Ask a Bookseller: A few books for understanding how language gets weaponized

About this episode

Rima Parikh discusses book recommendations that help understand the weaponization of language in the current political climate.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. With the surge of ICE operations in Minnesota now in its third month, indie bookstore owners in the Twin Cities and beyond say that customers are coming in looking for three things: community, books to help them understand what's happening and books to help them escape. Rima Parikh, owner of the science-first bookstore The Thinking Spot in Wayzata, with some of her recommendations for leaning in. For a fiction read, Parikh says the classic novel “1984” by George Orwell has been popular. Set in a dystopian future where Big Brother is always watching, the novel describes a world where language is censored, history is changed, and the party in power tells people to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. For a historical perspective, Parikh recommends the nonfiction book “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America” by historian Heather Cox Richardson. “There are many books that try to explain the moment, but she goes way back. She goes back to the founding of America and goes through every twist and turn of our…

People in this episode

Guest: Rima Parikh

Topics covered

• language
• books
• community
• understanding
• authoritarianism

Keywords

• language weaponization
• 1984
• Democracy Awakening
• George Orwell
• Heather Cox Richardson

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Thinking Spot

Books & works: 1984, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

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