Books Are Forever

A defiant holiday gift guide

One of the weirdest jobs I ever had was just out of college when I spent a year running a community education project for children on homelessness. The job wasn’t particularly weird in and of itself, but it did put me in some odd situations. Like the time I was the featured speaker at an elementary school holiday assembly, appearing between a middle school chorus and a troop of uni-cyclers, talking about homelessness and the holidays.

I stood up in front of a gym full of little kids sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the polished floor and asked, “How many of you celebrate Christmas?” Predictably, many hands shot into the air. Then I asked, “How many of you celebrate Hannukah?" and fewer hands shot into the air. Finally, I asked, “How many of you celebrate Kwanzaa?” and one lone hand (the only Black teacher standing at the back of the room) hesitantly came up.

“Did you know that all the holidays we celebrate at this time of year started with the story of displaced people? Do you know what homeless people are?” I earnestly trumpeted. (“Unhoused” wasn’t part of anyone’s vocabulary in those days.) “Displaced people!” I then went on to encourage the kids as they were enjoying whatever holiday they celebrated to remember the displaced people in their community and maybe even, with their families, do something to help.

The kids totally got it. Their compassion and understanding beamed out of their faces. The adults, however, mostly glared at me, as if I was sullying the holidays by suggesting the kids actually think about other people in the midst of their celebrating.

Given my continued earnestness around the holidays, it’s probably no surprise that my idea of a gift guide is a list of thoughtful, inspiring books. Specifically, books we’ve discussed here at the newsletter in the last year.

If none of the following books suit your gift-giving needs, you can also check out my lists from previous years (linked below). All of the books are easy to find and shippable through my online bookstore at Bookshop.org. And every purchase generates money for independent bookstores (bonus!).

One of the beautiful things about books is they don’t have to be newly released in order to be the perfect gift. Sometimes an older book is exactly the right thing, in fact. So, without further ado, here is this year’s list of new and old books:

What It Takes To Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World

If I could choose one book published in the last year to be gifted to every single person, it would be this one by Prentis Hemphill. In it, they distill the wisdom gleaned from decades of activism and somatic healing work, as both a practitioner and recipient of care, laying out in a clear and deeply compelling way the necessity for integrating our public work for change with our internal needs for reconciliation and repair. It’s an integrity practice manual, in other words.

If you, or someone you love, is trying to figure out how to be what Hemphill calls a “transitional character”— someone committing themselves to interrupting and transforming familial and cultural patterns of alienation and disembodiment— this is the book you need.

This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended my Marriage and Started My Life

Anyone who has been part of this community for awhile knows that I believe one of the best Substack newsletters out there is Lyz Lenz’s Men Yell At Me. In it, Lenz writes about the political and personal challenges of living as a woman in modern America, particularly as a woman in the Midwest. In This American Ex-Wife, Lenz dives more deeply into the dissolution of her marriage following Trump’s last electoral win, arguing that the institution of heterosexual marriage is designed to subjugate women. Not that individual women (and men) are never capable of formulating more egalitarian partnerships, but that most aren’t managing to, despite any good intentions on behalf of the participants, is a feature, not a bug.

It’s personal, sometimes uncomfortable, but also phenomenally well-researched and considered. Lenz provides receipts! And when she describes the beautiful, imperfect life of love and freedom she has built for herself since leaving her marriage, you feel her triumph. If you, or a woman you know, is contemplating divorce, or even just wondering how to make sense of her marriage, this is the book to read.

Somehow: Thoughts on Love

Author Anne Lamott published her twentieth book in the last year, which is as great as all the others. (And I’m including her early novels, because I’ve read those, too.) If you’ve been living under a rock for the last, say, twenty-five years, then maybe you haven’t encountered Lamott’s work, which (early novels notwithstanding) is a masterclass in creative non-fiction. Over the years, Lamott has walked us through her addiction and recovery, parenting, dating, and navigating complicated family relationships. Lamott is an unapologetic Christian, but in the most openhearted and self-deprecating way you can possibly imagine.

I think she might be a one-woman, redeeming-Christianity’s-reputation-for-the-skeptical-and-baffled-by-it-among-us, marching band.

In this book, Lamott takes on love. Of particular interest to me was her discussion of navigating her son’s addiction and other complicated life choices, since my kids are both on the cusp of adulthood. In doing press for this latest book she had the following to say:

This is the most horrible truth, and I so resent it, but it's an inside job…we can't arrange peace or lasting improvement for the people we love most in the world. They have to find their own ways, their own answers. You can't run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and chapstick on their hero's journey. You have to release them. It's disrespectful not to. And if it's someone else's problem, you probably don't have the answer anyway

Oof. But also, yes.

If you’re a parent, or love a parent, buy this book. If you’re in recovery, or love someone in recovery, buy this book. If you’re a human, or love a human, buy this book.

Sister Outsider

This book of essays by the late, great Audre Lorde has been a favorite of mine since college, and is still as salient today as it was then. In it, you’ll find the essential-reading essay, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. You’ll also find the essay which was the origin of the oft-quoted adage “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” You’ll learn, as Lorde stated, why “your silence will not protect you”, and how modern (White) feminism excludes the complexity of women of color.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs published a biography of Lorde in the last year, Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, which I haven’t yet read but got fantastic reviews. I’m hoping to receive it for Christmas or my birthday. If you’re looking for a two-fer to gift to a woman in your life who’s trying to make sense of this world and her place in it so she can do what needs doing with integrity, Sister Outsider and Survival Is a Promise together might be the ticket.

Of course, if you wanted to gift both a loved one and me, you can buy them a paid subscription to this newsletter. You’ll get to share this newsletter together, and I’ll continue paying my mortgage. Happy holidays to me!

Have a great next week, friends. I hope wherever you are, you’re warm. It’s freezing here and I’m trying not to be too salty about it, but not always succeeding.

XO,

Asha

P.S. Don’t forget! You can find all of these books (and more!) in my online bookstore. It’s an affiliate link, so I’ll get a small portion of any sale, just to be transparent.