Put your ‘expert’ hat on, it’s Week 3 of Nonfiction November.
This week, JulzReads asks us to Be The Expert/ Ask the Expert/ Become the Expert – essentially, share a bunch of books on a particular topic. My topic is ’empathy’.
I’m going to break the rules a bit – my list is a combination of Be the Expert (books that I can recommend) and Become the Expert (books that I’d like to read).
The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison – a collection of essays about how empathy is expressed in different ways. It’s a fascinating book and one that I am still thinking about, years after reading it.
Am I There Yet? by Mari Andrew – Okay, this book isn’t focused entirely on empathy but Andrew writes about it in an indirect way that is done with such tenderness and insight that you can’t help but think ‘She knows’ and ‘She sees me’.
Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed – If you want to see how to write empathy in a hundred different ways, read this book. It is absolutely exquisite.
Against Empathy by Paul Bloom – described as a ‘rational case for compassion’, everything about the title of this book feels wrong but I’m keeping an open mind.
I Feel You by Cris Beam – in contrast to the Bloom, Beam explores the power of ‘extreme empathy’.