The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Oct 2024 ¡ Penguin Random House Audio ¡ Narrated by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4.8star
36 reviewsreport
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5 hr 20 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tellâand the ones we donâtâshape our realities.
âTa-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.ââAssociated Press
âCoates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing. Brilliant and timely.ââBooklist (starred review)
FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE ⢠A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Electric Lit
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwellâs classic âPolitics and the English Language,â but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our storiesâour reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmakingâexpose and distort our realities.
In the first of the bookâs three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own bookâs banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nationâs recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that cityâa capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the bookâs longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the countryâs most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our worldâand our own soulsâand embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
âTa-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.ââAssociated Press
âCoates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing. Brilliant and timely.ââBooklist (starred review)
FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE ⢠A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Electric Lit
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwellâs classic âPolitics and the English Language,â but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our storiesâour reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmakingâexpose and distort our realities.
In the first of the bookâs three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own bookâs banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nationâs recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that cityâa capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the bookâs longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the countryâs most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our worldâand our own soulsâand embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
Ratings and reviews
4.8
36 reviews
Brian H
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October 19, 2024
Great book! Mr. Coates does an incredible job at really painting a detailed picture so that you feel you are there in the place.
Oster Bryan
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December 28, 2024
Mr Coates strikes again. wonderfully entertaining and thought provoking at the same time. James Baldwin would be proud.
Ameenh Designs
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November 17, 2024
Loved it! So impactful and informative. Keep writing please đđ˝â¤ď¸
About the author
Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. He is the recipient of a National Magazine Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is currently the Sterling Brown endowed chair at Howard University in the English department.
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