Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Age of Innocence
"Again, I like this book for its willingness to embrace the tragic. No happy endings. The book is a defense of elitism, something I guess I oppose. But I found it credible, here."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Sweet Soul Music
"History of soul music, told in profiles. I read this is as young man really trying to understand what journalism and history meant. Spent a lot of time meditating on Sam and Dave after this one."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Great Gatsby
"I'm a sucker for efficiency. This book gets so much out of what is, ultimately, a rather slim story. I adore it."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Thirty Years War
"God, I love this book. It's the history of an utterly depressing war with no real nobility, that ultimately descends into cannibalism. Right up my alley."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Waterworks
"What a strange and beautiful book. The story of a postbellum American newspaper editor investigating the undead."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Battle Cry of Freedom
"The definitive history of the Civil War. One of the greatest works of history I've ever read and arguably the best one volume history in existence."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Neon Vernacular
"Probably my favorite living poet. No on else taught me more about how important it was to think about how words make people feel. It's not enough for people to know something is true. They have to feel it's true."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Country Between Us
"Another book of poetry that taught me what the form was. [The author] has a beautiful sense of rhythm."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Fire Next Time
"Basically the finest essay I've ever read."
Ta-Nehisi Coates on Postwar
"[The author understood history] does not exist to comfort us."
