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The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates
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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.
“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press.
“Coates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing. Brilliant and timely.”—Booklist (starred review).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Vanity Fair. Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.
In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.
Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
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Posts about this title from Boundless Press
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Apr 15 2025
POV: the books are less than $10 so you have to buy them all 😭 a book haul
I should not be allowed near a bookstore.
15 books
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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Apr 7 2025
the 13 books i read in march | monthly reading wrapup + reading stats
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faqs 📇 how do you pronounce your name? JEN-nuh-nee (like a knee!)
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Posts about this book from across Bindery
Bien Leidos\ \ tomesandtextiles\ \ • Oct 5 2025
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BANNED BOOKS WEEK EVENT: TAMPA, FL
Replying to @mell59880 if you’re in or around Tampa, you can catch @The Librarians Film at Sun-Ray Cinema at 7:30PM @Rachel Hannah📚 @FL Freedom to Read Project #thelibrarians #tampabay #tampathingstodo #tampa #tomesandtextiles
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Bien Leidos\ \ tomesandtextiles\ \ • Jul 8 2025
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Replying to @Owen part 11: The Message by Tanehisi Coates #nonfictionbooktok #tiktokshop #tomesandtextiles
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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Apr 15 2025
POV: the books are less than $10 so you have to buy them all 😭 a book haul
I should not be allowed near a bookstore.
15 books
7
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Apr 7 2025
the 13 books i read in march | monthly reading wrapup + reading stats
🎀 My Etsy Shop 🎀 https://thisstoryaintover.etsy.com
My Everand Affiliate link: https://everand.pxf.io/6yAjxG
🔗 ALL MY LINKS: https://linktr.ee/jananie 📚 Boundless Press & DUST SETTLES NORTH: https://linktr.ee/boundlesspress
💌 business/sponsorship inquiries: tamara@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 anything else: thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 📇 how do you pronounce your name? JEN-nuh-nee (like a knee!)
sub count: 📊 103,180
12 books
4
JemilaBeReadin\ \ JemilaBeReadin\ \ • Feb 20 2025
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You can find trigger/content warnings here: \* Storygraph \* https://booktriggerwarnings.com/index.php?title=Welcome
PETITIONS & FUNDRAISERS: \* Support Palestine: https://linktr.ee/resourcesforpalestine \* Operation Olive Branch: https://www.instagram.com/operationolivebranch/?hl=en \* Black Lives Matter: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ \* Around the World: https://the2020world.carrd.co/ \* Help the Quileute Tribe Move to High Ground: https://mthg.org/ \* Tigray Crisis: https://linktr.ee/Tigraycrisis
FIND ME ELSEWHERE: 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jemilabereadin/ 🤳🏾 TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdMBQSbg/ 🐥 Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/jemilando 📚 Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4150099-jemila 📧 Email: jemilabereadin@gmail.com
OUTRO: \* Outro Music by Sejji Bonz https://bit.ly/3oG668L \* Outro Template by Sukhasha Dhar https://bit.ly/3nEQHED
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JemilaBeReadin\ \ JemilaBeReadin\ \ • Feb 20 2025
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You can find trigger/content warnings here: \* Storygraph \* https://booktriggerwarnings.com/index.php?title=Welcome
OUTRO: \* Outro Music by Sejji Bonz https://bit.ly/3oG668L \* Outro Template by Sukhasha Dhar https://bit.ly/3nEQHED
11 books
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Sapph-Lit\ \ Nina\ \ • Jan 21 2025
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Books for the next 4 years & beyond!
me & my pile of books against the world 🥺 i’ve only read about 10 of these and have built the rest of this TBR thanks to booktok 💗 information is power, literacy is political (duh) and we take care of each other
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The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Dec 31 2024
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Here’s a look back at our Inky Phoenix 2024 highlights!
7 books
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Ezeekat Press\ \ Jaysen\ \ • Dec 1 2024
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This was a very fun reading wrap-up to make and I hope you all enjoy the shift into some Non-Fiction Reads!! Let me know what you read that you loved this month, or if you've read any of these books!!
Books Featured in this Video:
Flopping In a Water Wonderland by Jason June Darkly by Marisha Pessl Orbital by Samantha Harvey Wicked by Gregory Maguire The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates Underland by Robert Macfarlane Jesus And John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Men Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima
My Other Places:
Discord: https://discord.gg/5QqNANjdc7 Ezeekat Press Subscriber Community: https://ezeekat.binderybooks.com/ Fable Book Club: https://fable.co/club/ezeekats-book-club-with-ezeekat-332055432165 Fable Anime Club: https://fable.co/club/ezeekats-anime-club-with-ezeekat-513994156898
8 books