Sally Kohn: The Power Of Thoughtful Analysis

I’m a writer, activist and TV commentator – and author of The Opposite of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity.

Does anyone find anything surprising anymore? Hmm, I grew up on a farm as a kid and had a pet goat! City folk find that surprising.

I’m finishing the latest of Louise Penny’s series, Kingdom of the Blind; a holdout from a summer vacation that I’ve been slowly reading ever since because I don’t ever really want summer to end, and they’re fabulously escapist. I’m not usually a big fiction reader but now I’m invested.

Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was the first grown-up book I remember reading and falling in love with. Kid book-wise, I was fairly obsessed with the Great Brain book series by John Fitzgerald. I identified with the mischievous and precocious main character.

I don’t know that I really fell in love with reading until much later in life when I stopped reading to either please my parents or get good grades and instead learned to read to nourish my own ideas and analysis. I think that didn’t really happen until I was in law school – when I basically gave up on getting better grades than the super-smart kids around me. But I feel like I’m still falling in love with reading. Learning more about fiction, finding new books and rediscovering old ones, reading a book of critical theory and revelling in the learning but also the beauty of the prose.

Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist by Jess Keating – which I bought for my daughter who is obsessed with sharks and at the moment wants to be a marine biologist. My daughter is 10 and the book is for younger kids but she still devoured it enthusiastically. And I enjoyed the heck out of it too. Such a great story!

Well, I’ll never turn down a shaded lounge chair on the beach but barring that, in bed early, next to my family, all of us curled up reading. That’s the best.

One of my political heroes and mentors Urvashi Vaid wrote a book in the late 90s called Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation and it was then and remains one of the most formative books in my life. It taught me to see complexities in political and cultural dynamics – for instance, that, yes, increased gay visibility was a good thing but that it not only wasn’t being matched by legal equality but could, in fact, be undermining it by suggesting that laws and protections were unnecessary. And it was Urvashi’s writing, and later tutelage, that taught me to see race and gender and class dynamics as intersecting with all these other issues. Also, her book showed me the power of putting a thoughtful analysis and argument into words – the power that a book could make in our minds and in the world. There have been many, many political books that have shaped me since, but that was the first major dent.

Oh jeez, how much time do we have?! I have a lot of obscure titles related to issues I’m researching and writing about… but here’s one I’ll say isn’t read enough, it’s not obscure to some, but I guess it is to way too many… Dog Whistle Politics by Ian Haney Lopez. I think it’s the most important book about the political moment we’re in here in the United States, though obviously some of the fear mongering and politics of racial hate that we have here in the United States have shaped political strategy and culture worldwide. And I don’t think Ian is given enough credit among the books and thinkers that presaged the rise of Trump and Trumpism.

The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff really surprised me. Pleasantly. I was expecting to be annoyed, or “triggered” as they say. But they made some really powerful observations about how our good intentions to protect each other, especially young people, from hurtful or harmful speech is actually harming their resilience and the resilience of our society. It was a very compelling read.

I have a 10-year-old and she’s a thoughtful, kind, funny human being. Getting her this far in life and, hopefully, continuing to do so is and undoubtedly will always be my proudest achievement.

That’s what coffee table books are for! To make us look fancy and cultured. We have a giant one from the Met Museum exhibit on Alexander McQueen and we also have a gorgeous big book of artist Peter Wegner’s work. And then since my partner is an environmental activist, we also have some coffee table books on the destruction of the planet. But, ya know, pretty pictures of the destruction.

Okay well, first of all, I live in a New York City apartment so I don’t have a garden and am having trouble with this whole scenario but beyond that, oy… I don’t know. I might be tempted to give them Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild, both because the aliens might identify, but also to help them understand that this Trump situation we have going on is not normal. And I’d give them a copy of my friend Reshma Saujani’s new book Brave Not Perfect because they probably will be feeling scared in a new place and if they really embrace our culture, perpetually afraid to make mistakes like us humans feel all the time. And maybe a classic like The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, to help the little green people understand the paradox of Western culture, our intention to be compassionate alongside our propensity for destructive disregard.

I re-read The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin every couple of years because it’s still so incredibly relevant, in addition to being a powerful, gorgeous text. I think it remains one of the most important books of the century. And if you’re looking for a contemporary analogue, When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors, is a nothing short of a triumph – and in her work, you hear echoes of Baldwin’s prose and political voice.

Emily Fletcher, a brilliant and engaging meditation teacher I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with, has a new book called Stress Less, Accomplish More and I can’t wait to read it. The title alone holds so much promise for someone like me!

Image credit: Paul Takeuchi