You’ll be able to start some tough convos at this month’s Zoom book-club meeting. The latest Oprah’s Book Club selection is Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, a nonfiction book that examines the human divides that shape America’s “unspoken†caste system. “Every book I’ve ever chosen for an Oprah’s Book Club selection I’ve done with care and with passion, but I don’t think there has been another pick that has been as vital as this one,†Oprah Winfrey said in her announcement on Twitter. “This book might well save us. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson is a must-read for humanity.â€
Wilkerson, a journalist and the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in journalism, is already a best-selling author for 2010’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. “I am honored and thrilled that Caste has been chosen for Oprah’s Book Club and that its humanitarian insights will now reach a wider audience,†Wilkerson said in a statement. “This work shows that the term racism may be insufficient in our current era. We need new language, a new framework for understanding our divisions and how we got to where we are. Caste gives us this language. Caste allows us to see ourselves through a different lens and the chance to work toward healing from the wounds of artificial hierarchy. We must first see it to begin to resolve it.†Caste is out August 4, 2020, so you can start that journey today.