Skip to main content

You make this possible. Support our independent, nonprofit newsroom today.

Give Now

Books for a summer of coronavirus

caption: Books laid out across a floor, opened to different pages.
Enlarge Icon
Books laid out across a floor, opened to different pages.

What to read this summer while you’re probably not at the beach. Why the model minority myth must fall for solidarity to rise in its place. And the racist men who still decorate our maps.

Individual segments are available in our podcast stream or at www.kuow.org/record.

COVID Summer books

You’re probably not crowding onto a beach this year for your vacation, and that’s okay, says Pierce County librarian Robin Bradford. Any book is a beach book if you read it on the beach. She and Seattle Review of Books founder Paul Constant shared their book ideas for any time of year.

Dae Shik Kim Hawkins Jr., Why Be a ‘Model Minority’ When You Could Dismantle White Supremacy?

In conversations about race and police violence, the lines are often draw as Black and white. Sometimes Native folks and brown folks are included in the discussion. Often nor mentioned are Asian Americans, and particularly East Asian-Americans. Writer Dae Shik Kim Hawkins Jr. says it’s time for Asian Americans to drop the model minority stereotype in favor of solidarity and liberation.

Knute Berger, 8 Washington counties carry a racist legacy in their names

King County is now named for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – but that didn’t happen without a fight. And there are still eight counties in Washington that bear the names of racist men that won’t be so easy to tweak, says Crosscut editor-at-large Knute Berger.

Why you can trust KUOW