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Title details for The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates - Wait list

The Message

by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Audiobook
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Wait time: About 4 weeks
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0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 4 weeks
#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 tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.

“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press
“Coates 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.”—Booklist (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 Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.
In the first of the book’s 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 book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s 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 country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    October 1, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593916438
      • File size: 153786 KB
      • Duration: 05:20:23

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Author Ta-Nehisi Coates narrates this must-listen, a powerful and thought-provoking collection of essays. In recounting his travels to Senegal and South Carolina, Coates incisively reflects on slavery and white supremacy. From his travels to Israel and Palestine, Coates meditates on the trauma of the Holocaust, segregated society, dehumanization, and voices that are missing from the narratives we are told. Coates frequently addresses listeners in the second person, a technique that creates an intimate connection to his words. With his measured pacing and gentle delivery, he encourages listeners to ponder the important issues and questions he covers. This audiobook is a haunting, timely examination of global affairs and the importance of truth and inclusivity in our culture. V.T.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 21, 2024
      Coates (Between the World and Me) delivers an incandescent rebuke of journalists—including himself—for parroting ideological narratives that reify Palestine’s oppression. The book opens deceptively low-key, as an almost laconic rumination on the political nature of storytelling—a theme Coates weaves into recollections of an emotional visit he made to his ancestral homeland in Senegal, his radical Black father’s intellectual commitment to the idea of a “return to Africa,” and the banning of Between the World and Me in a North Carolina school district where he encountered white allies whose argument in the book’s favor struck him as particularly clear-eyed: that there is need to hear many stories, not just one. This all crescendos to a devastating second half, in which Coates, beginning with a mea culpa for an uncritical defense of Israel that he embedded in his 2014 essay “The Case for Reparations,” suggests that storytelling of an ideological nature—even his own and his own family’s—elides too much, and that what is ultimately needed to arrive at justice is fact-based reporting. Coates then shifts into a more journalistic style, giving a straightforward, harrowing account of a 10-day visit he made to Palestine that minces no words (“I would sooner hear a defense of cannibalism than I would of what I saw with my own eyes in Hebron”). This is an incendiary shot fired over the bow of America’s mainstream journalistic establishment.

    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2025

      Coates (Between the World and Me) offers an intensely personal and thought-provoking set of three interlinked essays examining race, identity, storytelling, writing, and political morality. Narrating his own work, Coates weaves together cultural commentary with personal anecdotes and historical context, transporting listeners to Dakar, Senegal, where enslaved Africans embarked on ghastly voyages across the sea; to Chapin, SC, where he encountered white allies who spoke up against the banning of Between the World and Me; and to Palestine, where the brutal conditions of occupation forced him to reconsider his approach to reporting, writing, and bearing witness. Coates's voice brings power to his words and allows for an intimate and unmediated encounter with his ideas. Coates's delivery is measured, allowing listeners to absorb each phrase fully. His contemplative tone provides moments of quiet reflection, and his voice reveals his passion for the subject matter. The narration brings an added layer of depth, clarity, and warmth to an already powerful work. VERDICT Written at a pivotal time in history, this magnificent work addresses the pressing need to break free from destructive myths and envision a more just future. An essential and impactful listening experience.--Susan McClellan

      Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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