Shelfology Book Pairing

A Memoir

by Jeannette Walls

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD 'Tragic and comic at the same time... an outrageous story, one that will break your heart' Sunday Independent 'A terrific story, grippingly told' Sunday Times 'I read The Glass Castle straight through in an evening, wearing an expression of slack-jawed amazement' Spectator While Jeannette Walls was living on Park Avenue, covering the Academy Awards and attending black-tie parties at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, her parents were squatting in an abandoned building on the Lower East Side. Rex Walls, her father, was an ingenious adventurer and a hopeless alcoholic. Her mother was an artist who abhorred domestic routine and the chores of motherhood: 'Why should I cook a meal that will be gone in an hour when I can do a painting that will last forever?' Funny sad, quirky and loving, The Glass Castle is an almost incredible story of a nomadic, impoverished childhood. NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BRIE LARSON, WOODY HARRELSON AND NAOMI WATTS

Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.