Loved learning more about James Baldwin through this book. While I don’t normally read a lot of nonfiction, this was so readable I barely noticed. His life was REMARKABLE and can’t wait to continue to explore his work.

This book is such a gem. It's history, biography, literary criticism, and social commentary wrapped into one. If you want a glimpse into what being Black in America has been like for hundreds of years, you will find it here, through James Baldwin's work.

I tried listening to this book on audio and never got pulled in. I found myself zoning out and having to rewind a lot. I think I will try again off the page but for now it is a DNF for me.

Baldwin's words and experience provide a balm to the souls of those of us that witnessed the Black Lives Matter movement during the summer of 2020. Many of us had not lived during the Civil Rights Movement and have only learned about it through history books and classes in school. This book gives hope that we are capable of being the change that is so necessary.

James Baldwin was a master storyteller. His words always took you to a place, sometimes without even meaning to. This book will stay with me forever. I will be gifting this fine book to many people in my life so they can read this outstanding work presented by this author. Kudos. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving this book in this manner had no bearing on this review.

_Begin Again_ is a loving letter to James Baldwin — the kind of lengthy missive you send a grandparent no longer available to consult for advice. While neither a biography or a literary analysis, Glaude takes the reader through elements of both on the way to an in-depth look at the politics driving Baldwin's writing. Finishing this book left me wanting to revisit every piece of Baldwin's writing for a fresh look. However, sections on the potential harms of a second Trump term make clear that this book was published at a very specific time, already making it feel just a touch dated.

“I speak, as someone who represents a very complex country, which insists on being simple-minded.” – James Baldwin⁣
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Now more than ever, this seems like the best time to finally give some thoughts on this masterpiece.⁣
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As we live through the current administration’s assault on civil and human rights and its aversion to telling the truth, and coping with a global pandemic, we may feel that we are struggling to hold on. With Baldwin as his guide, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., reminds us that we are not the first. In his book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, Glaude, looks to Baldwin not just for perspective and inspiration but for instruction and guidance. If you know nothing about James Baldwin, please note that he was a witness to the constant oppression and humiliation that made up the experience of Black America and in this book Glaude challenges us to stand up for change.⁣
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I will say that at one point in the book it became more than Glaude writing about Baldwin. I hope that makes sense, it was like Glaude and Baldwin became one, this was both chilling and BRILLIANT! If you read this book be prepared to read some hard truths that many of us refuse to face.⁣
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I had the pleasure of doing a year of Baldwin last year and I highly encourage you all to check out some of his works. Thank you, Crown Publishing for this gifted copy.

I have always connected with Baldwin’s work an and out of context, but the way Glaude weaved the timeline of his life and work together does wonders for understanding this era.

This book is a relevant, timely, and incredibly insightful look at the life and writing of James Baldwin. I have to admit I haven't read any of Baldwin's work yet, but I'm so glad this book is giving me not just a little taste but a deep dive into the social justice and activism work he spent his life committed to. He was wise and influential, and this book taught me so much about both the history of our nation and the current status of our society. I feel more aware of the scope of racism and the fight for justice after reading this, and more energized and equipped to do my part in the work toward a more equal and just nation. Grateful for these words.

In my preview to this book, I said Eddie Glaude has come into his own and has impressively stepped out of the shadow of Cornel West. I think this text solidifies Mr. Glaude as an independent thinker and certified wordsmith. The writing here is often brilliant and approachable. In Begin Again, Eddie Glaude offers us an unflinching look at Baldwin's own brilliance through prose and his critical analysis of a very turbulent America in the sixties. We also get a look at Baldwin, the man, and how the turbulence affected him. Baldwin counted Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X as friends in some capacity, so to live through the loss of these imposing men had a profound impact on Baldwin the writer, and Baldwin the man. This book doesn't say what Baldwin would say in these times, but looks at what Baldwin said during his time of turbulence. And boldly asks is any of that critique relevant to our present day. The introduction is titled “Thinking With Jimmy” and that is a very apt description as that is really the basis of the entire text. In Mr. Glaude's estimation, America has to let go of the lie if she ever wants to heal.

“The people who settled the country had a fatal flaw. They could recognize a man when they saw one. They knew he wasn’t… anything else but a man; but since they were Christian, and since they had already decided that they came here to establish a free country, the only way to justify the role this chattel was playing in one’s life was to say that he was not a man. For if he wasn’t, then no crime had been committed. That lie is the basis of our present trouble.”

Baldwin was often a critic of white, so-called liberals who persisted in the lie's maintenance. This fits in nicely with Glaude's idea of the value gap, which he introduced in his previous work. There must come a day of reckoning where one decides what kind of country they want to live In and actively work to make that country possible. The brilliant way Mr. Glaude pulls together Baldwin’s prose and sprinkles biographical elements is exciting and makes this a must read.

“Baldwin offered these words for those who desperately sought to imagine a way forward: ‘Not everything is lost. I cannot lose responsibility, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.’ So, is it hopeful or hopeless, I would say the text is definitely helpful, in gaining a deeper understanding of Baldwin and his wondrous pen. “Liberation from the languages and categories that box us in requires that we tap the source of it all, free ourselves of the lie, and start this whole damn thing over.’” With that being said it is highly important that one reflect on and gain a deep respect and understanding of language. This book goes a long way in that education. Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy and this book is out now and already appearing on best seller lists.

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. could not have predicted the world in which this book would be released into. He couldn't have predicted the pandemic and the fact that every screen and every conversation involves a conversation about racism in America. But he wrote the book that America would need for this exact moment, and we can all be so grateful.

James Baldwin is a voice we all need to listen to more and Eddie S. Glaude Jr has made that easier.

Thank you to the publisher for making this book available through Netgalley. This is my honest review.

Highly readable, timely, and astute part micro-history, part meditation on systemic racism through the writing of James Baldwin and penned through the thoughts and emotions of one black man.

Glaude brought us Democracy in Black. With Begin Again, he takes us on a literary journey as he carries out an academic meditation on the writings and life of a man who had visceral reactions to the racism of his day.

Highly recommended for students of Baldwin and for those who seek to self-educate on the effects of racism on the black body, mind, and art.

Described by Presidential historian and biographer Jon Meacham as “searing, provocative, and ultimately hopeful,” Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.'s Begin Again is a must-read meditation on systemic racism in the United States. Princeton professor and frequent cable network news guest commentator, Glaude opens the book’s introduction with his 2018 arrival in Heidelberg, Germany, where one of the first things he witnessed was a black man on the ground with a police officer’s knee in his back.

Glaude writes of traveling to Nice, France, to see expat black writer James Baldwin’s former residence and of finding the site under demolition, with new luxury apartments to take its once modest place. Glaude thinks of how Baldwin had summed up his own life after years back in the U.S..voicing the need for change:

"I pray I've done my work . . . when I've gone from here, and all the turmoil, through the wreckage and rubble, and through whatever, when someone finds themselves digging through the ruins . . . I pray that somewhere in that wreckage they'll find me, somewhere in that wreckage that they use something I left behind."

In response to Baldwin’s words, Glaude explains, "I started digging, and Begin Again is what I found."

Glaude concludes his introduction with Baldwin’s emotional devastation following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination--one death out of so many--and with Baldwin’s hope for a better nation:

"When the dream was slaughtered and all that love and labor seemed to have come to nothing, we scattered. . . . We knew where we had been, what we had tried to do, who had cracked, gone mad, died, or been murdered around us.

"Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again."

Partially in light of the Trump administration, Glaude feels that the nation must own up to its many past failures, take full responsibility, and begin again.

After Glaude’s detailed Introduction comes his eloquent, and sometimes painfully eye-opening, meditation on Baldwin’s writings and our own time. He focuses on such issues as the lie of American freedom and equality, the troubled nation to which Baldwin bore witness, lost lives and social turmoil during the Civil Rights Movement and the Trump administration, differences between Baldwin and Black Power advocates, and the challenging path forward.

My thanks to NetGalley, Crown, and Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. for an Advance Reader Copy of this beautifully written
and urgently important book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3183715981?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

I am an avid fan of James Baldwin and have been since junior high school, when I discovered him (or maybe his work discovered me, or both) and found his truth-telling about his shame, his witness and the painful wrestling with America and Black American identity to be comforting and forceful. He always said he wanted to be a good writer and a good man, and of course he was better than both of those modest titles. In Begin Again, Eddie Glaude revisits some of the most penetrating and important work of James Baldwin to sort through our racially fraught present. There is a recovery of the Reagan era to make a parallel between Trump and Reagan that is often muted in our media discourse that is refreshing. Reading this during the coronavirus pandemic means that Glaude's evocation of Baldwin referencing "the after times" takes on new meaning. Before the pandemic, it felt like we were living in those times, originally mentioned in the wake of the death of Baldwin's friends and civil rights/Black Power icons being assassinated. But what of the world the book will be born into? Well, those are going to be after times, too, for sure. The book feels like a meditation on what Baldwin could and should mean to us in a presidential election year as we grapple with a totally new historical context that is still to come, but also a reflection on a racial history that, unfortunately, seems too cyclical for us to a find a truly fresh start.

Eddie Glaude’s Begin Again is a powerful little book that asks readers to consider that the great author James Baldwin was not just prescient for his time but a beacon for today. Baldwin produced some of his work BC during a backlash that restricted the promise of the Civil Rights Movement—and he stepped up the political nature of his writing in the face of this backlash. Glaude draws parallels to how the election of Donald Trump erased the promise of Black Lives Now. The author has much to say about the literature of Baldwin. Were it not for the of-the-moment politics, Glaude’s book would remain a timeless part of the world of literary criticism. However, his choice to emphasize the current relevance of Baldwin’s literary trajectory may keep this book from remaining one of the key books on Baldwin after the Trump era ends. All the more reason to read Glaude’s important book NOW.

Begin Again, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., is an excellent -- and urgent -- examination of how the writer James Baldwin became disenchanted with the civil rights movement, because it failed to get America to face and confront its own lies about race. Part biography, part history and part literary criticism, Begin Again shows how Baldwin tried to make sense of the "complex bundle of evasions, denials, loves and hatreds that made up the American project." In doing so, it draws parallels between Baldwin's time and our own, showing how the writer's work offers us a pathway out of the Trumpism that plagues our country. A new way forward involves being able to tell the truth about ourselves and our past so that we can find a new way forward, one that is inclusive of all American citizens and treats them equally. Glaude's book is well-written, accessible, and thought-provoking and I highly recommend it to any reader of Civil Rights history, or any general reader angsty about the current state of our country. There are answers here, and there is hope and comfort. Many thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for offering me this early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is quite dense but full of a lot of great info.
Reading Baldwin’s words/thoughts that are still relevant to what we’re going through today was both illuminating and depressing (that we still have so far to go). I wrote down a bunch of quotes that I’ll add to my review once the book is released,
I liked that at the end of each chapter, Glaude reiterated how to make the connections between then and now.
I made some great connections to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project and what Bryan Stevenson often talks about: how in order to make any substantial changes in our society, we must take an honest look at our history, own it, and learn to change the narrative.
While we still have a lot of work to do, I overall felt a lot of hope after reading this book.