
If you told me you didn’t play pretend as a child, I wouldn’t believe you. Even as adults, a made-up world from our imagination is probably better than what we have going for us in reality.
It’s been established that authors create worlds within their stories—even if the story is nonfiction—because there is always another way to view a situation. That’s exactly what this week’s authors accomplished; for starters, James Baldwin’s The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948-1985 has been published as a paperback for the first time with an additional 46 essays to show readers another side to his wisdom. Charles M. Blow’s The Devil You Know is also now available in paperback, and though he never wanted to write a “race book,” he effectively crafts a new narrative and thesis to grapple with Black disenfranchisement, which he spoke about The Root’s literary podcast, The Root Presents: It’s Lit!
Fictional worlds created include a fake dating love story (a trope that is being widely written about lately) in The Dating Playbook by Farrah Rochan. Jay Coles’ Things We Couldn’t Say shows us a world the main character creates to escape from the struggles he is facing.
Let’s face it: it’s incredibly hard not to just close our eyes and dream up a world where things could be better. Thankfully, these authors put those thoughts and words on the page for you to read.