5 Books To Broaden Your Social Awareness

As part of the Student Action Series, here are five books to broaden your social awareness. By Maxine Kozak, Writer for RU Student Life.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian / Via theguardian.com

"At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession." (Penguin)

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde

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"This is Audre Lorde's story. It is a rapturous, life-affirming tale of independence, love, work, strength, sexuality and change, rich with poetry and fierce emotional power" (Penguin).

This Accident Of Being Lost: Songs and Stories by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Via ryerson.ca

"This Accident of Being Lost is the knife-sharp new collection of stories and songs from award-winning Nishnaabeg storyteller and writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Blending elements of Nishnaabeg storytelling, science fiction, contemporary realism, and the lyric voice, This Accident of Being Lost burns with a quiet intensity, like a campfire in your backyard, challenging you to reconsider the world you thought you knew" (House of Anansi Press)

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

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"The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, decades after its first publication, the essential portrait of America—particularly California—in the sixties" (Macmillan).

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Anissa Hidouk / Via angiethomas.com

"This big, important novel is fuelled by vividly drawn characters and large themes of systemic racism and speaking truth to power" writes Kathie Meizner for the Washington Post.