the feminist librarian reads

Between the World and Me should be seen, at least partially, as an intellectual autobiography. Considering that Coates’ blog space on The Atlantic Monthly’s website has been a chronicle of his journey through history, reading, and encountering new books, we should not be surprised. But Between the World and Me as an intellectual autobiography speaks to both the importance of people and place in the construction—and reconstruction—of any person’s intellectual background. When paired with The Beautiful Struggle, Coates’ first book and a memoir about his life in Baltimore, readers vicariously experience an African American man’s intellectual quest shaped by the War on Drugs and the debates over multiculturalism in the 1980s and 1990s. Coates’ time at Howard University looms large here.