-
World-renowned author and visionary bell hooks offers a critical insight on self-esteem as one of the most critical issues affecting African Americans from the ages of slavery to the present day. In Rock My Soul, hooks vividly describes the image painted by the African-American identity crisis in terms of living in fear, anxiety, and shame. The scholar takes an in-depth look at how privileged the urban, young or old, African-Americans can redeem themselves by healing the scars of the past to promote and maintain self-esteem. She asserts that this is the foundation for laying down the roots for a stable black community with a prosperous future. Her pen name “bell hooks” is inherited from her great-grandmother named Bell Blair Hooks, a woman who was known for her courage to speak her mind at all times. Drawing inspiration from her grandmother, hooks has been at the forefront in fighting for equality for the better part of her adult life. She is dedicated to working tirelessly in writing from her heart and drawing attention to these societal issues. Her work is inspired by her personal life experiences and hope for a better future. Her writing is largely focused on the dynamics of race, gender, and capitalism. She describes how these factors produce and perpetuate complicated systems of domination and oppression in the world.
-
Through her postmodernist perspective, bell hooks addresses several issues including racism, sexuality, art, history, and feminism in this contemplative collection of essays. She celebrates various aspects of literacy such as the joy of writing and reading in the Remembered Rapture. Hooks is always optimistic that she will eventually bring awareness to the issues of gender and race oppression to help empower women. Her work is often relatable because she artistically uses personal experiences to illustrate various concepts and ideas in writing. She has consistently proven that regardless of the challenges she encounters in life and her career path, she is not afraid to face them. She is always dedicated to writing about issues that most writers find a little too sensitive, especially women writers who find it challenging to create work that goes against the grain. Hooks learned the power of written word and the value of speaking her mind from an early age. She has been a lecturer at Yale and Oberlin among other colleges.
-
Date night at the movies is about more than what audience members bring to the setting. There is also what is shown onscreen, which is why bell hooks has comprised a collection of essays known as "Reel to Real." Readers can expect to get a beyond-the-veil experience as bell breaks down what those famous sex scenes really mean. Of course, hooks remains true to her cultural roots as well as her feminist ideologies in this collection of essays. Readers will never quite view movies the same after getting insight as to the reason why some films remain with the heart long after the viewer has watched them on the big screen. Reel to Real gives readers a modern-day explanation for the notion of catharsis that Aristotle introduced several centuries ago.
-
Designed as kids’ art book, Grump, Groan, Growl digs down and connects with kids at their level with a picture book that is intended to help toddlers understand emotional control. This is about giving kids their first lesson in redirection energy that winds them up and makes them otherwise crazy little tornadoes of mayhem in a household. bell hooks takes what is her normal acidic skill at social commentary and transforms it into a help book for first-year readers. In doing so, Grump, Groan, Growl attaches to kids at their communication level with the favorable analogies of animal sounds, but in reality, it’s teaching them their first lessons at assimilating with society, starting with their home life.
-
No one addresses social justice quite like bell hooks. The author delves into African-American culture with her collection of essays, as presented in "Outlaw Culture," that seeks to challenge the reader while providing explanations for some of the most pressing issues. This collection is both electrifying and surprising as hooks brings the truths about feminism to the forefront. Readers will get powerful insight into the social constructs that seek to oppress one group while bolstering another. Who better than bell hooks to present such an amazing collection of works on feminism and the need to change?
-
“Killing Rage: Ending Racism” is a collection of twenty-three essays that were collected and compiled by author bell hooks. Hooks works to address the issues that come with any concept that ends in “ism” and how it relates to social inequality and bias of our society as we know it. All the essays in the work are written from the standpoint of an African American feminist, and the book overall works to address the fact that women are largely left out of the discussion when it comes to ending racism. This book is broken up into essays so that readers can better internalize and rationalize what they are reading and read each piece either individually or as a whole.
-
Homemade Love by bell hooks has no plot, but it is still effortless to understand. It uses bright and bold colors that give it a fun look. The style is poetically infused with soothing and energetic messages that keep readers or listeners captivated from the beginning to the end. The book passes across the message that parents love their children at all times. Even when children make mistakes, their parents do not love them less. The girl’s dress signifies different moods and what is going on in the story. Bell hooks answers the questions that most children ask ‘Will my parents continue to love me even when I make mistakes?’ The overall message of the story is forgiveness, overcoming fear, and the unconditional love that children deserve from their parents.
-
As far as intellectuals go, author bell hooks is one that outpaces all others. In her work, “Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism,” hooks engages in conversation with Chicana artist, Amalia Mesa-Bains. Spanning topics like creativity, power, and politics, the pair work through difficult topics and present them in a way that challenges the reader and forces them to evaluate the relationship between minorities and our society today. The book’s overarching theme is the effort of society to separate and polarize both Latinos and African Americans, illustrating and emphasizing differences in an effort to create a “preferred minority.” With two views on the topic that come from both sides of the coin, readers can truly get the whole story and make up their minds on their own.
-
This extraordinary writer discusses how modern society impacts aspects of love. Hooks sets the stage with frank personal anecdotes, seasoned with her keen psychological and philosophical interpretations. She focuses in on romantic love, dissecting this source of longing and coming to the conclusion that, in American culture, men are socialized to mistrust women. She discusses the unfortunate consequence, which is the loss of love and meaningful relationships in the U.S. Each chapter features a different aspect of love. Hooks lays out her position and shows the reader external work on each element of love. Then she gives a roadmap of suggestions to reverse the dire effects of cultural training so that the reader can become better at giving and receiving love. The aspects covered include respect, affection, trust, recognition, care, commitment, and open communication. The idea is to overcome a viewpoint of domination, gender stereotypes, ego, control, and aggression.
-
In Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood, hooks shares her pain and dreams. We see her strength and can foretell her survival. Many people, not only African American women can relate to her journey which is nothing short of inspirational. The issues she faces growing up are real problems that many people go through. This is an intelligent read that anyone can connect and associate with themselves.
-
Black Looks: Race and Representation is a collection of twelve essays by bell hooks. Through her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen, bell hooks digs deeper into the personal and political repercussions of contemporary representations of ethnicity and race within the culture of white supremacy. The feminist icon examines the experience of African Americans on sensitive topics like black femininity and the commodification of the black culture and history as displayed in fashion, popular culture, literature, and much more. Bell hooks focuses on spectatorship while drawing on her personal experience in formulating new ways to look at blackness, whiteness, and black subjectivity.
-
A home is somewhere that we feel safe and wanted. It is a place that calls us when we feel weary from our daily struggles. However, does every person out there share this value of what home is supposed to mean? How does this person feel like they truly belong in their community? Hooks addresses these fundamental questions in her new book Belonging: A Culture of Place by sharing her personal stories with the reader. It tells her tale of constant travel, meeting new people, and coming back to her origin in Kentucky. She addresses race, gender, and class in Belonging that takes the reader to another world they may not find in theirs. It is a thought-provoking story that anyone can find a relation to that ultimately leads us back to where we all began: our own home.
