The Stacks

Today Jonathan Abrams joins The Stacks to discuss his third book The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop . In unpacking the massive undertaking, the NYT staff writer and sports reporter addresses what goes into crafting a good oral history, and why he wanted to tell this particular story now. Plus, we get into the best diss tracks and rap beefs of all time. The Stacks Book Club selecti...

Renowned sports journalist Jemele Hill joins the show to discuss her powerful new book Uphill: A Memoir . We talk about how she organized and thought about telling her story, how she cultivated he sources as a journalist. Jemele also reveals how she navigates the challenging relationship between her own identity as a Black woman and the world of sports. The Stacks Book Club selection for November...

Today we welcome Mariame Kaba - activist and author of the book We Do This 'Til We Free Us : Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice , and her latest, No More Police: A Case for Abolition , which she cowrote with Andrea J. Ritchie. In discussing her lifelong devotion to anti-violence, we learn why Mariame doesn't center herself in the work toward abolition, and why she does not consider h...

Today professor and author Anthony Christian Ocampo returns to unpack the memoir Fairest by Meredith Talusan. The book is about Talusan's childhood in the Philippines, immigration to the US, experiences at Harvard, and eventual transition. Traci and Anthony discuss the subjective nature of beauty, and what it means to have an author reckon with their past in a memoir. They differ considerably on t...

Today we welcome Pakistani-British writer Kamila Shamsie, author of the new novel Best of Friends and past The Stacks Book Club pick, Home Fire . We discuss the shifting of global political climates, the idea of 'girl fear' and Kamila stresses the importance of giving new writers a chance to mature, and we tackle the question, "How do you write after success?" The Stacks Book Club selection for Oc...

Actor, activist and Traci's very dear college friend Brandon Kyle Goodman joins The Stacks to talk about their new book You Gotta Be You: How to Embrace This Messy Life and Step Into Who You Really Are . Together, we ponder its central question: "Who would I be if society never got its hands on me?" We also discuss manipulative friendships, chosen family, pronouns and Brandon's experiences coming...

This episode, we speak with Anthony Christian Ocampo, Ph. D - sociology professor and author of Brown and Gay in LA : The Lives of Immigrant Sons , an homage to second-generation gay men of color. We discuss the delicate art of writing as an academic while making the work accessible to laypeople, and why Anthony puts himself in his work. We also cover talking bad about books, and current renaissan...

Today, publisher Lisa Lucas returns to help us break down the 2021 crime novel The Trees by Percival Everett. In discussing the page-turning thriller, we admire the brilliance of the humor and history on every page, and the mastery Percival Everett himself. We also ask questions around the future, past, and present of the United States in the face of palpable political tensions. There are spoilers...

Today we speak with Saeed Jones - award-winning author of the new poetry collection Alive at the End of the World . Our conversation covers the art of embracing chaos and finding humor, and how Saeed considers his poems in relation to the reading and the performance of poetry. Saeed also explains why he thinks of all his poems as traps.  The Stacks Book Club selection for September is  ...

Andrea Elliott joins us to discuss her investigative reporting career and her Pulitzer Prize winning book Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City . We go over how this remarkable story came to be, and how it shifted from what Andrea first anticipated. We also get into what can and should change about the ethics of journalism, and the challenge of protecting children from...

Lisa Lucas, Senior Vice President at Pantheon and Schocken, is our first ever book publisher to join the podcast. We discuss the path that led Lisa to her current role and how she sees book purchasing as integral to the push for diversity in publishing. We also talk about what inclusivity does and should mean in the world of books. The Stacks Book Club selection for September is The Trees by Perci...

Author Ingrid Rojas Contreras joins us again to talk about our book club selection How to Write An Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee. Our discussion of this essay collection covers the artists' relationship to critical reviews, and how much day jobs and everyday life inform art. We also ask, how important is truth to fiction, and what constitutes a life well-lived?  You can find everyt...

Award-winning novelist Mohsin Hamid joins this episode of The Stacks to talk about his newest book The Last White Man . We discuss what inspired the story, his exploration of how whiteness works through fiction, and the ongoing conversation between a reader and the author. We also get into Mohsin's monastic writing rituals, his elite professors, and how his writing fills a need in his understandin...

Today we're joined by entrepreneur and author Marisa Renee Lee, whose book Grief is Love: Living with Loss offers a framework for healing after tragedy. We discuss grief's connection to capitalism and white supremacy, and how our relationship with love is connected to our relationship with loss. We also ask, how can we help people who are grieving, and why are Americans so bad at it?  The Sta...

Emmy Award winner W. Kamau Bell and bestselling author Kate Schatz visit The Stacks to discuss their joint effort Do the Work!: An Antiracist Activity Book . They break down how the process of co-writing, how they decided to write for white audiences, and explain why we need an adult activity book for antiracism in the first place. We also ask, what do we do when we mess up; what makes a good apol...

We're joined today by novelist and essayist Ingrid Rojas Contreras, whose new book The Man Who Could Move Clouds combines memoir with rich storytelling and an excavation of family and Colombian history. We discuss magical realism as a nonfiction genre, why it's useful to believe in ghosts, and ask the question, what responsibility do we owe to our pasts? The Stacks Book Club selection for August i...

It's The Stacks Book Club day, and we're discussing the classic Sudanese novel, Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih. We're joined again by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, author of Son of Elsewhere , to break down this novel that explores the tensions at the heart of colonialism. We also discuss the ways we project current events onto classic literature, how important an author's own biography is...

Poet and author Erika L. Sánchez joins The Stacks to discuss Crying in the Bathroom , her new memoir about growing up in the 90s as a misfit daughter of Mexican immigrants. We talk about religion and mental health, being loud and funny, and finally feeling ready to write about difficult topics. The Stacks Book Club selection for July is Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih. We will disc...

Today we speak with journalist and professor Caleb Gayle about his new book We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power . In our discussion of his career and American history, we cover Black people in the Creek Nation, forty acres and a mule, and what it means to be a citizen. We also ask why we are so consistently taught not to remember, and who benefits from o...

Our guest for this episode is Elamin Abdelmahmoud - political and cultural commentator, Buzzfeed News senior culture writer and author of the new essay collection Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces . We discuss the meaning of "elsewhere" in his work, and the complexity of loving something that doesn't align with your politics. We also get into Black music, and great books on music. The Stacks Bo...

Journalist and author , David Dennis Jr. returns to discuss our June Book Club pick White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue... And Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson. Together we unpack writing for the white gaze, our feelings about (anti) racism since 2020, and the long tradition of categorizing Black artists as "urban" and white artists as "mainstream" no matte...

Today we're joined by Justin Tinsley, senior culture writer at ESPN’s Andscape and author of the new book It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him . We talk about the culture, legends, women, and controversies that shaped The Notorious B.I.G.'s life, and place his story into a greater context. Justin also shares how he worked on multiple projects while writing this book, and what he...

This episode we talk with Oakland native and 2018 youth poet laureate Leila Mottley about writing her debut novel Nightcrawling at 17, and the process of adapting a true story to fiction. Leila imagines how it would be different if she wrote the book now, and insists she's really not exceptional among the countless talented young writers out there. *Note: This was recorded shortly before the annou...

Today we speak with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson - academic, minister and author - about his new book Unequal: A Story About America , which he co-wrote with Marc Favreau. We discuss the lies around bootstrap politics and personal responsibility, and our culture's hunger for all things history (except when it's by or about Black people). We also examine how the white gaze shapes how Black history is tau...

This episode we hear from cultural critic David Dennis, Jr - Senior Writer at ESPN’s Andscape and author of the new book The Movement Made Us: A Father, a Son, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride . We talk about the similarities and differences between Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights Movement, the book that inspired David's storytelling, and what it means to survive when you're planning to di...