About Guerrilla Reads
Reading from the Margins in 2025
Reading is a radical act . . . an act of courage—and faith in better days to come.
Great Books & Great Minds, Diamond-Michael Scott
Guerrilla Reads is a read-along project for people who still believe that reading deeply—especially in hard times—is an act of resistance, revolution, and repair.
Guerrilla Reads are books that are timely, idea-driven, and provocative, written by writers who challenge the status quo, shed light on how power works, and point to what still might be possible. They show us where we are, how we got here, and what people are doing about it. The lens is political, cultural, and unapologetically partisan: left-leaning, liberal-progressive, and anti-authoritarian.
Each read-along post is framed by my own reflections and reading experience: how the book is built, where it comes from, how it works on the page and in the world. This isn’t a casual book chat. It’s a slow, serious conversation about how books matter. My background is in literature and history; I taught for decades, wrote for decades more, and I’m still learning—with you, and from you, and from the books we read together.
New posts follow the rhythm of my reading life, not a fixed calendar. Many of the books I choose are hard to find quickly, especially for library users who often find themselves on a wait list. So I encourage you to build a personal TBR list and return when the time is right. My posts are written to stand on their own and to wait for you. Comments are always open to paid subscribers; the posts themselves are always free to read and share. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, welcome. Let’s read together.
How it works
I like to tie my reading to emerging events and evolving national issues of concern, and I like to read related books, so I get several points of view on the same question. Here is my 2025 list, so far. The dates are approximate, just to keep me on track.
January. Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, by Heather Cox Richardson. On a national level, the historical forces that have created the current threats to the democratic process. Chosen because it clearly outlines the current threats to our fragile American democracy. My posts for this book are 1) here, 2) here, and 3) here.
February. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. The evolving history of the evangelical subculture, leading to the outcomes of the 2016 and 2024 elections: patriarchy, aggressive masculinity, authoritarian governance, intrusion of church into state. Selected because it traces the history of one of the anti-democratic strains in American life, introduced in the previous book. My posts for this book are 1) here, 2) here, and 3) here.
A Guerrilla Reads Extra: Money, Lies, and God, by Katherine Stewart. TjhA review for readers who haven't picked this book up--yet. About who’s behind White Christian Nationalism’s well-designed, carefully constructed political machinery: how and why it was built, who’s paying for it, and what it’s doing to American democracy.
March. Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, by Rachel Maddow. The history of a virulent homegrown, foreign-supported strain of authoritarianism on the far-right rim of political life. Selected because it documents the historical emergence of fascism on the American political scene. My posts are here, here, and here.
April. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson. “The keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far” (New York Times 2020). America’s caste system and its brutal enforcement, compared to that of India and Hitler’s Germany. Selected because it helps us to understand why DEI is under attack by the current administration and how that fits the anti-democratic playbook.
June. Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post, by Martin Baron. The first installment in the story of Jeff Bezos’ takeover of the legacy newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal. This book covers the first Trump term. Now, in the Trump 2.0, many WaPo journalists are leaving—and telling us why. We will follow this important ongoing narrative via additional online readings.
July. The other side of the media story: how the media can create and continue to serve a dictator: Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy, by Brian Stelter.
August. Another book on current media issues, likely on Facebook and social media.
September. Time to change the subject and read about the global threat that the current administration is aiding and abetting? On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America, by Abrahm Lustgarten. Effects of climate change on where we live, likely We may add another book or even two—it’s a hugely important issue with lots of angles, all of them critical and contentious.
September. Another book on climate change, or perhaps on public education? It’s a big bundle of hot issues right now, with the ongoing demolition in the Dept. of Education. Possible selection: The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual, by Jennifer C. Berkshire, Jack Schneider.
I’m always looking for challenging, timely books (nonfiction, maybe fiction) about climate, women’s reproductive health, gender, immigration, agriculture, education, the American diet/food industry. Recent titles preferred because our world is shifting under our feet.
If you’re looking for some challenging reading about our changing world, consider Guerrilla Reads.