In Book Swap, a regular feature that is entirely unique, about books, and not at all related to the music feature In Rotation, a Reader staffer recommends three to five books and then asks a local wordsmith, literary enthusiast, or publishing-adjacent professional to do the same. It is awesome. Way better than it would be if it were about records.
On Immunity: An Inoculation, Eula Biss’s 2014 Graywolf Press book, is a series of personal essays that tease through notions of illness, politics, care work, and vaccinations to pose questions about what makes us feel safe. I loved the way Biss infused research into the story of the birth of her first child—although not being the childbearing type I was less compelled by her descriptions of maternity. Her arguments about immunity are nonetheless compelling: that it is a “shared space,” truly public, and one that will only last if we tend it together.
To Be Young, Gifted and Black, by Lorraine Hansberry (the “informal autobiography” has several reprints, including a Signet Classics version from 2011 that has a nice intro by James Baldwin). Hansberry’s letters, notes from journals, and bits and pieces were curated into this portrait by her longtime friend and ex-husband shortly after her death in 1965. This was a play first, but I prefer reading the book version. These sometimes furious and sometimes longing interior dialogues between Lorraine and the universe will give you a entry point into what makes the soul of a Chicagoan—a belly that is hungry for justice and peace, a mind that is filled with guideposts to home. A bonus suggestion for those who prefer their agitators to have both big minds and big hearts: follow this one up with Fire on the Prairie: Chicago’s Harold Washington and the Politics of Race by [longtime Reader contributor] Gary Rivlin (Henry Holt, 1992).
