Ep. 171 Trusting in Optimism with Mira Jacob

Mira Jacob is an author, illustrator, and cultural critic. Her 2019 graphic memoir, Good Talk, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her writing can be found in places like The New York Times Book Review and Vogue. Today we talk with Mira about the ways optimism is a form of bravery, the alignment of form, function, and story, and the system that leads to authors writing blurbs for books.

The Stacks Book Club selection for July is The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. We will discuss the book with Mira Jacob on Wednesday July 28th.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

• The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob

• Good Talk by Mira Jacob

• Saeed Jones

• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

• Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson

• Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

• Field Study by Chet'la Sebree 

• Citizen by Claudia Rankine

• Jenny Offill

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy 

• Seek You by Kristen Radtke

• Ulysses by James Joyce

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

• Khabaar by Madhushree Ghosh

• Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu

• Damon Young

• Kaitlyn Greenindge

• Kerri K. Greenidge

• The Greatest Marlys by Linda Berry

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

• Sweet Valley High Series

• Heavy by Kiese Laymon

• The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

• Lupita Aquino (@lupita.reads)

• Michael Jackson

• Buzzfeed

• Wacom Tablet

• 100 Notable Books of 2019 (The New York Times)

• Equal Justice Initiative

• "Ep. 165 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy -- The Stacks Book Club (Jenny Lee)" (The Stacks)

• "The Short Stacks 12: Damon Young//What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker" (The Stacks)

• "What It Is I Think I'm Doing" Kaitlyn Greenidge on Substack

• "Ep. 3 Talking Books with Sarah Fong" (The Stacks)

• Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)

• Cafe con Libros (Brooklyn, NY)

• Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuaron, 1998)

• Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994)

• Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019)

• By the Book (The New York Times)

• "Mira Jacob, Kiese Laymon, and Saeed Jones on the Art of Memoir" (Bookable, LitHub)

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