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Why read it?

1 author picked Beating Against the Barriers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Several of the seven former slaves brought to life in Richard Blackett’s classic work pursued trans-Atlantic reform long before American disunion. Nothing like this book has appeared since its publication, and so I find myself poking around, always with great pleasure, in the taut, dramatic stories of Black émigrés like J. Sella Martin, William and Ellen Craft, and William Howard Day. Their vivid lives demonstrate the unique value of stories told by those with first-hand experience of Southern slavery.

The polished biographies pair these freed people’s quest to impugn the Confederacy with other commitments and takes pains to place interest…

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Book cover of The High House

The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

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