Claudia Rankine, Jason Reynolds

The following is Claudia Rankine reading from the poem "Making Room" from Citizen: An American Lyric. See pages 131-133.

"...where he goes the space follows him..."

Below, Jason Reynolds reads from the beginning of Long Way Down

"if the blood inside you is on the inside of someone else you never want to see it on the outside of them..."

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Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black

The author, Dr. Daniel Black, said “ T his book is what most of us in many ways would hope that our parents would do one day. And that is to give us their hearts, share with us their story . This is the story of a man named Jacob Swinton who is on his death bed, and he is writing a series of letters. It’s the epistolary form . The l etters are to his estranged gay son named Isaac. The Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series continued July 13 th , 2024 , where we discussed this amazing book. Before this meeting, the group listened to a YouTub e video of an interview with Dr. Black that had been recorded earlier this year. This video can be found by searching All CT Reads 2024 Dr. Daniel Black on Yo u Tube. Wendy started us out, saying, “ I listened to it on audiobook, and Dr. Black read it. I really liked that because it brought it to life. The downside was places where I thought he captured something about his own experience or love, and I wish I had it on a ...

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Thirteen of us met on August 24 th to discuss James McBride’s acclaimed 2023 novel, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store , winner of the 2023 Kirkus Prize for Fiction. McBride has said that his motivation for writing this book stems from his time working summers at a camp for differently abled children. He said the nugget for The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store was the story of Dodo and Monkey pants. Bonnie quickly interjected that the theme about the Blacks and the Jews is the one that jumped out at her more. Marian said she agreed with Bonnie here, especially since page one of the novel is about the interview the police had with Malachi about the mezuzah they found with the body at the bottom of the well. There was a lot of discussion about how the mezuzah ended up with the body. Robin offered that Moshe had made it as a gift for Malachi. Malachi refused it and insisted that Moshe give it to his wife Chona. Doc Roberts had snatched it from around Cho...

The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series June 14, 2025 Porter, Regina: The Rich People Have Gone Away It’s during the COVID-19 pandemic. There's a white family, Darla and Theo and there’s two Black families, Ruby and her family, and Xavier and his family. The parallel family to Theo and Darla is Nadine, Curtis, and Xavier. One family has the resources to get out of the city and go up to Darla’s family home in the woods. The other family has a wife and mother in the hospital on a ventilator. The father and son are temporarily using a friend’s apartment so they can be closer to the hospital, even though the father never takes time off from his job as a prison counselor and they’re not allowed to see her anyway. Marian started us out, saying, “ I thought that Nadine and her husband Curtis and Xavier could have been their own novel. ” Meghan elaborated on that, saying, “ I thought the parallels between the two fa...

Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series

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