How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.*

May 6, 2021 11:42 PM

Stacey Abrams Contains Multitudes [ungated link] - "Abrams went on to write seven more Selena Montgomery books (one of which, 'Never Tell', is in development with CBS), as well as two nonfiction works under her own name, while pursuing her day jobs as a tax lawyer, business owner, state lawmaker, candidate for governor and voting-rights advocate, to name a few."
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*that famous Annie Dillard line
posted by kliuless (15 comments total)

Her family has a family only bookclub? Thank you for my new quixotic campaign for family bonding.

I'm extremely excited about this upcoming legal thriller of hers - I went through a serious Grisham phase in my early teens - and I definitely plan to reread The Pelican Brief after While Justice Sleeps. Supreme Court Justices in peril is a great subgenre, tbh.
posted by the primroses were over at 4:49 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

question: when the fuck does she sleep?
posted by nonasuch at 5:48 AM on May 7, 2021 [36 favorites]

I just borrowed her family's book club pick, Ring Shout, from my library because it sounded so good. (No way yet to get on the list for While Justice Sleeps.) If I can't vote for Stacey Abrams yet for something, I will settle for being her best friend.
posted by gladly at 6:04 AM on May 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

They say 10% of the people do 90% of the work. I'm starting to think that 9% were only included because they were doing a group project with Stacey.
posted by cmfletcher at 7:28 AM on May 7, 2021 [37 favorites]

It's a shame about her love of Ayn Rand.
posted by Gadarene at 7:47 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

It's a shame about her love of Ayn Rand.

As long as she loves it as the schlocky fiction it is, and NOT as political philosophy, I can overlook it.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:02 AM on May 7, 2021 [4 favorites]

I haven't seen any comments about her loving Ayn Rand — only that Atlas Shrugged was one of her favorite books ("But not for the Paul Ryan reasons. . . . There was something about how [Ayn Rand] highlighted the capacity of a person to be more than"). Are you referring to something specific?
posted by gladly at 8:04 AM on May 7, 2021

Ayn Rand's schlocky fiction is pretty entertaining as long as you know to skip past the 80 pages of political speech in the 3rd act.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:39 AM on May 7, 2021 [6 favorites]

I was assigned to make a portrait of a then relatively-unknown-outside-of-Georgia Abrams in early 2016. I made my career on photographing politicians and I maintained a healthy skepticism/mild disdain for most of them. I came away from that portrait session knowing in my bones not only was she one to watch, she was going to play an important role in the next few years. Her office called me a little while after the portrait session and asked for my mailing address. I'd received thank you notes once or twice before, so I didn't think anything of it. A few days later, a small package arrives in the mail. I open it up and it's a signed paperback of "Never Tell" with a lovely note inside. She's next level with the details, y'all.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 9:04 AM on May 7, 2021 [46 favorites]

And in the linked article, Atlas Shrugged is mentioned in the context of her childhood: "When Abrams was little ... she was the one in the corner, holed up with a book. She loved Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life, The Count of Monte Cristo, Silas Marner, Little Women, Jane Eyre, Ender’s Game, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Atlas Shrugged..."

Becoming enamored with Rand's writing as a teenager and then coming to understand the horror of her underlying politics is a hugely common part of growing up.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:07 AM on May 7, 2021 [28 favorites]

They say 10% of the people do 90% of the work.

The remaining 90% of people might be happier with that: see Calvin & Hobbes.
posted by cenoxo at 9:16 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

The new Stacey Abrams novel, While Justice Sleeps, is excerpted at Vanity Fair; Archive.org link.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:28 AM on May 7, 2021

^"You know Stacey Abrams as the founder of Fair Fight and a leader in the battle for voter rights. She’s also a novelist, whose new thriller takes on conspiracy theories, biotech, and the Supreme Court."
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:29 AM on May 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

As a Sisko partisan I think I might bond with her over Bullitt.
posted by Ignorantsavage at 7:49 PM on May 8, 2021

there are many other book recs, too! :P
The One Book Stacey Abrams Would Require the President to Read [ungated link] - "The Georgia politician and romance writer, whose latest novel is the thriller 'While Justice Sleeps', recommends 'Master of the Senate', by Robert Caro: 'It is a seminal work on the nature of power, the limits of the presidency and the awesome demands politics make on the soul.'"

What books do you think best capture your own political principles?

“Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” by Paulo Freire, to understand my commitment to engaging and centering the disadvantaged and marginalized in my politics, entrepreneurship and activism. The In Death series, by J. D. Robb, centers on a broken, brilliant detective who has to learn to reconcile her core morality with the accommodations we must make if others are going to be included in the process. “The Power Broker,” by Robert Caro, describes how bureaucracy and power can create beauty, function and opportunity while also serving as a reminder of the casual cruelty of racism, classism and rank arrogance. “Down the Line,” by Bayard Rustin, written by the man who helped design and execute the March on Washington and so much of the architecture of the civil rights movement, is a meditation on leadership and vision and how to sublimate your personal ambitions to a larger objective. “Prophet of Innovation,” by Thomas K. McCraw, which is the biography of a conservative economist who grappled with the cycles of progress and destruction in our economy, an ever-present challenge for anyone who wants to be effective in politics.

posted by kliuless at 3:11 PM on May 13, 2021