The Underground Railroad
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
6mentions
5people
2016–2021years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Fiction: "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead (now a well-reviewed series on Amazon) A fantastic book that lingered with me for weeks after reading it.
Non-fiction: "This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends" by Nicole Perlroth If you want to be shaken to your core by the past, present, and future of cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare, this is the book that will drop your jaw more than once.
- I check back on Derick Sivers recommendations often at https://sive.rs/book
See below for some recommendations based on my 2020 reading.
Fiction recommendations:
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book absolutely wrecked me emotionally (in a good way) for weeks after reading it
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I enjoyed this even more than the Underground Railroad, which was also great. Both also won a Pulitzer for what it’s worth.
- The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea. This book gave me a glimpse into what it’s like for Mexicans who immigrate to the US, and the storytelling was just wonderful.
Non-fiction recommendations:
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Mix together equal parts science, indigenous knowledge and myth, botany, and wonderful writing and you get this book. I love Kimmerer’s voice (both in terms of her writing and her performance of the audiobook) and I read Gathering Moss by her this year as well because she’s just that good.
- American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. In my opinion is the definitive book about the atomic bomb and Oppenheimer. I also read The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman and I think that was a pretty good follow up about the arms race and Cold War that came after.
- Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. I knew nothing and cared little about surfing before this book. I couldn’t put it down after I picked it up though. I’ve heard the audiobook is great so I might just read it again in that format because it was that good.
Good luck with your reading!
- I have time for a solid sleep schedule, lots of exercise, work, and at least three other hobbies (bicycles, metalworking, and skateboarding) so I think so!
Fiction recommendations:
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. This book absolutely wrecked me emotionally (in a good way) for weeks after reading it
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. I enjoyed this even more than the Underground Railroad, which was also great. Both also won a Pulitzer for what it’s worth.
- The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea. This book gave me a glimpse into what it’s like for Mexicans who immigrate to the US, and the storytelling was just wonderful.
Non-fiction recommendations:
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Mix together equal parts science, indigenous knowledge and myth, botany, and wonderful writing and you get this book. I love Kimmerer’s voice (both in terms of her writing and her performance of the audiobook) and I read Gathering Moss by her this year as well because she’s just that good.
- American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. In my opinion is the definitive book about the atomic bomb and Oppenheimer. I also read The Dead Hand by David E. Hoffman and I think that was a pretty good follow up about the arms race and Cold War that came after.
- Barbarian Days by William Finnegan. I knew nothing and cared little about surfing before this book. I couldn’t put it down after I picked it up though. I’ve heard the audiobook is great so I might just read it again in that format because it was that good.
There are so many more but I think those are a good start. If you want recommendations in a certain genre I can probably give some because I’ve read widely over the years.
- > why would the public require physical access if they have an online reading room.
Respectfully, I really disagree with this line of thought:
* Having digital facsimiles of your collection makes it more accessible and more available
* More people knowing about your collection means more foot traffic
* Some things about a collection can't be discovered from a digitized copy; having a record of the digitized copy encourages researchers to come in and see the real deal
* Maybe scholarship doesn't have to happen IRL? See Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad: a fantastic novel that was researched primarily online [0]
0. https://newsandfeatures.uncg.edu/grant-expand-digital-librar...
- For those of you who didn't read to the end:
> Nobody finds Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad in a Little Free Library—much less Wi-Fi, college counseling, or jobs services. A well-funded library system has little to fear.
"Little Free Libraries" have nothing to do with public libraries, and seem like a harmless way for people to spend their disposable income. They may be virtue signaling, charity, lawn decorations, recycling bins, or whatever, but I don't see any reason to complain about them.
- There is some remarkable fiction coming out this season by some of the best:
Jonathan Safran Foer's Here I Am
Zadie Smith's Swing Time
Ian McEwan's Nutshell
Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad
Carl Hiassan's Razor Girl
Alan Moore's Jerusalem
Jonathan Lethem's A Gamber's Anatomy
Ha Jin's The Boat Rocker
T.C. Boyle's The Terranauts
Michael Chabon's Moonglow
Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger
I've got plenty of friends who never touch fiction because "it's not real". Preferring science, history, economics, biography and virtually anything else. But I think its obligatory at times. The soul requires it's own nourishment, if not more so than the body and the mind. Indulge yourself. If only because great writing will make your writing greater, as if by osmosis. But ultimately, because only fiction can uncover the truths that can't be revealed any other way ;)
