Notes from the Shelf

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

I want to make this post in reflection of the U.S. election results. I don’t really know what to say, but I don’t want to remain silent. If you are like me post-election, dealing with feelings like anger, confusion, hopelessness, fear, powerlessness, not sure what next steps to take, here are some book recommendations to hopefully help process and remind you of the power you have as an individual. Most of these books I have not read myself, but I’ve added some to my TBR list to read soon.

The books are divided into categories and fiction/nonfiction where applicable to make it easier to find books to suit your needs/mood. Some books do overlap categories, so I decided one category to place them instead of putting them under both. Again, I have not read a lot of these, so if you think I have miscategorized any books, please let me know.

If you’re interested in buying any books listed below, consider buying through Bookshop.org. This is my affiliate link to the specific list just for this blog post, and I may earn a small commission if you purchase through the link, at no extra cost to you. Bookshop.org helps indie bookstores thrive, and your purchase also supports my blog—so I can keep reading, reviewing, and recommending great books.

Women’s Rights/Issues (Nonfiction)

1. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
2. A Girl’s Story by Annie Ernaux
3. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
4. Your Silence Will Not Protect You by Audre Lorde
5. Recollections of My Non-Existence by Rebecca Solnit
6. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
7. Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister
8. Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya Chemaly
9. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women by Kate Manne
10. Off With Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power by Eleanor Herman
11. Sex and Lies: True Stories of Women’s Intimate Lives in the Arab World by Leila Slimani

Women’s Rights/Issues (Fiction)

1. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
2. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. The Woman Destroyed by Simone De Beauvoir
4. A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo
5. Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
6. Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel
7. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
8. A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
9. Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia
10. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

BIPOC Rights/Issues (Nonfiction)

1. How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
2. How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
3. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
4. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
5. White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
6. White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad
7. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
8. As Long as the Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
9. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
10. We Do This ‘til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba
11. Women, Race and Class by Angela Y. Davis
12. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
13. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
14. There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman
15. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
16. Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang

BIPOC Rights/Issues (Fiction)

1.  Assembly by Natasha Brown
2. The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
3. I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal
4. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
5. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
6. The Removed by Brandon Hobson
7. The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
8. Yellowface by RF Kuang
9. China Dolls by Lisa See
10. The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

LGBTQ+ Rights/Issues (Nonfiction)

1. Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging by Gary L. Atkins
2. The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI Activism by Adrian Brooks
3. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
4. In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
5. Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States by Samantha Allen
6. Tomorrow Will be Different: Love, Loss, and thee Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride
7. Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States by Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie and Kay Whitlock
8. David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music by Darryl W. Bullock
9. The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All by M.V. Lee Badgett
10. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski

LGBTQ+ Rights/Issues (Fiction)

1. Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
2. When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
3. Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
4. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
5. Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
6. Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
7. Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
8. Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
9. Outlawed by Anna North
10. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Political Activism

1. Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky
2. Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in Challenging Times by Paul Rogat Loeb
3. Good People Break Bad Laws: Civil Disobedience in the Modern Age by Topher Field
4. Social Movements: The Structure of Collective Mobilization by Paul Almeida
5. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (And the Next) by Dean Spade
6. Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba
7. Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want by Ruha Benjamin
8. The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart by Alicia Garza
9. If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins
10. Becoming a Civilian Activist by Nick Licata

Anti-Fascism

1. Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future by Jason Stanley
2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
3. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley
4. Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
5. Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat
6. Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright
7. The Nazis, Capitalism, and the Working Class by Donny Gluckstein
8. Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge by Richard Ovenden
9. Bystander Society: Conformity and Complicity in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust by Mary Fulbrook
10. Hitler’s First Hundred Days: When Germans Embraced the Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche

Holocaust Survivor Stories

1. We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
2. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
3. The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
4. They Went Left by Monica Hesse
5. Night by Elie Wiesel
6. Diary of a Man in Despair by Friedrich Reck
7. A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel
8. An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin by Gad Beck
9. First One In, Last One Out: Auschwitz Survivor 31321 by Marilyn Shimon
10. Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love by Rebecca Frankel

Misc.

1. The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy
2. The Other America: Poverty in the United States by Michael Harrington
3. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
4. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn
5. If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance by Angela Y. Davis
6. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
7. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
8. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
9. It Was Just Another Day in America by Ryan David Ginsberg
10. Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World by Lisa Wells