Culture & Society Editor, Editors Reads
Aisha Patel reviews books about society, culture, and the forces that structure human experience — race, gender, class, power, and the institutions that reproduce them. As Culture & Society Editor at Editors Reads, she covers sociology, cultural criticism, and books that examine the world with the tools of social science but the ambition of reaching a general reader. She is particularly drawn to writers who are rigorous about evidence and unafraid of implication.
by Isabel Wilkerson
A searing analysis of America's unspoken caste system, comparing it to India's caste system and Nazi Germany's racial hierarchy to illuminate the structural foundations of inequality.
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by Kahlil Gibran
A prose-poetry masterpiece in which the prophet Almustafa offers wisdom on love, marriage, children, work, freedom, death, and the nature of good and evil before departing on a ship — one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century.
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by Steven D. Levitt
An economist and a journalist explore the hidden side of everything — using data and economic analysis to expose unexpected truths about sumo wrestling, real estate agents, crime, and parenting.
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by Fatema Mernissi
Mernissi's most scholarly work — a feminist reading of Islamic sacred texts arguing that the veil and the seclusion of women were political decisions made by the male elite in the early Islamic period, not divine commandments.
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by Fatema Mernissi
Fatema Mernissi explores the different versions of Scheherazade that Western and Eastern cultures have created — arguing that the Western harem fantasy reveals more about Western fears than about Eastern reality.
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by Paulo Coelho
Maria, a young Brazilian woman, travels to Geneva dreaming of fame and fortune. Instead, she becomes a high-end prostitute, all while searching for — and philosophising about — the nature of love, desire, and the sacred in the profane.
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by Paulo Coelho
Brida O'Fern is a young Irish woman driven by a hunger for spiritual knowledge. She seeks out two teachers — a wise man in the forest and a witch who teaches through the Wiccan Tradition of the Sun — in search of magic, purpose, and her soulmate.
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by Paulo Coelho
A world-famous author — unmistakably Coelho himself — wakes one day to find that his war-correspondent wife Esther has disappeared, seemingly of her own will. His obsessive search for her, and for the meaning behind her departure, takes him from Paris to the steppes of Central Asia.
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Where to start with Isabel Wilkerson — whether to begin with The Warmth of Other Suns, Caste, or both. A complete reading guide to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
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Where to start with Malcolm X — how to approach The Autobiography of Malcolm X, one of the most powerful American autobiographies ever written. A complete reading guide.
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Where to start with Michelle Alexander — how to approach The New Jim Crow, her essential book on mass incarceration and racial caste. A complete reading guide.
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Where to start with Rebecca Solnit — whether to begin with Men Explain Things to Me or A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A complete reading guide to the essayist.
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Where to start with Roxane Gay — whether to begin with Bad Feminist or Hunger. A complete reading guide to the cultural critic, essayist, and author.
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The best African American literature — from Beloved and Invisible Man to The Color Purple and Song of Solomon. The most essential works in the Black literary tradition.
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The best books about civil rights and activism — from The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Long Walk to Freedom to Between the World and Me and The New Jim Crow.
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The best books about class and inequality — from The Grapes of Wrath and Les Misérables to Hillbilly Elegy and Normal People. Literature on poverty, privilege, and social mobility.
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The best books about criminal justice — from The New Jim Crow and In Cold Blood to Caste and Between the World and Me. Race, law, and the American justice system.
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The best books about gender and feminism — from A Room of One's Own and The Handmaid's Tale to Bad Feminist and We Should All Be Feminists. Essential reading.
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The best books about identity — from Invisible Man and Middlesex to Americanah and White Teeth. Literature on race, gender, culture, and who we are.
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The best books about music and art — from High Fidelity and Just Kids to The Goldfinch and The Noise of Time. Fiction and memoir about creativity and artistic life.
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