Episode 26 - Challenging for Some, Liberating for Me With Cat Shieh

Books with Betsy

On this episode, Cat Shieh, a Caliornian transplant to Chicago and former ethnic studies professor, discusses her hesitancy when people ask for recommendations and recommend books to her. She’s not afraid to drink the haterade, give a hot take, and make me guess what her answer is going to be to my questions. We talk about sad books (about reality) and some of our shared pet peeves about the reading world.

Here is the Claudia Rankine excerpt that Cat read on the episode.

Books mentioned in this episode:

What Betsy’s reading:

Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson, trans. Saskia Vogel

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Books Highlighted by Cat:

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris

NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette by Nathan Pyle

A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata

Red State Revolt: The Teacher’s Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics by Eric Blanc

Pruitt-Igoe by Bob Hansman

Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue by Nicholas Teich

White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America by Margaret Hagerman

The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall

The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde

All books available on my Bookshop.org episode page.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chan

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib

Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico by Rick Bayless

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin Diangelo

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by Eve L. Ewing

Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle

How to Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love

Serve the People; Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen L. Ishizuka & Jeff Chang

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race by Anthony Christian Ocampo