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4.61 AVERAGE
4.61 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
James Baldwin's 'The Fire Next Time' was a window into a time and experience I'll never be able to fully grasp but the empathy and passion for community, disillusionment with existing structures and drive for hope of something better despite all evidence to the contrary speaks to all of us. Of course James Baldwin is a GOAT so it's no surprise that his work is still speaking to the problems we have in our society today.
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
I truly wish I had even one percent of the words James had when he wrote these letters to even begin to review this.
Stunning, eloquent, devastating. James holds up a mirror to the past, present, and even the future, and no one should like what they see. However, there is hope for love and change if we decide to look and act.
This book may be little, but it doesn’t lack. The passion, ferociousness, despair, and the authenticity will have you reeling, thinking, crying, and desperate.
This should be required reading for everyone. The humanity brought forth in these pages will make you uncomfortable in its truth and clarity.
Stunning, eloquent, devastating. James holds up a mirror to the past, present, and even the future, and no one should like what they see. However, there is hope for love and change if we decide to look and act.
This book may be little, but it doesn’t lack. The passion, ferociousness, despair, and the authenticity will have you reeling, thinking, crying, and desperate.
This should be required reading for everyone. The humanity brought forth in these pages will make you uncomfortable in its truth and clarity.
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
The forward to the book, which I believe is to his nephew, is beautiful and heartfelt advice for the boy to forgive and help his tormentors overcome their shortcomings. It was the best part of the book. Baldwin captures the struggles of African Americans in his own experiences throughout his life and gave me some nice tidbits of this struggle in the 60s and 70s that require further study. His meeting with Elijah Mohammed for example really meks me want to read up on the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X. Through it all his writing is elegant and intelligent.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
“If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
“We are living in an age of revolution, whether we will or no, and that America is the only Western nation with both the power and, as I hope to suggest, the experience that may help to make these revolutions real and minimize the human damage. Any attempts we make to oppose these outbursts of energy is tantamount to signing our death warrant.”
And there it is. In November 2024 I think we signed it. I speak in we’s because we’re all going to be affected negatively by this… aside from the billionaires who will lay claim to all we have and all we are. At this point, for humanity’s sake, I’m praying for an outburst that no one can ignore, that no one can oppose. And by 2050, I guess we’ll have it—environmental change that we cannot change back.
Incredible, incredible prose. Baldwin does here what he wishes all would do—confronting the fact of death with bravery, rising to the responsibility of life to look at reality squarely in the face. Read. This. NOW. And keep reading it—don’t just consume it, let it consume YOU, let it work its way through you and change you into something unknowable, a force of change yourself, plunging into the better future that YOU create.
And there it is. In November 2024 I think we signed it. I speak in we’s because we’re all going to be affected negatively by this… aside from the billionaires who will lay claim to all we have and all we are. At this point, for humanity’s sake, I’m praying for an outburst that no one can ignore, that no one can oppose. And by 2050, I guess we’ll have it—environmental change that we cannot change back.
Incredible, incredible prose. Baldwin does here what he wishes all would do—confronting the fact of death with bravery, rising to the responsibility of life to look at reality squarely in the face. Read. This. NOW. And keep reading it—don’t just consume it, let it consume YOU, let it work its way through you and change you into something unknowable, a force of change yourself, plunging into the better future that YOU create.
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced