Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word

by Toni Morrison

Published in conjunction with the PEN American Center, Burn This Book is a powerful collection of essays that explore the meaning of censorship and the power of literature to inform the way we see the world, and ourselves. As Americans we often take our freedom of speech for granted. When we talk about censorship we talk about China, the former Soviet Union, or the Middle East. But recent political developments—including the passage of the Patriot Act—have shined a spotlight on profound acts of censorship in our own backyard. Burn This Book features a sterling roster of award-winning writers offering their incisive, uncensored views on this most essential topic, including such revered literary heavyweights as Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman, and Nadine Gordimer, among others. Both provocative and timely, Burn This Book is certain to inspire strong opinions and ignite spirited, serious dialogue.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Writing, Politics, Books About Books, Unfinished, Short Stories

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2005

About the author

Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. Morrison earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor for fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her novel Beloved was made into a film in 1998. Morrison's works are praised for addressing the harsh consequences of racism in the United States and the Black American experience.
The National Endowment for the Humanities selected Morrison for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, in 1996. She was honored with the National Book Foundation's Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters the same year. President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 29, 2012. She received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2016. Morrison was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2020.

Reviews

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a powerful collection of essays, with the bonus being edited by our former greatest writer, Toni Morrison!

In our current and fraught political arena, and in a world where censorship is becoming more commonplace in American school districts, books being banned all over the place; people who belong to the LGBTQ community are being forced conform to gender norms; antisemitism in Jews making a return, and of course the reality that the idea black lives matter is more and more politicized, a collection of essays edited and one written by Professor Morrison is essential and important reading now more than ever, "the writer's work, it's cruel amputation is of equal peril to us...the rescue we extend to them is generosity to ourselves" (Morrison 2).

Morrison in the first essay, "Peril" writes that "it is imperative not only to save the besieged writers but to save ourselves...with the dread the erasure of other voices for fear of being overheard by the wrong people" (Morrison 3).

Morrison has assembled other important writers of our time, from John Updike, David Grossman, Francine Prose (who knew she loved Roberto Bolano?!) Paul Auster, Salman Rushdie and Russell Banks who all share her ideas of how writers are both political and personal. A particularly affecting essay is by Russell Banks, "Notes on Literature and Engagement", when he uses "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as an example of a cliched piece of literature that moved a nation into awareness of the evils of slavery, "the novel in spite of its aesthetic and artistic limitations, somehow at least partially humanized for white Americans, a people that had been utterly dehumanized, thus making the argument against slavery" (Banks 54). Rushdie sums up "Burn this Book" with how without literature, then the world is not able to see "imagination given sight by passion, it sees darkness as well as light" (Rushdie 79).

[mohsen pourramezani · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب شامل مجموعه مقالاتی است در مورد نوشتن از نویسنده‌های مختلف. موضوعاتی مثل؛ چرا نوشتن (جان آپدایک)، صحبت با غریبه‌ها (پل آستر)، آزادیِ نوشتن (اورهان پاموک) و…
پ.ن: کتاب روان و خوبی است. شاید برای خواننده عام چندان جذاب نباشد، اما اگر علاقه‌مند باشید در مورد نوشتن و نویسندگی از زبان نویسندگان چیزی بخوانید، کتاب خوبی است. ترجمه روان و خوبی دارد و مقاله «چرا نوشتن؟» (جان آپدایک) را بیشتر از بقیه دوست داشتم. با اینکه موضوع کتاب «سانسور» است، اما باز هم چند تا از مقاله‌ها به دلیل اینکه امکان نشر نداشته‌اند، سانسور شده است.
پ.پ.ن: روز فیلمبرداری پروژه‌ی «ماموریت ۰۰۴۸» این کتاب را توی لوکیشن فیلمبرداری پیدا کردم!‌ چند صفحه‌ی اولش را خواندم و خوشم آمد. چون ناشرش را می‌شناختم کتاب را برداشتم و چند روز بعد پولش را حساب کردم

https://goo.gl/UF4x4f

[Nick Younker · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a powerhouse of self-congratulatory "writers" who seem to have more faith in their skills than the reader. I swear, this thing read like a presidential tweet from The Dong, full of counterproductive non-anecdotes regarding each contributor’s false sense of achievement—all others be damned!

I’d like to point out, though, that Pico Iyer contributed a fantastic story that focused less on his abilities and more on "leading by example." His true-to-life portrayal of a Burmese tourism laborer was full of heart and anecdotal, a must-read for budding creators of non-fiction. The final takeaway for his essay sheds light on how to carefully draft non-fiction in an authentic manner so the world may know the true struggle.

Iyer is the only redeeming star for this rating, leaving all other contributors in a revolving door of shameless vanity. The overwriting in their accounts of self-acclaim was a nuisance, a total farce. The constant use of intensifiers and unnecessary adjectives only served to unintentionally show the transparent nature of their adorable self-image, as viewed through a mirror.

Toni Morrison should focus on sharing her own essays and stay away from pubbing authors who drag her name through the mud. She’s better than this book.

I apologize if my opinion on this title caused undue stress to anyone, especially the editor. That wasn’t my intention.

[Susan Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Form: This is a slim volume/Anthology of essays on the power of writing/ the cost of censorship by PEN writers (PEN is the Human Rights Group that published this book).

Here is a brief introduction to each essays subject, along with some of my favourite quotes:

* Orphan Pamuk: His essay is about the importance of the PEN organisation.
* Ed Park: His interestingly formatted section muses on banned books especially books banned in schools.
* Francine Prose: Her essay is very disjointed, and basically turns into a list of book recommendations on political works.
* Russell Banks: Really interesting essay about novels as a source of significant social change.
* John Updike: This is a great meditation on why people write. 'Why write? As soon as as ask why rivet? Because a number of personal accidents drift us towards the occupation of riveter, which pre-exists, and, most importantly, the riveting gun exists, and we love it'.
* Paul Auster: His essay is also about why he writes.
* Nadine Gardiner: This is a fascinating essay on witness literature, in that if people turn their experiences of atrocities into literature then in becomes unavoidable and permanent in the collective conscience. This essay also has a thorough bibliography, which is great.
* Toni Morrison: This essay is way too short, but absolutely brilliant essay on the power of writing and why dictatorships are so frightened of writers that they have to censor them. 'The thought that leads me to contemplate with dread the erasure of other voices, of unwritten novels, poem's whispered or swallowed for fear of being overheard by the wrong people, outlawed languages flourishing underground, essayists questions challenging authority never being poised, unstaged plays, cancelled films- that thought is a nightmare. As though a whole universe is being described in invisisble ink.' ' A writer's life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity'.
* Salmon Rushdie: Great but too short essay about the complicated relationship author's have with nationalism and being wary of people who set themselves up as a voice of a nation/sexuality/gender. (It also mentions on of my favourite Welsh Poets R.S. Thomas).
* David Grossman: One of my favourite essays from the collection. This is about how in a state of conflict/war the language people use to describe it gets flatter and their perspective gets smaller. But because he writes this doesn't happen to him. 'When I write, I can be whole person, with natural passages between my various parts, and with some parts that feel close to the suffering and the just assertions of my enemies without giving up my own identity at all.' 'Yet still and this is the great miracle, the alchemy of our act- in some sense, from the moment we take pen in hand or put fingers to keyboard, we have already ceased to be a victim of at the mercy of all that enslaved and restricted us before writing'. 'We write. How fortunate we are: The world does not close in on us. The world does not grow smaller'.

Overall this is a varied and interesting collection of essays, that I wish was longer or contained more author's work. If you are at all interested in any of the subjects detailed above I would strongly recommend this book.

[Quân Khuê · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short and uneven collection of essays on writing: some are pretty good, some are so so. If you care about writing you would find flashes of brilliant ideas. If you don't, probably you would find it boring. The best pieces to me are the ones by Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer and Russel Banks.

In terms of star rating, I'd give it somewhere between 3 and 4.

[Nazmi Yaakub · Rating 3 out of 5]

i.

JUDUL Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word susunan Toni Morrison sebenarnya sudah cukup menyindir kelompok yang memusuhi kebebasan berkreatif dan kumpulan cacing kepanasan yang terkena sinaran kuasa pena golongan sasterawan.

Ini kerana kemuncak permusuhan kelompok terbabit terhadap kebebasan berkreatif dalam dunia sastera adalah tindakan membakar buku seperti yang pernah kita saksikan dalam ranah sastera tanah air, baru-baru ini.

Buku yang menghimpunkan 11 esei suntingan Pemenang Hadiah Nobel (Kesusasteraan) 1993 itu, menyelongkar isu penapisan dalam usaha membendung kuasa yang dimiliki kesusasteraan.

Meskipun jumlah halamannya setebal 113 muka surat saja, buku ini sarat dengan pandangan dan falsafah 11 sasterawan tersohor dunia terhadap kekangan berkarya dan kuasa pena yang diadunkan dengan pengalaman kepengarangan mereka sendiri.

Morrison dalam esei yang membuka tirai buku ini, Peril, memberi landasan tepat apabila menggambarkan sumbangan pengarang dengan menegaskan `kehidupan dan hasil karya pengarang bukanlah hadiah kepada kemanusiaan; sebaliknya mereka adalah keperluan hidup.'

Tidak hairanlah dunia tidak pernah jeda dengan sasterawan dan pengarang berani yang disifatkan Morrison sebagai `sejarah pengarang yang ditekan, sebenarnya sama panjang dengan sejarah sastera itu sendiri.'

Landasan kukuh yang dibina Morrison itulah yang kemudian disusuri, dikejap dan diperindahkan oleh John Updike, David Grossman, Francine Prose, Pico Iyer, Russell Banks, Paul Auster, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, Ed Park dan Nadine Gordimer.

Updike yang memenangi dua Hadiah Pulitzer dari Amerika Syarikat (AS), memberi jawapan kepada soalan yang sering dilontarkan kepada penulis, tetapi mempunyai dimensi berbeza daripada pengarang yang berlainan dalam eseinya, Why Write?

Jawapannya mungkin bermula daripada keinginan untuk melihat karya diterbitkan, tetapi ia mengalami evolusi selaras dengan kematangan yang dibina sepanjang pengalaman kepengarangan kepada hasrat yang jauh lebih besar daripada itu.

Iyer pula berkongsi pengalaman tentang makna kebebasan yang berbeza dalam latar negara berlainan yang dikutip dalam kunjungannya ke Myanmar hingga berpeluang bertemu dengan penarik beca, Maungmaung dalam esei, The Man, the Men at the Station.

Talking to Strangers karya Auster pula sangat menguji keyakinan pengarang sastera apabila membukanya dengan ayat berbau pesimis terhadap sumbangan sasterawan apabila menyebut, `seni adalah sia-sia, sekurang-kurangnya apabila dibandingkan dengan kerja seorang tukang paip, doktor atau jurutera kereta api.'

Bagaimanapun, Auster mengingatkan hakikat keperluan hidup kepada ketenangan jiwa yang diperoleh lewat karya sastera apabila meluahkan pandangan optimisnya, `setiap novel adalah kerjasama antara pengarang dengan pembaca dan menjadi satu-satunya tempat di dunia untuk dua manusia asing bertemu dengan kemesraan mutlak.'

Pamuk yang memenangi Hadiah Nobel Kesusasteraan 2006 pula mengimbau nostalgianya bersama-sama Arthur Miller dan Harold Pinter di Istanbul pada 1985 yang menguak makna kebebasannya berkarya sebagai pengarang muda ketika itu.

Dalam esei, Freedom to Write itu juga, Pamuk menegaskan kebebasan berfikiran dan ekspresi adalah hak manusia sejagat yang tidak boleh dihadkan dengan alasan sentimen nasionalis, sensitiviti moral atau paling buruk kerana kepentingan perdagangan dan ketenteraan.

Bagaimanapun, pandangan Pamuk itu juga boleh dipersoalkan kerana kebebasan mutlak adalah utopia kerana manusia, tidak mungkin dibiarkan sewenang-wenangnya tanpa sebarang had dan sekatan sehingga `mencederakan' kepercayaan dan maruah manusia lain.

Di sinilah letaknya kebijaksanaan dan keilmuan dalam menentukan garis pemisah antara menghormati kebebasan dengan memelihara kepercayaan beragama dan hak manusia lain. Sudah tentu garis pemisah antara dua isu penting yang memang mencetuskan banyak kontroversi di setiap pelosok dunia, tidak mungkin diselesaikan dalam buku yang mendapat kerjasama PEN American Center itu.

Sebagai pembaca Muslim atau dunia timur tidak mungkin sependapat dengan semua karya dalam Burn This Book, tetapi kita tidak dapat mengelak daripada mengakui kekuasaan pena sebagai pelindung kemanusiaan sekiranya digunakan pada tangan yang bijaksana.

Kebijaksanaan itulah yang membezakan umat yang dilingkungi budaya mencintai buku dan ilmu dengan manusia jahil yang memusuhi buku secara emosional atau mempunyai kepentingan peribadi atau kelompok yang sempit.

~Berita Harian, 25 Februari 2010

ii.

PENUTUP pada sepotong esei Toni Morison, si Pemenang Hadiah Nobel Kesusasteraan 1993, “A Writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity,” membawa kita untuk memahami ranah sastera yang tidak terpencil daripada latar sosio-politik dunia.

Ia tak hanya mengisi lompong kosong kepada keperluan manusia, bahkan ia menjadi keperluan untuk memahami kemanusiaan di tengah-tengah kecamuk dunia. Hal inilah yang cuba dibuktikan dalam esei yang disusun Morison ini.

Memang ada nada peribadi dalam himpunan yang mengumpulkan pengarang seperti John Updike, Nardine Gordimer, Orhan Pamuk dan Salman Rushdie, tetapi sukar untuk kita melihatnya sebagai pandangan yang terpencil daripada gelojak dunia. Ini kerana sastera pada pemahaman yang lebih holistik adalah sebahagian daripada gelojak itu sendiri - sama ada sebagai penyaksian atau penyembuhan.

[Richie Assaly · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointingly disjointed collection of essays of varied quality, one that doesn’t really cohere around a central theme. Why, for example, does a collection about literature and censorship in the year 2008 start with a lengthy and self-indulgent essay by John Updike from 1975?

There were a couple solid essays in here — by David Grossman, by Salman Rushdie. But there are some real stinkers too — the one by Pico Iyer is offensive in its one-dimensional depiction of the impoverished people he meets during his worldly travels.

Anyone; not worth reading IMO

[Yvonne Boon · Rating 3 out of 5]

some really good meaningful essays, some boring/ over my head ones

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone on here wrote that the essays in this book come off as self-aggrandizing and elitist, you know, the whole writers writing about writing thing. I was determined to disagree because I love to write, and I love to read books about books and writing. But I actually agree with that GoodReader because many of the essays in this book by award-winning Writers of Literature make it clear to those of us living among the mortals that they are award-winning Writers of Literature. They come off as not promoting the written word but pretentious bearers of the words that they offer to the masses, the lowbrow readers of the work, the ones who merely live the lives they write about, witness, see clearly, and know how to breakdown into meaningful paragraphs, sentences, words for the rest of us.
I did enjoy several of the essays, most notably "Freedom to Write" by Orhan Pamuk and "The Man, the Men at the Station" by Pico Iyer. Pamuk and Iyer write clearly and simply about subjects they are clearly passionate about. They're not writing just to tell us how important their role is; they really want to put forth a message. Pamuk's essay made me interested in his fiction, and I added one of his novels to my TR list. Other than that, this book is just okay.
I can't really recommend this book. I can only recommend the two essays that I enjoyed the most and suggest that you read it only if you really like the authors included in the anthology.

[Donna]

i don't know where i got this fascination with banned/censored books, but in this collection i found several new authors whose style i liked: david grossman, francine prose, ed park.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think PEN approves of certain internet censorship.

[Aida · Rating 3 out of 5]

'We grow older but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.' Paul Auster

[Sheriden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some essays are insightful and profound, while others bog down in their own literary/academic rigour.

[Adam Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 11 essays by a range of writer, some drawn from writers' previous works, some delivered as speeches at previous PEN events, some seemingly written for the book.

The book starts strongly, reaching a high point with essays by Pico Iyer and Russell Banks. Iyer's deeply personal story is jarring, hard, resounds. And Banks' essay has so many nuggets of writing that I found myself taking notes all through.

But it then falls away, and falls away fast, into what feels to be gratuitous, self-important prose. Perhaps it all just becomes too much. Too much about the importance of writers, too much about how this or that writer reveals truths that must be revealed. Maybe this book, small as it is, makes its point so heavily and unsubtly that it becomes overbearing. Perhaps it's something that should be read one essay per day, per week rather than all in a single sitting.

In any event, some of the pieces were wonderful. Some less so. The general thrust is to remind current and potential writers of the importance of what is ultimately useless, of how the novel, precisely by avoiding propaganda, is deeply political. Change at the edges, one by one, through the stories we tell.

[KS Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Initially, I read this book as encouragement into my own literary endeavors, I wasn't expecting a war cry in what is believed to be a demise, of the love, and appreciation, for the written word. Knowing that Toni Morrison edited this book, I knew that the underpinning theme throughout all of these essays, on writing, could very well beg a question.

I was not disappointed. I was delighted, moved, overwhelmed at times with the revelations, that some, of these essayists, exposed. I found myself having to put it down on several occasions, to come up for air, if you will, to breath and digest not just the vast, knowledge and experience of each writer, but the reality that each essay was written at different times in history and on different continents and from within vastly different cultures and states of political unrest.

What struck me hardest is that these things didn't matter. Neither time nor space changed what became clear to me, that each writer is compelled to create, witness, interpret, protest, through the art of language. To continue to dispel the notion that writers write for the sake of writing, but in response to, life.

[Jodesz Gavilan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We write. How fortunate we are: The world does not close in on us. The world does not grow smaller.”
———

BURN THIS BOOK is not only a collection that seeks to answer why writers write but also an effort to trace their writings’ relationship with society and all existing ills of the world.

It was nice to read how 11 well-known authors answered the question, relating to their personal circumstances while careful not to waste the opportunity to show the bigger picture in which literature is a part of.

The collection is very balanced. On one part you have Russel Banks’ take on the writer as an activist and novels as protest then there’s Nadine Gardiner’s essay on the power of literature to permanently record atrocities seen by authors into the collective conscience of society.

But perhaps the best entry is Pico Iyer’s "The Man, the Men at the Station” in which he shows the evil of censorship as he recalls his encounter with a Burmese trishaw driver. It was not preachy nor pretentious but very personal and intimate, an effective formula that places a work firmly on the ground.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title is a riff on Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book.” This is edited by Toni Morrison, author of Beloved, and Bluest Eye. This book, put out by PEN, is very relevant to the today’s political climate where pressure groups, moral merchants, and other crusaders try to harass, threaten, and force librarians, teachers, and school boards acquiesce to their demands of removing, suppressing, and blatantly ban books outright. A Fahrenheit 451 cliche. In this book, various essays point out reasons for writing, reading books in other repressive countries besides United States. There are several that has gotten this reader angry. Read the powerful essays, and get outraged too. Strongly recommended.

[Celea · Rating 1 out of 5]

After finishing this thing, I must say I finally understand the instruction in the title. There are two, three essays tops out of 11 that are palatable and perhaps only one that is worth the paper it's printed on. The rest of these self-stroking obtuse word vomit catastrophes makes me want to avoid any book that's a collection of authors moving forward. Russel Banks? Your contribution alone knocked an entire star off of this review. You're pretentious and insufferable. The only way I could finish this complete disgrace was in a room befitting the quality of writing; the bathroom. I don't know what I was more relived to do, close the book, or flush the toilet.

[Jasonlylescampbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyable quick read from various novelists.

Favorite lines:

The novelist speaks for no one but himself or herself and writes solely to penetrate what would otherwise remain mysterious to him, morally or metephysically or socially. Russell Banks

When the imagination is given sight by passion, it sees darkness as well as light. To feel so ferociously is to feel contempt as well as pride, hatred as well as love ... The nation requires anthems, flags. The poet offers discord. Rags. Salman Rushdie

[Lauren Dandridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the pieces were very interesting and powerful. Others just seemed pretentious to me. While I will never deny the important role that literature plays in culture, it seems many writers conceptualize themselves as a special class of person entirely unlike us “normal folks,” and that kind of rubs me the wrong way.

I didn’t realize until after I finished that it was published in 2009, and I wish I would have known that sooner as it probably colored some of my perceptions of the pieces. A lot has happened in the last 10 years.

[Sayantani Dasgupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for the two essays that moved me in this book: Pico Iyer’s “The Man, the Men at the Station”, which argues for why we must travel to uncomfortable places not just for what we may gain from the experience but for what little distractions and momentary joys we might bring to those who live there. The second essay is, “Freedom to Write” by Orhan Pamuk, which speaks eloquently about who gets to claim democracy and the love for words and stories that exist irrespective of the freedoms inherent in a specific place.

[Anne Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

There were some really strong essays that I enjoyed in this book but I found it to be pretty uneven. I have been wanting to read a Toni Morrison work but I think this one was not the best selection for my first read of hers (I realized it after I started because I thought it would include an essay by Toni herself and it did not). I will definitely read one of her other works soon. The blending of multiple voices is often hard but I found this one more difficult than others because the tone of each essay was vastly different.

[Terra · Rating 4 out of 5]

11 scritti sul perché si scrive, come lo si fa, quando. Tra gli autori spiccano nomi noti: a parte Toni Morrison che appare in copertina in qualità di curatrice, ci sono David Grossman, Paul Auster, Nadine Gordimer e altri dello stesso calibro. La maggior parte degli interventi è affascinante. Si parla di censura, lutto, testimonianza, memoria, bazzecole del genere. Confesso di aver provato la sensazione di incontrare degli amici leggendo Grossman citare Natalia Ginzburg e Gordimer prendere a esempio Primo Levi.

[Ty · Rating 3 out of 5]

“No other species needs to be constantly reminded and taught what it is to be itself. And it is our storytellers, our poets, our novelists and dramatists, who have always performed this task. And surely, in this moment in the history of our species, when there is such a danger of forgetting and so much inducement to forget, we must not waste our limited time here doing anything else.”
Russell Banks

[SigurSof · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would love to give it a better rating, but some of the essays were either completely beside the point or just couldn’t deliver.
Even though it reads like an American book, contributing writers are from all over the world and that makes it a well-rounded discussion.
My favourite essays were by Morrison, Rushdie, Grossman, and (by a substantial lead) Pamuk.

[Evan]

“The historical suppression of writers is the earliest harbinger of the steady peeling away of additional rights and liberties that will follow. The history of persecuted writers is as long as the history of literature itself. And the efforts to censor, starve, regulate, and annihilate us are clear signs that something important has taken place.”

[Nikhat Hetavkar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting essay but nothing spectacular. These are the kind of essays that you would enjoy reading in a magazine or newspaper. However, whether they deserve to be published in a book,I am not too sure.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays on the Power of Language and why people write. There were some essays that spoke to me and others that I did not connect with at all. It is a small volume with some pearls that make reading it worthwhile.

[blisster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tbh 2.5 stars. Kind of good and very bad, frequently within the same essay. No particular essay in its entirety stood out, and given the authors that was disappointing. Supports my theory that writers I love writing about writing itself is a surprising fail more often than not.

[Shirley M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our voices still rise

Burn This Book by Toni Morrison is a national treasure. You do not have dig deep to understand its cultural relevance. Voices a color and culture should read and understand how our voices impact the national agenda today and tomorrow.