BY STEPHANIE BLOCK
HauteAMBASSADOR
Literary Reviews
SOCIAL JUSTICE SUMMER READS What Our Leaders in the Community Are Reading Now SUMMER IS HERE, AND THE WAVES WE SURF ARE REAL conversations with an urgent undertow of transformative soulsearching. So instead of trashy, splashy beach reading (we still love you!), let’s wade into deeper waters. With sea change must come a shift in what we read by the sea. Inspiring us to replace saucy trysts with social justice are community leaders who do this difficult and rewarding work every day. These are the people whose Zoom background bookshelves are more Tolstoy than toys. Ready for some more context for the revolution? Let’s dive in! How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong Jamie Allison, Executive Director, Walter & Elise Haas Fund Mia Birdsong’s newly released book, How We Show Up, is a practical and aspirational guide for how to expand our circles of care to create just, supportive, loving, and vibrant communities. I love this book because it introduced me to diverse, visionary people whose lives serve as examples for how we can live better together. While reading this book, I laughed aloud, I was inspired, and I recognized the ways U.S. policies and cultural norms work to separate us from one another, rather than encourage what we really need—a shared responsibility for each other.
Jamie Allison
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson Debbie Tuttle Berkowitz, Senior Philanthropy Advisor, Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund A good entry point into learning about racial justice is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Bryan founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama over 30 years ago, providing legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. The deeply personal narrative helps each one of us to “get proximate” with the issues, and “get uncomfortable” witnessing injustice. The book has also been adapted into an edition designed for young Debbie Tuttle Berkowitz
adults looking to start understanding the issues, as well as a movie which streamed for free across all platforms in June to educate viewers on systemic racism.
In Order To Live: One North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park Alex Gladstein, Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation My book suggestion is In Order To Live: One North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, by Yeonmi Park. This is a riveting personal story of a girl who first grew up inside North Korea and then overcame horrific, unbelievable circumstances to escape to freedom. It’s an incredibly informative read as you learn about what life is like for the average North Korean in the world’s most repressed country. But even after learning about all of the prison camps and torture and rape and suffering, you end up with Alex Gladstein
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an admiration of the human spirit, as Yeonmi triumphed over all of this against all odds. She is an inspiration to us all.
PHOTO CREDIT: (TOP) ©MONA T. BROOKS; (MIDDLE) ©ELI ZATURANSKI; (BOTTOM) COURTESY OF HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION
Stephanie Block is a third-generation family partner in RNDC and Young’s Market Company. She holds a WSET 3 certification in wine and spirits and is a recent graduate of an Executive MBA program from both Brown University and IE Madrid. Previously, Stephanie ran St. Supéry Estate Vineyards & Winery’s social media and worked Napa harvest 2016. Stephanie has championed gender equality as a national board member of the US National Committee for UN Women and once traveled the globe as an award-winning travel writer. She has lived in 6 countries and visited over 80. Elle adore parler français.
