100 Books Like Blood Struggle

As I drove through the South researching my guidebook to civil rights sites, my back seat was filled with books. Atop the pile was Taylor Branch’s magisterial three-volume history – America in the King Years 1954-1968: Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge.

Though encyclopedic, Branch’s story-telling is riveting—weaving together personalities, legalities, strategies, and geography in a way that made me feel as if I were there witnessing history as it was made. Taylor’s detail, reflecting a journalist’s quest for who, what, where, when, how, and why, showed me that these stories could best be told, understood, and felt where they happened.

Richard Grant a British journalist and adventure writer traveled the world before moving from New York City with his Brookland girlfriend to transform a dilapidated antebellum mansion in Mississippi into a new home and a new life.

In the process he discovers the real Mississippi—good and bad—as “the most American place on earth.” This book makes the reader laugh, cry, but most important think deeply about jazz, sex, politics, food, America’s class system, racism, democracy, and what it means to be American which is in constant change.

Grant’s writing is addictive and an elixir—you can’t put it down. 

Across the South, major statues of Confederate leaders are being removed from prominent pedestals, while schools, military bases, streets, and other memorials named for Confederates are being renamed. No effort is more astonishing than ending the hero worship of Robert E. Lee, the West Point graduate who chose to fight for his home state of Virginia in the Civil War, and led the South to defeat.

In this deeply researched and personal history of Lee and his own reckoning of Lee’s betrayal of the United States, West Point historian and retired Army general Ty Seidule reveals how he, a son of the South, came to revile Lee’s status as a southern God. As a PhD historian, Seidule dismantles many myths about Lee, and proves that Lee was, in fact, fighting to create a new nation based on slavery.

As a young journalist reporting racial unrest in Connecticut and elsewhere in the 1960s, I was stunned by a 1968 government report that declared: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, and one white – separate and unequal.” Its section on the media noted that except for crime stories, people of color were largely missing from television and newspapers – even in advertisements – and called on newsrooms, corporate boards, and institutions to use affirmative action to hire minorities. I took the Kerner Commission report to heart, and, as one of my proudest professional accomplishments, hired the first Indian journalist in South Dakota, an action that reverberates to this day. Today, we take black and brown faces and voices on TV, movies, ads, and institutions for granted. 

But as New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb explains in his introduction, much of what the commission recommended has been ignored, to… show more.

As much as the current attacks on DEI may feel new or recent, the use of education and schooling to colonize and assimilate goes all the way back to the founding myths of this country and the aims of stealing land from Indigenous peoples and labor from enslaved Black communities.

This book highlights those histories across time as motivated not by personal malice or differences in cultural beliefs but by settler-colonial economic gain. Those moves were rationalized by the notion of European “civilization” as superior and enforced through violence to erase Native people, cultures, and sovereignty.

The final chapter reminds us that “the past is present” in the fights over who gets to tell the histories and what narratives get valorized or erased; the grab for land, resources, and economic power that underlies the current attacks; and in the ongoing resistance and creativity of Indigenous nations and other minoritized communities… show more.

I like this book because it encourages girls to dream and dream big! You’re a superhero with your own sense of style? Cool. Having an amazing ocean adventure? Awesome. This book encourages girls to hold onto their dreams despite pressure from others who wish they would conform. Dreams are where some of my best ideas come from and I’ve always thought that it’s a shame to dream about the mundane. The more fantastical, the better! Dreams can be the start of a real-life great idea. I like this book because it invites girls to think about who they are and imagine all the possibilities for themselves.  

I found that many of the nursery rhymes in this book are very familiar, except…something is a little different. Georgie Porgie is no longer kissing the girls and making them cry, Little Miss Muffett is a heck of a lot tougher, and Mary, Mary quite contrary is embracing her right to change her mind. That’s right, these classic mini-stories have been revamped to have the female characters taking charge and living their best lives. Some nursery rhymes can be outdated and upsetting, but I say "don’t throw the baby out with the bath water." I think keeping the things about nursery rhymes that promote early literacy but changing up the words to reflect our values is a very cool way to carry the old rhymes into this century.

I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but the cover is indeed what got me! I immediately wished someone had captured an image of me looking amazing and strong like the girl featured. I mean, how cool to have a picture that really reflects oneself, so unlike the stiff and awkwardly posed school pics that decorated my home growing up. Her stance and expression just spoke to me and I immediately loved that this book celebrated her strength and presence.  And not just hers! Many, many girls of various ages and backgrounds are photographed doing something that makes them feel good or strong or real. This book is a catalog of photos and words that celebrate girls being their authentic selves. I want that for all the little girls, and all the little girls who have grown up too. 

Why are women still struggling for equality in every area of society, from wages to leadership, and why are so many women allowing men to control their finances? How did we get here – especially when women own over half of the investible assets in the U.S.? Cindy Couyoumjian gives us a sweeping picture of women, money, and power in her new book and shows how women taking charge of their personal and economic power and directing their own financial future will revolutionize the world. Whether you know your way around investments or don’t even try to balance your checkbook, you’ll enjoy reading this book. It will open your eyes to the way you think about money and inspire you to change your financial future.

Wordless picture books are sometimes a bit tricky. How do you “read” them anyways?

But Journey (and its sequels Quest and Return) allow you to dive into the gorgeous artwork and compelling story. Just soak it all in, and you’ll want to set off on your own adventure by the time you're done.