The Fire Next Time
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Narrated by:
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Jesse L. Martin
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By:
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James Baldwin
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement in the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. • “The finest essay I’ve ever read.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism.
Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle … all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.
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Critic reviews
"One of the few genuinely indispensable American writers." ( Saturday Review
"Anguished...stabbing...a final plea and warning...to end the racial nightmare." ( Newsweek)
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If You Can Keep It is at once a thrilling review of America's uniqueness, and a sobering reminder that America's greatness cannot continue unless we truly understand what our founding fathers meant for us to be. The book includes a stirring call-to-action for every American to understand the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is America. It also paints a vivid picture of the tremendous fragility of that experiment and explains why that fragility has been dangerously forgotten.
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Exceptional book
- By Trish Legarth on 07-26-16
By: Eric Metaxas
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For Your Own Good
- Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
- By: Alice Miller
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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For Your Own Good, the contemporary classic exploring the serious if not gravely dangerous consequences parental cruelty can bring to bear on children everywhere, is one of the central works by Alice Miller, the celebrated Swiss psychoanalyst. With her typically lucid, strong, and poetic language, Miller investigates the personal stories and case histories of various self-destructive and/or violent individuals to expand on her theories about the long-term effects of abusive child-rearing.
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Should be required reading for everyone
- By Timothy on 05-15-18
By: Alice Miller
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The Fall
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.
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Wow Wow Wow
- By Lauren C on 07-14-21
By: Albert Camus
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Angels All Around Us
- A Sightseeing Guide to the Invisible World
- By: Anthony DeStefano
- Narrated by: Anthony DeStefano
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Everybody has one. It's called a "haunt detector". It's the little alarm that goes off in our heads whenever we detect that something mysterious or supernatural has occurred. You could be sitting around relaxing, and for no special reason you start thinking about someone. Then the phone rings; you pick it up, and amazingly, it's that person! Many of us have experienced this phenomenon.What is it? Anthony DeStefano answers this compelling question in his fascinating new book, The Invisible World.
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Simplistic
- By Margaret on 03-26-12
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Ragamuffin Gospel
- By: Brennan Manning
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Many believers feel stunted in their Christian growth. We beat ourselves up over our failures and, in the process, pull away from God because we subconsciously believe He tallies our defects and hangs His head in disappointment. In this new edition - now with a foreword by Michael W. Smith, testimony by Rich Mullins and the author's own epilogue, "Ragamuffin Ten Years Later," Brennan Manning reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth.
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JUST AS WE ARE, NOT AS WE 'SHOULD' BE
- By Kindle Customer...Tony Chiarilli on 08-30-12
By: Brennan Manning
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Between the World and Me
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race”, a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of Black women and men - bodies exploited through slavery and segregation and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a Black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.
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A Heartfelt Self-aware Literary Masterpiece
- By T Spencer on 07-30-15
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Demian
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Michael A. Smith
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The passionate account of a young man's growing awareness of his own identity, of his involvement in the secret and dangerous world of petty crime, and how, influenced by a precocious schoolmate, he rebels against convention and discovers not only the great joy of independence, but his own new powers for good and evil.
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i came here because of kpop
- By Christine K. on 09-07-16
By: Hermann Hesse
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Demian
- By: Hermann Hesse
- Narrated by: Jason McCoy
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth is a Bildungsroman by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1919; a prologue was added in 1960. Demian was first published under the pseudonym "Emil Sinclair", the name of the narrator of the story, but Hesse was later revealed to be the author.
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A pre-Great War, gnostic, Jungian bildungsroman.
- By Darwin8u on 07-13-12
By: Hermann Hesse
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The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
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Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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Nostalgia
- Going Home in a Homeless World
- By: Anthony Esolen
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.
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Deep and thought provoking.
- By Holly Stockley on 04-24-19
By: Anthony Esolen
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The perfect book for October 2018.
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Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood in Harlem. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.
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Nobody Knows My Name
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James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name records the last months of this famed American writer's 10-year self-exile in Europe, his return to America and to Harlem, and his first trip south at the time of the school integration battles. It contains Baldwin's controversial and intimate profiles of Norman Mailer, Richard Wright, and Ingmar Bergman. And it explores such varied themes as the relations between blacks and whites, the role of blacks in America and in Europe, and the question of sexual identity.
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Excellent on all counts!
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Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of Black life and Black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era.
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The perfect book for October 2018.
- By Kate Willette on 10-03-18
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Now is an extraordinary time. Across the country, people are losing their loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes, and even their own lives to COVID-19. Despite the pandemic, countless protests erupted this summer over the recurring loss of Black lives. Reverberations of shock and outrage remain with us all. There's a Revolution Outside, My Love captures and articulates all of these roiling sentiments unleashed by a profound national reckoning.
By: Tracy K. Smith, and others
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The narrator did her thing, I love it!!!
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A Critical Masterpiece.
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This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent '60s and early '70s displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain - the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his return to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.
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A strange and terrible vehicle
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By: James Baldwin
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Hiding in Plain Sight
- The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America
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The story of Donald Trump’s rise to power is the story of a buried American history - buried because people in power liked it that way. It was visible without being seen, influential without being named, ubiquitous without being overt. Sarah Kendzior’s Hiding in Plain Sight pulls back the veil on a history spanning decades, a history of an American autocrat in the making. In doing so, she reveals how our continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States have been hiding in plain sight for decades.
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Not as good as she thinks it is
- By Douglas A. Greenberg on 05-01-20
By: Sarah Kendzior
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At the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War ended, many, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, believed that democracy had triumphed politically once and for all. Yet nearly 30 years later, the direction of history no longer seems certain. A repressive and destructive force has begun to reemerge on the global stage - sweeping across Europe, parts of Asia, and the United States - that to Albright, looks very much like fascism.
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Warning!
- By JAL on 04-19-18
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Giovanni's Room
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James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel with a new introduction, Giovanni's Room is set in the Paris of the 1950s, where a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David has just proposed marriage to his American girlfriend, but while she is away on a trip he becomes involved in a doomed affair with a bartender named Giovanni.
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Outstanding Narration
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By: James Baldwin, and others
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How Fascism Works
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As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.
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A Warning Too Clear to Ignore
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The Price of the Ticket
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Personal and prophetic, these essays uncover what it means to live in a racist American society with insights that feel as fresh today as they did over the four decades in which he composed them. Longtime Baldwin fans and especially those just discovering his genius will appreciate this essential collection of his great nonfiction writing. Along with 46 additional pieces, it includes the full text of dozens of famous essays from such books as:
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insightful
- By Jose L. Massas on 01-07-23
By: James Baldwin
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Going to Meet the Man
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"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their heads above water.
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Punch in the gut
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By: James Baldwin
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The Souls of Black Folk
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- Unabridged
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“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” writes Du Bois, in one of the most prophetic works in all of American literature. First published in 1903, this collection of 15 essays dared to describe the racism that prevailed at that time in America—and to demand an end to it. Du Bois’ writing draws on his early experiences, from teaching in the hills of Tennessee, to the death of his infant son, to his historic break with the conciliatory position of Booker T. Washington.
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Essays of 'life and love and strife and failure'
- By ESK on 02-08-13
By: W. E. B. Du Bois
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The Feminist Killjoy Handbook
- The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way
- By: Sara Ahmed
- Narrated by: Sara Ahmed
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
Do you refuse to laugh at offensive jokes? Have you ever been accused of ruining dinner by pointing out your companion’s sexist comment? Are you often told to stop being so “woke”? If so, you might be a feminist killjoy—and this handbook is for you. In this book, feminist theorist Sara Ahmed shows how killing joy can be a radical world-making project. Presenting sharp analysis of literature, film, and influential feminist works, and drawing on her own experiences as a queer feminist scholar-activist of color, Ahmed reveals the invaluable lessons of the feminist killjoy.
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Killing joy for a better tomorrow
- By marceleen mosher on 03-22-24
By: Sara Ahmed
What listeners say about The Fire Next Time
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- Nic
- 08-14-15
prophetic
Baldwin's moving sensuality, fullness of presence, and erudition are still relevant to today's white audience.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Buretto
- 03-07-22
Beautiful and powerful
A masterful indictment on racism in America, sadly almost as relevant today as when it was first written. Particularly in condemning the willful colorblindness of White society, which uses it as a shield to inoculate themselves from criticism. Still today, too many think not looking at the problem (from their place of privilege, acknowledged or not), means the problem doesn't exist. I first recall this essay many, many years ago, well into my journey beyond religion, and on the path to recognizing racism in myself and in society.
I'd implore white people to read/listen and take it as a challenge. (In contrast to White people, the former being merely phenotypical description which nonetheless affords privilege, the latter being an overt racial identification, unnecessary for any purpose but to express superiority, and whose adherents need much greater psychic healing). Mr. Baldwin effectively takes to task the fragility of American (read: White) history, in power, sexuality and notions of freedom. But he simultaneously eviscerates the alternative presented by the Nation of Islam, which he essentially dissects and reveals as merely a cynical mirror image of the society at large. A similar surgical critique is needed in white circles. Because, although the author truthfully states, Black people in America know much more about white people than vice versa, neither can give freedom to the other, they must find it for themselves. And here Mr. Baldwin has given a gift to white people, and to White people, if they are willing to listen. A gift of the offer to introspection of your beliefs and what your country believes. I can only hope 60 years on has helped open people's eyes. As Bob Dylan wrote, around the same time as this essay, "How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?"
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- SparklyCiCi
- 11-10-16
You must be ready!
If you can't deal with the truth, what's truly goes on all over the world pertaining to our people (African American.) & the cultural norms for us, don't invest the time. This book is DEEP therefore have an open mind and heart while listening to get a better understanding where our mindset is from this side of the table. Beautifully written and Excellent!
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1 person found this helpful
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- DR
- 02-05-17
Classic
What did you love best about The Fire Next Time?
Baldwin's accurate description of the US, his vulnerability and understanding of the world. He's able to succinctly and clearly communicate his ideas. Many writers lack this.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Fire Next Time?
Baldwin's analysis of religion. On a grand scale as well as his take on the nexus of Christianity and the African American experience.
What about Jesse L. Martin’s performance did you like?
His performance did not get in the way. It may have subtly enhanced the message.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Many people have the intelligence to question things. Few people have the courage to question taboo areas such as religion. Baldwin had both, in a time that was not conducive his positions. To arrive, he underwent a spiritual journey in the truest sense.
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- Mr. Douglas
- 09-10-16
Powerful
It amazes me how America has changed and then how it has not. Socioeconomics must be addressed and Baldwin indicates this.
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- Tom
- 02-26-18
True then, truer now
This was a painful read for a seventeen year old white boy in 1963. I wish it was less painful now. It’s not.
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- L.D.
- 04-22-17
brilliant
One doesn't have to be of any skin color to recognize we are all one race one people. To have white skin and see the suffering and prejudice of any fellow human is...well there is no word to express this sorrow. James comes as close as anyone to explaining how skin color has corrupted so many. The continuation of this sorrowful condition of our present humanity is ignorant beyond the belief of what we know of our brains' capacity for empathy, compassion and understanding--basic intelligence. When will we wake, for heaven's sake?
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- Linda
- 10-27-17
Powerful insight!
James Baldwin was born at a time when equality was not given. He dealt with so many awful situations that could break someone who was not so strong minded. I was powerfully moved by his take on the state of black people during the timing of this book. I was totally impressed that he left the country in order to find happiness.
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- Freddykeagle
- 10-13-17
Excellent Read
This is a magnificent account of the history of black America. The pain of the people written like poetry.
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- Adam Miller
- 11-12-17
Incredible writing, all too truthful story
Beautiful writing style. I want to find more of his stuff. Sadly, it’s true, his incrimination - well expressed - of (white) America and (white) people. While still retaining hope.
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