Last year, I read 79 books. I really wanted to hit 80, but I fell one short. This year, my goal is to read at least 80 books, and as of the end of March I’m on track to read 10 books a month, so 120 books overall. I really doubt I’ll hit that goal, but I may. To reach that goal, I have started to read one or two prose books a week and two, most weeks, graphic novels. While graphic novels are quicker reads initially, they are not as quick as we’d like to think, but interspersing them in between novels or history books or theology books or memoirs allows me to read more over the course of the year and to gain further exposure to more diverse voices. Today, I want to briefly talk about some of the books I’ve read this year and why you should pick them up and read them as well.

Pauli Murray Song in a Weary Throat

I assigned Pauli Murray’s memoir this semester so that I could finally read it, and I’m glad I did. Published posthumously in 1987, Song in a Weary Throat chronicles Murray’s life, specifically their role in the Civil Rights Movement strecthing back to the 1930s. While we know the big events of the Civil Rights Movement — Brown v. Board, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1960 sit-ins, Freedom Rides, March on Washington, . . . — Murray details the role they and others played leading up to what we chronilogically label as the movement, 1954–1968. In doing so, Murray points out the long struggle, the inching along towards justice. Murray highlights the foundations, that stretch back before Murray and carry on past King. As Murray wrote to Patricia Bell-Scott in 1983, “You need to know some of the veterans of the battle whose shoulders you now stand.”

Song in a Weary Throat is a textbook of the movement. It is a testament of Murray’s life and the lives of others. It is, through memoir, a detailing of history. It shows how one person can make a change through writing. As Murray calls it, “confrontation by typewriter.” Throughout the memoir, Murray sticks to the facts, the moments of history. Murray does this, of course, because revealing too much about their sexuality could have repurcussions. That is where books such as Bell-Scott’s The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice come into the picture. Bell-Scott’s book covers Murray’s friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt and dives deeper into the internal conflicts over their sexuality that Murray endured over the course of their life. Song in a Weary Throat is an important book, right alongside Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream, Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, and Angela Davis’ Autobiography because each of these illuminates the movement, shining a light on individuals directly involved in the movement and their roles in building the movement and supporting it through their work.

Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017

Over the past few years, I have read numerous works about the conflict in Palestine and Israel. I started with books such as Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses and Guy Delisle’s graphic memoir Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City then moved on to academic works by other Palestinian authors and scholars. Before reading Rashid Khaladi’s book, I read Sunaina Maira’s Boycott! The Academy and Justice for Palestine which detailed the rise of the of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in the academy, specifically with academic organizations and individual academics, and the backlash it entailed. I read Khalidi’s book right after Maria’s book, and reading them together provided important insight into not only the past 100 years but the ongoing activism to counter the oppressive, colonialist aspects of Israel.

Khalidi focuses on six specific moments from the past one hundred years: the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the formation of Israel and the Nakba in 1947–1948, the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the First Intifada, and the Second Intifada along with Israel’s attacks on Gaza in 2008, 2012, an 2014. What makes Khalidi’s book engaging is the fact that he layers it with personal stories from his family history and his own life, his involvement with fighting for Palestinian recognition. It is an informative book from a historical perspective, arguing that, as Khalid argues, “the modern history of Palestine can best be understoon in these terms: as a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will.” If you are looking for a book that will give you an historical understanding of Palestine and Isreal, then I highly recommend Khalidi’s book.

Josh Trujillo and Levi Hasting’s Washington’s Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben

I picked up Josh Trujillo and Levi Hasting’s graphic novel along with a few other books from Abram Books back at the end of 2023, and I recommend all of them, for various reasons. However, Washington’s Gay General stands out because it, like Murray and Khalidi, fills in historical gaps that many of us do not know. Trujillo and Hasting do this by detailing the life of Baron von Steuben, one of George Washington’s generals during the Revolutionary War. They do not glamorize or condemn von Steuben in their book, rather they tell his story to illuminate, amidst all of the hateful rhetoric and anti-LGBTQ legistaltion, the history of queer individuals in the formation of the United States and beyond. Along with this, Trujillo and Hasting interweave their own coming out stories with von Steuben’s life, highlighting the continued struggles facing queer individuals.

Some of Hasting’s most powerful panels occur near the end of the book when Trujillo talks about his own family history and the erasure of his queer uncler Harold. His grandmother told Trujillo and his siblings that after World War II Harold “moved to San Francisco with his gay high school sweetheart.” In this panel, we see Harold and his partner kissing before we ove on to a three panel sequence where we see them walking the streets in San Francisco and in each subsequent panel disappearing into the page, leaving no trace of their existence as Trujillo narrates, “I can confirm his military service and where he lived. But I don’t think I’ll ever know anything about his partner. Or what their lives were like in gay San Francisco in the ’60s. Those lives and stories are just . . . gone.” The next page starts with two panels of von Steuben coming into view, fading into the image instead of out of it into obscurity, as Trujillo narrates, “This is what Baron von Steuben fought his entire life against. He refused to go quietly into ANONYMITY.”

Each of these books, in their own ways, shine light on individuals and events that we must remember because these people and histories continue to inform us today. When I read books like the ones mentioned above, I constantly think about how this knowledge informs us, how it causes us to view the world differently, how it calls upon us to act and work towards a more equitable and equal society. Texts like those above help us see reality and the truth behind the facades of myth of historical storytelling. In this manner, they serve as tools to help us be better citizens, neighbors, and humans.

What are some of the books you have been reading this year? How have they impacted you? As usual, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.