2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Pages: 152 pages

Length: 1 month (April)

Participants: Beth, Emily, Thieryn

Everyone reads at their own pace during a Buddy Read. Because participants can be at different parts of the book at different times, it is extremely important to mark spoilers so that the book is not ruined for someone who is not as far along as others!!!

Mark spoilers by placing {spoiler} before the text and {/spoiler} after the text but use the < and > instead of the { and }.

Here are some questions to help get the conversation started! Feel free to look up discussion questions specific to this book or come up with your own. Just make sure any questions that contain spoilers are under spoiler tags.
Discussion questions are not required but may be a fun way to talk about the book and get to know each other!

Prior to starting:
What prompted you to join this buddy read?
Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?

Mid-read:
What character or ideas do you relate to the most and why?
Do you have any favorite quotes or scenes?

After reading:
What was enjoyable or not-so-enjoyable about this book?
Did this book change your perception about anything, either within the book (character development) or in real life?

This is a book I've wanted to read for quite some time.

There was A LOT to absorb. At the beginning, I was reminded of the beginning of The Autobiography of Malcom X, where there was not much beyond very negative feelings about "people who must call themselves white." As Coates matured and had different life experiences, particularly his trip(s?) to France, his perspective broadened, much like Malcolm's did when he travelled to the Middle East.

As a Baby Boomer white woman, there is so much here for me to learn and take into my own consciousness. Obviously, one reading isn't enough to fully incorporate all of that, and I realize that one Black person doesn't speak for the entire Black population. That said, for Coates, this is his truth, and it's well worth taking on board.

I used the audiobook, narrated by Coates himself. There were specific words ("axe" for "ask," "POH-lice" for "po-LICE," etc) that seemed very intentionally placed because of their rarity. Each time it happened, I clocked it, and then found myself wondering what did it matter? This was simply a different dialect. I was very much reminded of an interview I saw of John Oliver where he spoke the work "fru-STRA-ted," and the interviewer (an American) asked if he didn't heard how wrong he was (should have been "FRU-strat-ed"). Oliver said that the way he pronounced the word was how he pronounced it. From a white Englishman, we (ok, I) find it charming; from a Black American we (again, I) question it as a resistance to assimilation.

The one problem I had with using the audiobook was the lack of ability to highlight what I considered to be important quotes and thoughts. I'll have to read it again with a digital copy to do that. There is a LOT here that is well worth taking on board.