Go into this expecting four reflection essays on the power of words for humanity and systemic injustice. I didn’t read the dust jacket and it took me a second of orientation to Coates’ way of storytelling. Specifically storytelling about storytelling.

I don’t know that everyone needs to read this book per say (although maybe that’s true of the last essay on Palestine), but everyone needs to read Coates. It has a James Baldwin-esq weight to it; a crucial, poetic, resounding voice in the fight for racial equality and exposing revisionist history.