White Awake 
Pastor Daniel Hill
[Race and the Church Series]

Written by a Chicago-area Pastor, Rev. Daniel Hill, book offers a great entry point for discussions about culture and race. Hill opens by exploring what it means to be white. Because whiteness is normative in America, white folks can live our whole lives without thinking critically about white culture. This book explores cultural identity as is applies to seven stages of encountering difference/ diversity while weaving the conversation together with Scripture and Christian commitments to reconciliation.

~ Presbyterian Church of Western Springs (Illinois)

God is Red
Liao Yiwu

Chinese dissident journalist and poet Liao Yiwu—once lauded, later imprisoned, and now celebrated author— profiles the extraordinary lives of dozens of Chinese Christians, providing a rare glimpse into the underground world of belief that is taking hold within the officially atheistic state of Communist China. Liao felt a kinship with Chinese Christians even though he is not a Christian himself. This is a fascinating tale of otherwise unknown personalities thriving against all odds.

~ Harper Collins

Friday Black
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Local author Adjei-Brenyah’s dozen stories are disturbingly spectacular, made even more so for what he does with magnifying and exposing the truth. At first read, the collection might register as speculative fiction, but current headlines unmasking racism, injustice, consumerism, and senseless violence prove to be clear inspirations.

~ Terry Hong, Booklist

Faith: A journey for all
Jimmy Carter

As President Carter examines faith’s many meanings, he describes how to accept it, live it, how to doubt and find faith again. A serious and moving reflection from one of America’s most admired and respected citizens. Explores the meaning of faith and its profound effects on people’s lives and the world, as well as how the author’s own religious faith has guided, sustained, and challenged him throughout his life.

~ Baker & Taylor book reviews

The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border
Francisco Cantú

A continuation of the immigration topic from our previous book, with a different perspective. The son of a park ranger, Francisco Cantú grew up in the southwest. He joined the Border Patrol to get an ‘inside’ journalistic view of the U.S. / Mexican border. He gives a thoughtful and fair view of the complicated issues involved and his personal journey.

In the Country We Love: My Family Divided
Diane Guerrero w/Michelle Burford

Actress Diane Guerrero’s account of being born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants, who were deported to Colombia when she was just 14. Hers is an all-too-common story, yet one that is rarely heard. Left to fend for herself, Guerrero relates her struggle to hold her life together, get through high school and college, and find her feet.

~ Booklist

Sacred Acts: How Churches are Working to Protect Earth’s Climate
Mallory McDuff

Climate change, in particular, is now a topic as fit for theologians as for chemists. And rightly so ? as followers of a scripture that begins with creation, and whose first command is that we keep and dress this planet we’ve been given, there’s really no way for churches to duck the issue.

~ Bill McKibben, from the Foreword (American Activist & Author)

A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot
Mary Walton

Walton reveals a tireless activist who managed to reconcile her Quaker upbringing of passive resistance with the more violent protest methods advocated by British suffragists. n 1910, she returned to the US to complete her doctoral degree and soon began building forces to fight for voting rights.Walton nicely describes the activists’ various strategies in the nation’s capital and beyond.
~ Choice Review

The New Jim Crow
Michele Alexander

Though they sense these stories are spreading confusion, Americans express a fair amount of confidence in their own ability to detect fake news, with about four-in-ten (39%) feeling very confident that they can recognize news that is fabricated and another 45% feeling somewhat confident. Overall, about a third (32%) of Americans say they often see political news stories online that are made up. While it is difficult to measure the precise extent to which people actually see news that has been completely fabricated – given that news consumers could see but not recognize made-up news stories as well as mistake factual stories for false ones — these figures provide a high-level sense of the public’s perception of this kind of content

Made For Goodness & Why This Matters
Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu

The book is founded on the broad notion that we are created with the freedom to choose good or evil, but also incline fundamentally to the good. Abstract theology or spirituality has never been Archbishop Tutu’s way; accordingly, this book flows effortlessly through narratives that illustrate Tutu’s unquenchable hope. A crucially important book from the former Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, writing with his daughter, also an Episcopal Priest; a witness to our tumultuous times..
~ Library Journal

When Bad Things Happen to Good People
Harold Kushner

When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that meant the boy would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. In these pages, Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a classic that offers clear thinking and consolation in times of sorrow.
~ Barnes & Noble.