Books really can change the world, I really truly believe that.
So, to get you feeling empowered, this Book Break video is packed full of 9 book recommendations
about protests and revolutions and hope.
It's a real mix of fiction and nonfiction, poetry and prose, books aimed at adults, books
aimed at teenagers, but all of them should help you feel really positive about the world.
So I'm starting with The Citadel by AJ Cronin, because this is such a good example of how
books can actually lead to real change.
So this is a novel from the 1930s, but it's been credited with actually laying the foundation
for the NHS to be set up a decade later.
So the novel is about a young doctor in a Welsh mining town, and it raises loads of
questions about medical ethics, including talking about a socialised healthcare system,
which he contrasts to the really high fees and exclusivity of the Harley Street practices.
And this book was really popular and there was so much conversation around it, that a
lot of people believe it actually had a really big impact, in laying the groundwork for people
to be ready for the NHS.
And decades later, this is still so relevant, now we have books like This Is Going to Hurt
by Adam Kay, which continue to stress the importance of looking after our NHS.
Next, an essay collection, Funny Weather by Olivia Laing.
So the funny weather of the title refers to the funny political climate which is so turbulent
and ever-changing in the 21st century.
But what Olivia Laing is saying with these essays is that throughout all of it, art stays
incredibly important, both to our political lives, but also as a constant in our emotional
lives.
So this is a really wide ranging collection of essays, it's got interviews, love letters,
profiles of public figures, but the whole thing is this celebration of art as a form
of resistance.
And a way to change the way we see the world, as well as actually changing the world itself.
And then there's Rules for Being a Girl by Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno.
Yes, that Candace Bushnell, as in the writer of Sex and the City.
So this is a YA book about a teenage girl who takes matters into her own hands after
a teacher at her school comes on to her but nobody believes her.
So she writes this list of the rules for being a girl, which really exposes the misogyny
at her school and in the wider world.
So the rules a lot of you will find very recognisable, it says things like 'don't be easy, don't
give it up, don't be a prude, don't be cold, don't put him in the friend zone, don't act
desperate, don't let things go too far, don't give him the wrong idea, don't blame him for
trying, don't walk alone at night, but calm down, don't worry so much, smile!'
So a lot of those will sound very familiar to a lot of us who've been told those all
our lives, so she writes this list and publishes it in her school newspaper, she also goes
on to set up a feminist book club at her school, so it's this really empowering novel about
bringing together allies to speak up on an issue, and change the rules.
And next, some poetry.
Be the Change: Poems to Help You Save the World, is an anthology of poems by Liz Brownlee,
Roger Stevens, and Matt Goodfellow.
So this is a collection of really really empowering poetry, aimed primarily at younger readers
but there is definitely something in there for all of us.
There are poems in here to cover basically all of the UN Sustainable Development goals,
raising awareness of all of the climate problems we're facing, but also offering hope and suggested
action.
So this is great for young activists and older activists as well.
And then for some nonfiction, I recommend Reclaiming Our Space by Feminista Jones, the
subtitle here is 'how black feminists are changing the world from the tweets to the
streets'.
So this one is great for when you want to read examples of real positive change being
made, and the real people, the role models, who are making this change happen.
And it's really interesting how much really great activism is happening now online.
So the book talks about massive movements like Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name which
all started as hashtags.
So this means that decades of academic thought about race and class and gender are now being
brought into pop culture, making them so much more accessible and so much more widely discussed.
More and more people are joining these movements and we should all be a part of that.
Next, I've got a couple of novels about protests.
So the first one is Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa, and this
is set in the 1999 World Trade Organisation protests in Seattle.
This book is all set over the course of one afternoon, and it is a lot darker and more
violent than some of the other more positive books I've talked about so far, but I really
wanted to include it, because I think it's a really great nuanced take on activism.
And it centres on one of the biggest and greatest examples of activism in the United States.
So I think it's a really important one to look at.
And then another really great protest novel is The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
This is a YA novel with loads of crossover appeal for adult audiences, I absolutely loved
it.
So this one is about a young black girl called Starr, who right at the beginning her best
friend is killed by a police officer.
The police officer thinks he is pulling out a weapon when he isn't.
And the conversation in the media that follows this is so recognisable, we see this happening
all the time, people sticking up for the police officer because they uncover the fact that
the young black man who was killed was dealing drugs, and was in a gang, and they basically
paint him as anything other than an innocent young black man who was the victim of police
racism.
And the book follows Starr's struggle in the aftermath of this, to decide whether or not
to speak up against this injustice, even though it puts her in really serious danger.
So it is a sad book, it is a scary book, but it's a really empowering book about what protesting
can do.
And then two more nonfiction books to finish off with.
First, Reading Lolita in Tehran.
So this is a memoir by Azar Nafisi, a teacher in Iran, who ran these weekly secret book
groups for some of her female students, where they read forbidden books like Lolita.
So while this was going on, in the world outside their classroom, fundamentalists were seizing
control of the universities, and morality was leading to censorship.
But inside the classroom, these girls were free to escape into these beloved books that
they weren't allowed to read.
So for book lovers in particular this is a really moving book about the power of books
as resilience and resistance in the face of tyranny.
And then my final recommendation is The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates.
So this is a collection of stories of loads of different women from around the world that
Melinda Gates has met and spoken to.
With different jobs, different backgrounds, different goals.
But what we find in common between all of these amazing stories and backed up by a lot
of data, is how empowering women, turning our attention to the issues that mainly face
women, like child marriage, access to contraception, not only lifts up women but lifts up the rest
of the world.
So it's part memoir and it's part a call to action for us all to help make the world a
better place for everybody.
So for even more books like this, we made a video last year on Books to Make a Difference,
so do click through for even more great empowering recommendations.
And we have a whole playlist here of a bunch of our reading recommendations on different
topics so do have a browse through.
And next time on Book Break I'll be bringing you a list of funny books for some much needed
light relief.