For once, I’m sharing three books in one post that are sort of related to one another.

Let’s start with Founding Father General Washington.

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, by Alexis Coe

With the first section of the book titled The Thigh Men of Dad History, you’d better believe I didn’t skip past the introduction OR the preface of this book like I often do.

This sweeping work follows Washington’s entire life. While there is an irreverent air to Coe’s work, she solidly references history to support her claims. The book provides a great picture of Washington’s political career that brought to mind much more recent presidents, and didn’t shirk from Washington’s relationship with, and failure to free, his slaves.

We like to remember George Washington as an honest, principled man, and in many ways he was. But like so many things in history, there is a lot more to it than that.

I both laughed and cringed my way through this book. There are truly painful accounts regarding the first President, as well as amusing back-and-forths between Washington and the other Founding Fathers, who were far from at peace with one another, and sometimes hilarious documentation of how Washington dealt with his feelings.

Billed as the first biography of Washington written by a woman in recent history, this is a feminist, antiracist perspective that doesn’t seek to tear down an icon, but rather to provide a fuller picture of the man and the consequences of his decisions, both political and personal, on his wife, the enslaved people he kept in bondage, and the American people.

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett

When you begin reading this fiction title, you could easily get the sense that you know how things are going to go, only to find out the story is way better and more complex than you thought. Following one family from the late 1960’s to the mid ’80’s, this is a powerful story about relationships and boundaries, personal choice, and the arbitrary nature of race.

Bennett has a gift for storytelling, and an incredible way in which she describes the many forms healthy relationships can take. She explores intimate relationships and family relationships so adeptly that at times I felt like I was learning how to live. As a fellow reader from my book club noted, in many ways her book is about “the preservation of otherness” in relationship.

I felt with her characters, rooted for them, got angry with them, and stayed up way past my bedtime finding out how the book ended, which is the best recommendation for any book.

How Not To Get Shot, and Other Advice From White People, by D.L. Hughley and Doug Moe

Man, this book. It was funny, but with the kind of humor that makes you wince. Asking Black people to keep themselves safe through their behavior and appearance is an exercise in futility when the system is broken. Hughley takes statistics and antiracist ideas, and tops it with a healthy dose of snarky humor and a side of sarcasm.

I initially listened to the audiobook while waiting for the physical copy from the library. It’s narrated by Hughley. I enjoy an author reading their own book, and this was no exception. But when I got the paper copy from the library, I realized I had missed a fun format and a ton of photography that drives home the book’s points. Points like, “Don’t Match the Description,” and “How Not to Play the Race Card.”

Hughley and Moe have produced a book that is a solid roast, and a great opportunity to be curious about your biases and more certain of what we as a society need to do to enact change.