There are many wonderful books that help us to learn about the historical and current day underpinnings that maintain human inequities. There are some books that inspire and challenge us to turn us and them into we. Here are 8 good reads that have given me new insights and inspired me to have a little more hope for a better future for all of us.

The 1619 Project Created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Every page of this beautifully crafted book loaded with brilliant essays on the origin of the United States, moving poetry and fiction, and pictures that add to our understanding, is so worth the hours spent reading or listening to this book. If you only have time to read the Preface Origins, and Chapter 18 Justice, both by Nikole Hannah-Jones. Do so. Her words inform and inspire.

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Come Together by Heather McGhee

This is a great analysis of how systemic racism not only impacts BIPOC but also Whites. McGhee covers a lot (community, climate change, voting suppression and the fight for $15 minimum wage) demonstrating how shared facts and leveling the playing field will help us refill the pool of public goods.

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

Those of you who have life long friends of a different race and with whom you have had tough conversations during this time of racial reckoning will find this novel spot on. Do not read it for its literary strength but for understanding the emotional dynamics that occur between Black and White women. Was someone ease dropping in my conversations with White women friends? A realistic and hopeful account of the tensions between Black and White women as they struggle to love and be authentic.

Facism, A Warning by Madeleine Albright

Reading this book scared the bejeebies outta me. It’s an excellent chronicling of the history of Facism by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright whose clear and measured bipartisan thinking and clean writing style makes a complex ideology very easy to understand. Her sayings, analogies, and metaphors are memorable (easier to oppose than propose; rather choose a strong and wrong leader than a right and weak; When rabbis are accused of answering every question with a question, they typically respond, “And why do you think that is?”In the Gospels, Jesus asked 40 questions for every declarative statement he made.) The warning is really more about how we are moving away from our humanity and how Albright frames getting back on course is what makes it inspiring and hopeful.

The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations by Robert Livingston

Lots of good solid data and neuroscience in this book, yet is an easy read because of the everyday examples. Livingston’s PRESS Model is one worth knowing and implementing: Problem Awareness, Root Cause Analysis, Empathy, Strategy, and Sacrifice.

Honor by Thrity Umrigar

This novel, about an Indian woman who has lived in the U.S. since her teens and goes back to India as a journalist to cover a story about a woman who dishonors her family by marrying Muslim and is dealing with its brutal consequences, is a hard read from an emotional aspect. Umrigar is a brilliant writer (The Spaces Between Us remains my #1 favorite book) who touches every sense with her words and how she makes her characters’ emotions unravel as they do in everyday life. Yet, this story with all of it complexities gets us to we by reminding us that our shared core identity is that of being human. It inspires us to be better humans for other humans.

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein

I read this book over a year ago and quote from it almost every month. It’s an excellent analysis of our current polarized society through the lens of identity. As a Getting To We person, having all of the reasons for our polarization so clearly outlined is a bit discouraging but enlightening as it helps one to see the needed role of the better humans movement. I found the sections on identity triggers, depolarizing ourselves, and identity mindfulness (being mindful of how our identities are being activated) practical and helpful.

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

Even if you are not a poetry reader, you should read this book. It is written by Amanda Gorman. Enough said.