begins with the arrival of twenty enslaved Ndongo people on the shores of the British colony in mainland America in 1619, the year before the arrival of the Mayflower.

In eighty chronological chapters, the book charts the tragic and triumphant four-hundred-year history of Black American experience in a choral work of exceptional power and beauty.

Contributors include some of the best-known scholars, writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets, and activists of contemporary America who together bring to vivid life countless new facets to the drama of slavery and resistance, segregation and survival, migration and self-discovery, cultural oppression and world-changing artistic, literary, and musical creativity. In these pages are dozens of extraordinary lives and personalities, rescued from the archives and restored to their rightful place in America's narrative, as well as the ghosts of millions more.

Four Hundred Souls is an essential work of storytelling and reclamation that redefines America and changes our notion of how history is written.

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