How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – Link

My senior year of high school, I took a class where each week we had guest speakers come in and share their success stories. At the end of every speaker’s speech as people were filing out of the classroom, I stopped each one and asked them which book they would recommend or they thought every student should read. This book was by far the most recommended one, and when I say by far, I mean almost every speaker that came in told me to read this book. After reading it, I can easily say that this book has caused me to approach my relationships — both intimate and estranged — completely differently. It has changed the way I approach conversations and has shown me the psychological tricks that no one tells you about. A trick that I now implement as much as I can in my everyday life is using and remembering names. Just the act of remembering someone’s name and taking the time to say their name as many times in conversation as possible will make that person feel more listened to and inadvertently will cause them to like you more.

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn – Link

During my senior year of high school, I participated in a program called Compass where members were matched with a mentor. Throughout the duration of senior year, we were expected to complete a task with our mentor that encouraged personal growth. My mentor was a retired children’s book author. In our first meeting, we discussed the power of books and how some books are better read over and over again because each time you walk away with a new understating of what was said. I asked him which books rocked his soul like this and without hesitation he named this book by Howard Zinn. He picked the perfect book. Now, I never enjoyed history in school, but the history in this book is not the same history that is taught in school. This is the history that schools cover up, the stories of migrant workers and Native Americans and women. A story where Chrisphor Columbus is not the hero; the bloody unjust truth behind how America, as we know it, came to be.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander – Link

I first read this my junior year of high school for AP Language, by far the most challenging class I ever have taken and my favorite class I have even taken. After George Floyd died less than 20 minutes from where I live, I read it again. There’s no good way to explain how I have carried the contents of this book with me in my everyday life without an example. At the memorial created in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death, my family set up a little table with hundreds of voter registration pamphlets. One fleeting moment will stick with me. I remember asking a black man walking by if he was registered to vote or if he wanted to sign up. He replied, “I got six more weeks and then you bet I’ll be registering” while lifting up his pant legs to reveal an ankle monitor. For those of you who are unaware, Minnesota’s voting laws prohibit voting from anyone currently on probation, parole, or supervised release. At the same time, my mother helped two white men fill out the forms beside me. I’m not sure why this moment is engraved in my mind, it might have been his knowledge of when he would be allowed to vote, something I never took the time to think about previous to this book, but I think it’s more my realization that some people live the truth of this book everyday while others (like the men my mother helped) live their lives never knowing.

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey – Link

This is the first book I read of real and raw pain. I think books allow us to live portions of other people’s lives and in doing so, we learn and grow a little more than if we only live our own life. Although there is some controversy over the legitimacy of this book, the way it’s written, regardless of the truth behind it, is powerful. I’m a firm believer that perspective grants empathy and the perspective that I gained from this book is one very different than my own life. I actually read this for the first time as a freshman in high school and think that it’s helped shape my personal views now on drug abuse and rehabilitation. As an outsider and someone who has never struggled with substances, it’s easy to believe that if someone who wants to get better they just will and those who don’t want to get better won’t. Jame’s personal account of his own abuse and rehabilitation illuminate just how impossible recovery feels most days and how strong willed an addict needs to be in order to recover.