Essential Reads to Enrich Your Summer
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
By Wes Moore (2010)
If the name Wes Moore rings a bell, it’s likely because as the governor of Maryland, he has recently been in the news in connection to the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. What you may not know is that he penned a book in 2010, which describes his upbringing in the 1980s in Baltimore and intertwines the story with that of the other Wes Moore who grew up in — also in Baltimore — around the same time. The author discovered this when he read an article about the other Wes Moore who was wanted for murder. He eventually reached out to him in prison, and the resulting book is a thought-provoking reflection of how two kids of the same name, both struggling throughout their youth, have taken different paths. One ended up in prison, the other is now governor of Maryland. JUDITH TACKETT
Neighborliness
By David Docusen
If you are seeking a religious and spiritual approach to building community, Neighborliness is a book for you. Anchored in the commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” Docusen dives into explaining how individuals and churches can lead and serve in a time of extreme division. He doesn’t shy away from addressing racism and economic disparities. This book turned into a movement, and after having met the author and visited the community he worked in in Charlotte, N.C., it is clear that this book is a guide to living together as neighbors. JUDITH TACKETT
Poverty, by America
By Matthew Desmond
“Why is there so much poverty in America?” These are the first words of the prologue in the most recent book by Desmond. If you have read his previous book “Evicted,” you already understand that this author immerses himself into his topics. Now you learn he grew up poor and while he’s been researching poverty and writing policies for years, he now dives in to examine why America has not made more progress on fighting poverty. Desmond makes a personal and compassionate plea, showing us that we all have a part to play in winning the fight against poverty. JUDITH TACKETT
The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Burton Raffel
Look, guys. It’s been a long year already and it’s going to get longer. We’re reading Chaucer this summer. The beloved English poet, whose Canterbury Tales come to life in Burton Raffel’s classic and delightful translation, does not ask much of us. Unlike Shakespeare and Milton, Chaucer adores his subjects and always seems himself slightly drunk. For spiritually exhausted 21st century laborers living in the heart of the American empire, the Canterbury Tales are fun, distracting, and serve as an enduring invitation to try to actually relax for once. Six hundred years later, one gets the sense that Chaucer loves not only the subjects of his opus, but his readers too. That includes us, so consider your beach read settled. A good selection for Hoboscopes connoisseurs. LAURA BIRDSALL
My Black Country
By Alice Randall
Alice Randall, a songwriter, author, and Vanderbilt University professor, has spent most of her life dedicated in one way or another to schooling people on country music. In My Black Country, she outlines the inclination of Music Row institutions to discount Black writers and their insistence on erasure of Black artists, particularly women, in the genre. Randall knows all too personally that the country music industry, and the world, can be tough on a Black female songwriter. Even as she earned a spot as the first Black woman to co-write a No. 1 country hit with Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl),” most people wouldn’t know the song was written by a Black mother desperate to figure out who she was. Luckily, you can get that whole story here. The book builds on the idea of the first family of Black country music, identified by Randall as DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride and Herb Jeffries. She gives a long history and a lineage that begins with the Black experience. It’s a must read for Nashvillians. AMANDA HAGGARD
Borough Features
By Erica Ciccarone
If you’re wondering why I’m recommending a book set in New York, just follow me for a minute. Nashville author Erica Ciccarone started writing this fiction novel before she became a journalist. The story follows a reporter with a rollercoaster career (high highs, low lows) as she explores grief and truth and mystery involving a crooked health care professional from Nashville (imagine) and a crime-fighting seagull. Especially as a writer who lost my own editor to a heart incident, the story at-times feels like a funhouse mirror of some of the Nashville experience. Fellow writers in the area may feel similarities to their own newsrooms — though her inspiration came long before her desire to investigate and write news stories, Ciccarone nails the reporter experience. And while the book is dark, the story is both funny and engaging. AMANDA HAGGARD