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Thick
- And Other Essays
- Narrated by: Tressie McMillan Cottom
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
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Thick
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Summary
Recommended by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Book Riot, BuzzFeed, Bust, LitHub, The Millions, HelloGiggles, and UrbanDaddy
“The author you need to read now.” (Chicago Tribune)
“To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth.” (Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist)
Smart, humorous, and strikingly original essays by one of “America’s most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time.” (Rebecca Traister)
In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom - award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed - embraces her venerated role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society.
Ideas and identity fuse effortlessly in this vibrant collection that on bookshelves is just as at home alongside Rebecca Solnit and bell hooks as it is beside Jeff Chang and Janet Mock. It also fills an important void on those very shelves: a modern Black American feminist voice waxing poetic on self and society, serving up a healthy portion of clever prose and southern aphorisms as she covers everything from Saturday Night Live, LinkedIn, and BBQ Becky to sexual violence, infant mortality, and Trump rallies. Thick speaks fearlessly to a range of topics and is far more genre-bending than a typical compendium of personal essays.
An intrepid intellectual force hailed by the likes of Trevor Noah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Oprah, Tressie McMillan Cottom is “among America’s most bracing thinkers on race, gender, and capitalism of our time” (Rebecca Traister). This stunning debut collection - in all its intersectional glory - mines for meaning in places many of us miss, and reveals precisely how the political, the social, and the personal are almost always one and the same.
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Critic reviews
"To listen to sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom narrate her prose confirms that no other narrator could do better.... As narrator, Cottom is a divine spinner of tales who knows the right amount of sarcasm to add to certain words. She also knows the right words to express her points and delivers them in such a hypnotic rhythm that one does not want to stop listening." (AudioFile Magazine)
What listeners say about Thick
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- Helen McPherson
- 21-09-21
Important essays
This was an uncomfortable listen but important to hear. The writing was excellent and the performance compelling. I am going to recommend this to friends and will listen again.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Pipefish
- 15-09-23
Brilliant and accessible
Every white person should read this superbly written book. It won't always be a very comfortable experience (nor should it be) but it will be an incredibly informative one.
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- Ola Agbaimoni
- 26-08-21
A must read even if you think you’ve heard it all before
This series of essays was so refreshing and enlightening. I thought I’d heard most of the arguments before but Tressie breathes new life into them. Her writing style is engaging and adds to her compelling arguments.
Shame that it will most likely be read by the converted. This should be on the desk of every HR &OD director, every CEO, policy maker, politician and read daily!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mrs C
- 26-11-20
A read that requires your full attention
Very interesting. The depth of analysis means that much of what TMC writes is thought provoking and forces you to consider what your views are on the topics she covers.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Priscilla Eyles
- 08-07-21
Funny, Incisive & Resonant Anti-Racist Essays
Loved it, felt like having a brilliant & witty best friend spilling the tea as they say.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- serentious7
- 26-11-20
Intellectually engaging and entertaining
I started this book looking forward to it but expecting it solely to be an insight into the American experience.
How wrong could I be!
It was whitty, intellectually engaging and so many of the experiences were wholly recognisable from a UK perspective too.
I laughed aloud frequently ("diversity is a bullshit word for people who stutter when they say Black" and "the artist formally known as a white woman, Rachel Dolezal" had me snorting coffee twice in fifteen minutes), and nodded my head at the commonality of experience and the joy in now having the language to explain it fully to myself.
A wonderful book I wholeheartedly recommend.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-03-21
Black women should be trusted with more research
What a brilliant compilation. i am not ashamed to say I listened to this twice. the chapter on beauty floored me and the clear connection she made to how Black men benefit from Black women buying into the beauty myth was one I had to sit with. And using competence and status as a framework for discussing mysoginoir and the death of Black women in childbirth 👏🏾 Thank you to this author. The ideas were not all new in as much as they were so clearly explained and linked. and that is brilliant.
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- Miss J. Davidson
- 16-08-24
brilliant
As a white woman of privilege, I've had my eyes opened. Thank you so much Tressie.
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- Maz
- 03-10-19
actually mindblowing
Tressie is an incredible mind. Her book has given me language for things I know intuitively, and introduced me to whole new ideas.
I cannot wait to engage with more of her work
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3 people found this helpful
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- Melanie Lowndes
- 17-03-22
Helpful very intelligent writing
I recommend this book to stmulate your thoughtfulness/clarity/understanding. It was helpful for me to gain clarity on such things as "negging" and to understand the importance of seeking out and listening to the black women's voice.
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1 person found this helpful