As summer winds down and students of all ages prepare for a new school year, we’ve created our very own back-to-school “curriculum.” Here are SiX staffers recommendations for what to read or watch this fall.
Jump to:
📚 Nonfiction Books
🪄 Fiction Books
💭 Other Reads
📺 TV Shows
🎥 Films
What We’re Reading
Nonfiction books
- The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee
- Decoding Greatness: The Hidden Strategy for Achieving Extraordinary Success by Ron Friedman
- Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari
- The Echoing Ida Collection edited by Cynthia R. Greenlee, Kemi Alabi, and Janna A. Zinzi
- How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest by Zeynep Tufekci
- On Gold Mountain by Lisa See
- The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War by Jonathan Daniel Wells
- The Bold World by Jodie Patterson
- Denmark Vesey: The Buried Story of America’s Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It by David Robertson
Fiction Books
- Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
- Memorial by Brian Washington
Other Reads
- Nap Ministry (Website)
- “The 7 types of rest that every person needs” by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD (Article)
- “What to do About Ahav?” by Hannah Dreier
The framework of rest as a right really resonates with me and serves as a powerful reminder of the central role rest plays in our collective liberation.
I see myself as a documentary aficionado so I chose to share quite a few documentaries that range in topic but also have good takeaways that anyone can learn from. The more we learn…the more we grow.
I think we should enjoy the lives that we are fighting for. For most of my life, I believed that rest was a reward (always to come later), and this led to harmful patterns of exhaustion, burnout and showing up without the energy needed to take on the big challenges I faced as a leader.
I am making a shift to the idea that rest is right, and restful leaders are powerful leaders. This article gives me language and daily tools to build rest into my leadership practice – in big and small ways.
I am making a shift to the idea that rest is right, and restful leaders are powerful leaders. This article gives me language and daily tools to build rest into my leadership practice – in big and small ways.
Ted Lasso is a brilliant, funny, and heartwarming story of transformative leadership through grounded empathy and optimism. In a field that requires team building as much as politics does, you may be surprised how much you learn from Coach Lasso about connecting and building genuine relationships instead of transactional ones.
This collection is the perfect summer read because you can dip into one stand alone article at a time, or sink into meaty sections of work like birth justice, family matters, or naked power.
What We’re Watching
TV
- Generation Hustle (HBO Max)
- This is Life with Lisa Ling (CNN)
- Ted Lasso (Apple TV)
- Blindspotting (Starz)
- Amend: The Fight for America (Netflix)
Film
- Tina (HBO)
- Right to Harm
- Gather
- Mary J. Blige’s My Life (Amazon Prime Video)
- Remothering the Land (Patagonia)
- The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (HBO)
- Crack: Cocaine, Corruption, and Conspiracy (Netflix)
- The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (Netflix)
