The Holland Book Club is an informal selection of what we’re currently reading, digging, and thinking about – as it relates to some of Holland’s core tenets – art, music, culture, community, social justice, and youth. We update our recs every few months, and will be offering additional programming and resources for the selections along the way, so stay tuned for talks, meet-ups, interviews and more!
DISABILITY VISIBILITY
First-person stories from the 21st Century
A groundbreaking and powerful collection of essays that feature the insights and voices of 37 disabled people – showcasing, sharing, and documenting disability culture.
As the ADA celebrates its 30th anniversary, we look beyond that historic legislation to the present and future of the disability justice movement. And it is clear we have work to do. These essays are powerful and personal reminders that disability justice is civil rights, it’s climate change, it’s social justice and equity work, it’s health care and education, it’s community, it’s criminal justice reform and abolition — it is everything. We don’t move forward towards equity and liberation and progress without awareness of and accountability to the disability justice movement, and to the 61 million Americans living with a disability. This book is a manifesto of power and love, of independence and freedom, of being seen and understood, and most importantly, of demanding better.
BEGIN AGAIN
James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own
We have been here before: For James Baldwin, his after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Hampton and more.
In this book, we travel through time through a James Baldwin lens. Using Baldwin’s history and his words, Eddie S. Glaude transports us back 50-ish years to a time that sadly does not feel unfamiliar to our current moment. Through Baldwin’s reflections and witness to his own time, we are given a map to understanding our own after times and the actions we must take. Writer Kiese Laymon nails it, “Begin Again is a rugged literary miracle. In evocative prose, Glaude showed me how we might use the unexceptional yet brutal nightmare of Trumpism to not simply better understand the work and life of James Baldwin, but how that discovery must lead us as people to ‘begin again’ and walk collectively toward actual liberation.”
MAKING SPACES SAFER
A Guide to Giving Harassment the Boot Wherever You Work, Play, and Gather
In continuing our efforts to both think about and work towards access, safety, inclusion, and engagement in our own space and in the larger art/culture/music scene, we dove into this book (written in 2018) to see glean more perspective, actionable steps, and resources. In the wake of the recent fall of Burger Records and the associated scene, and with the current and long-overdue reckoning in cultural spheres underway, it has become abundantly clear that art/music communities, bands/performers, venues – all of us – MUST do better. While this book is not an end all/be all guide (it’s interesting to note how much has truly changed in just a couple years), it’s a great resource, as well as a detailed and radical call for our communities (not just the survivors) to take power back from harassers and abusers without involving police or other authorities.
POCKET CHANGE COLLECTIVE BOOK SERIES
Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today’s leading activists and artists.
This series was “born out of a need for space. Space to think. Space to connect. Space to be yourself,” editor Rachel Sonis said in a statement. “This is a series of small books – small enough to fit in your pocket – with big ideas for change. In these books, today’s leading activists and artists share their stories, spark conversation, and capture the narrative of what activism, particularly youth activism, looks like today.”
Current Releases:
This is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew; Imaginary Borders by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez; Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon; Concrete Kids by Amyra León; The Plastics Crisis by Hannah Testa; The New Queer Conscience by Adam Eli; and out soon: Skate For Your Life by Leo Baker and Continuum by Chella Man.
Additional exploration:
@museummammy @xiuhtezcatl @alokvmenon @amyraleon @hannah4change @adameli @leo_baker @chellaman
MAKE TIME FOR CREATIVITY
Part artistic retreat, part guide to living a creative life
As we attempt to ease back into a “new normal” post-COVID world – marred by intense anxiety, trauma, and stress of the current moment – it seems clear that for many of us, our heads and our hearts need help. With time completely outta whack; and our schedules, livelihoods, normal processes and outlets, communities, and futures uprooted and or in some form of unknown or chaotic state – this self-guided journal/interactive book helps us looks inward, to find time and desire to create again, to find our way to new rituals and practices, to find some calm in the noise and anxiety of the moment, and to seek inspiration and perspective and guidance from some incredible artists and musicians along the way.