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4.43 AVERAGE
4.43 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Colonisation
First I've read by Coates but will not be the last. I'm appreciative to read this type of perspective on the Obama years as I want to understand them better after reading The Promised Land but was hoping for a more critical analysis. This book does that and then some.
I hope that this book and Between the World and Me become required reading in high school and university classrooms across this country. Mr. Coates is an excellent writer and I'm glad this collection of essays was put together. I truly enjoyed it, and would recommend to others.
This is a powerful read. The writing is brilliant, beautiful at times, as well as verging on academic in many places. It is also a challenging series of essays, thoroughly investigated, focusing on race issues in the US through the lens of the Obama presidency. The final chapter, after the election of Trump, is direct in its confrontation of what a Trump election means after two terms of America’s first black president.
I had read several of these essays when they appeared in The Atlantic, but putting them altogether with commentary from a Ta-Nehisi Coates who exists in the present - the months after Trump was elected to follow the first black president - was enlightening. These essays will inspire, anger, inform, and enrage. I highly recommend them to anyone and hope that Coates' continues his brilliant prose that shines perfect insight to the struggles of being black in a country that all-too-readily shows its racism.
I received an ARC of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest, We Were Eight-Years in Power via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. At the time of this review, the book had not yet been published.
Let me say this, I am a huge fan of Coates’ work. I’ve read much of what he’s published for The Atlantic and devoured Between The World and Me in a day ...and then sent copies to friends as gifts!
Coates is a uniquely honest voice during a time when honesty seems to be on the wane, and I always appreciate his candor in talking about issues of race and class.
We Were Eight Years in Power is essentially a collection of Coates’ most popular essays from The Atlantic so if you’ve read Fear of a Black President, The Case for Reparations, etc., you’ll recognize most of what you’ll read in this offering.
However, what wasn’t known were the reasons for each essay. It was nice to have context and insight as to the why. Even more, he elaborates on how the rising attention he received—along with each deserved accolade—made him feel.
While he was flattered, and buoyed, by the attention, he was also leery of how such “acceptance” of his work could muddy the waters.
It was welcome insight into a brilliant writer with a powerful voice.
I already know I’ll be adding this one to my shelf as a hard copy once it’s released. Coates is a writer, whose voice I’ve come to covet, for its honesty, boldness, and dedication to making issues of class and race known without sugarcoating the facts.
Let me say this, I am a huge fan of Coates’ work. I’ve read much of what he’s published for The Atlantic and devoured Between The World and Me in a day ...and then sent copies to friends as gifts!
Coates is a uniquely honest voice during a time when honesty seems to be on the wane, and I always appreciate his candor in talking about issues of race and class.
We Were Eight Years in Power is essentially a collection of Coates’ most popular essays from The Atlantic so if you’ve read Fear of a Black President, The Case for Reparations, etc., you’ll recognize most of what you’ll read in this offering.
However, what wasn’t known were the reasons for each essay. It was nice to have context and insight as to the why. Even more, he elaborates on how the rising attention he received—along with each deserved accolade—made him feel.
While he was flattered, and buoyed, by the attention, he was also leery of how such “acceptance” of his work could muddy the waters.
It was welcome insight into a brilliant writer with a powerful voice.
I already know I’ll be adding this one to my shelf as a hard copy once it’s released. Coates is a writer, whose voice I’ve come to covet, for its honesty, boldness, and dedication to making issues of class and race known without sugarcoating the facts.
challenging
informative
reflective
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
I’ll come back to it later in print, was having trouble focusing on the audiobook 🫡