11 New Year’s Reads to Put You on the Runway of Transformation
January 15, 2025
And the New Year’s category is . . . Transformation! As the oligarchs of the free world steer us on a rocky ride toward dire changes we didn’t want, we’ll be focused on changing ourselves for the greater good. What shall we work on? Expanding our minds about what Buddhism is and what it has to offer? Ditching the me-centric trend of girlboss feminism? Renegotiating our relationship with social media? Beefing up at the gym without the macho trappings? This handful of titles from Beacon’s catalog will set us on the runway of life to get tens across the board for progress and self-reinvention!
Buddhist Philosophy and Practices 101
Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptical
“Bookstore shelves are piled high with how-tos written by monks and meditators who preach the virtues of devoting your life to Buddhist practices. n the other end of the shelf, there are thick academic tomes that detail the history and doctrine in mind-numbing detail (some of which I myself have written!). This book is intended to fill a niche between these extremes. If you are curious about Buddhism and are looking for an accessible introduction in plain English, if you are open-minded to learning about what Buddhists think and say but don’t necessarily want to be pressured to commit yourself to adopting these convictions yourself, then this is a book for you.”
—C. Pierce Salguero
How to Get Back in Sync in the Sheets
Desire: An Inclusive Guide to Navigating Libido Differences in Relationships
“A sexual desire discrepancy does not necessarily mean that anything is wrong in a relationship. In fact, it’s quite natural that people—with individual needs and interests—will have differences around sexuality. s partners move out of the honeymoon phase of a relationship—which typically lasts between six months to two years—and as the stresses and demands of life persist, it can certainly be difficult to maintain an active sex life. Sex can often fall lower and lower on the priority list and may start to feel like a chore or obligation for some people. Often, sex doesn’t feel spontaneous anymore. Or it’s not as fun or exciting as it felt early in our relationships. When this is the case, sexual activity typically becomes less frequent, and sometimes, physical touch with partners decreases or stops altogether. This book is for anyone facing this common situation.”
—Lauren Fogel Mersy and Jennifer A. Vencill
Tired: Egocentric Feminism. Wired: Global and Intersectional Feminism
Faux Feminism: Why We Fall for White Feminism and How We Can Stop
“The idea that social progress comes from undoing restrictions, that individual potential has an almost magical power, that a difference made by one is a difference for all—these are among the cultural truisms that the freedom myth taps into. I am going to try to convince you that the freedom myth is a major reason we fall into providing support for faux feminisms and feminisms for the few, such as white feminism and neoliberal or ‘girlboss’ feminism. I am using the word we on purpose. I think actual feminists—that is, people who are committed to dismantling gender-based oppression in all of its intersectional forms—end up thinking in terms of the freedom myth pretty often.”
—Serene Khader
One Man’s Redemption Arc, from Living in the Streets to Giving Back to His Community
“‘We’re all in the Tenderloin. We’re all injured. I was injured out there being stupid for eighteen years, so I kind of know injuries. A lot of people ask me, “How did you put this together? On the internet?” No. Didn’t have to go to the internet. I just knew what I needed when I was out there sick and when I was out there injured. This is kind of my give back, and I got a whole bunch of people helping me.’ There it was, in an aside, an answer to what Del usually does not answer. Why, as a man his age, with considerable (usually undisclosed) health issues, does he spend virtually all day every day on [Code Tenderloin]? ‘Kind of my give back.’”
—Alison Owings
Twitter Is a Musky Dumpster Fire and Meta Is Zucked Up. Now What?
The Stars in Our Pockets: Getting Lost and Sometimes Found in the Digital Age
“What baffles me is that we haven’t yet turned the power of digital technology—specifically its visual appeal and complexity, its potential for displaying myriad facets of an argument and linking to supporting facts—towards apps that foster the kind of political conversation that will promote democracy rather than demagogues. . . . Such an app would bypass the cult of personality, bypass the shouting guys, and would lead to clearer thinking, which would lead to clearer conversation, which would lead to more informed voting.”
—Howard Axelrod
Take a Walk on the Wild Side in Bed and Discover a New Spicy You
Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure, and the Pursuit of Happiness
“No matter if you are just a little kinky or a full-blown fetishist, want you to come away from this book knowing that being a sexual minority makes you special, and that—as long as you practice enthusiastically consensual sex—having a kinky life is like a superpower. . . . We are mutants, aliens, walking incognito among the regular humans but with special vision that allows us to see the erotic in things few others can.”
—Arielle Greenberg
Roadmap for Your Beefcake Journey Without the Broken Masculinity
Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle
“But what is form when it comes to my own body? Is it something I pour myself into or something that emerges from within? In the mirror, I see a composite of forms—a pastiche of archetypes and antecedents: elder Athenian senator; old-timey strongman; mustachioed stranger from a Tom of Finland vignette; Venice Beach meathead; ironic cop. Sometimes I feel like an action figure in search of a playset. hat form do I hope to take? ho is this man I am trying to be? Do I know him?”
—Michael Andor Brodeur
We Can Eat Better and Be Stewards of Our Planet at the Same Time
Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us from Factory Farming
“Collectively, farmed animals emit more greenhouse gases than the world’s planes, trains, and automobiles put together. A third of our precious arable land is used to grow feed for factory-farmed animals rather than food we humans could eat directly. We spray this land with immeasurable amounts of chemicals and cut down ecologically important habitats like rainforests—mostly notably right now with the clearing of the Amazon—all to feed and ‘house’ animals on factory farms. Put simply, industrial animal agriculture is one of the most destructive industries on our planet . . . Added to that is the fact that this food system keeps farmers in soul-crushing debt, communities sick and workers living in fear with little freedom. It truly is the most horrific system we could have come up with to deliver our calories.”
—Leah Garcés
How to Drop the Anti-Fat Attitudes
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat
“[T]he most difficult part of anti-fat attitudes isn’t bullying, harassment, fear, or violence. I have come to expect epithets and aggression, have come to weather their heat and pressure. But I have never become accustomed to the complete lack of empathy from so many around me. As a white, queer woman, describing the challenges I may face from misogyny and homophobia may be difficult, but it’s increasingly met with some measure of sympathy. But when I disclose the abuse I have faced as a fat person, I am frequently met with a steely refusal to believe it. Did you do something to aggravate them? Maybe they thought they were helping. They were probably just concerned for your health. When anti-fatness turns institutional, as with staggeringly prevalent employment discrimination or punitive airline policies, others’ responses curdle, turning from indifference to outright defense. Suddenly, people who otherwise relish complaining about delayed flights and cramped legroom become airlines’ staunchest defenders.”
—Aubrey Gordon
Getting on the Same Page About What Liberation Means for Everyone
When Freedom is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer: Reflections on Collective Liberation
“We are perhaps most free when we’re standing in front of an imposing wall, naming a roadblock to our own (or to our neighbor’s) full humanity and then throwing ourselves against that obstacle. The moment may appear obstructed or fraught or frightening or dangerous—it may, in fact, be all of those things at once. And yet freedom pitches into view precisely when unfreedom is identified (enslavement, subjugation, abuse, cruelty, persecution, extraction, exploitation, oppression), and we reach for a sledgehammer to break through that savage wall, shoulder to shoulder with others in an effort to prevail over unfreedom.”
—Bill Ayers
How Learning and Teaching in the Classroom Makes Meaning in a Metrics-Obsessed World
“There is another kind of knowledge at play here—the knowledge that teachers and other educators gain from observing students and listening to them. Our era is understandably concerned about surveillance and dehumanizing scrutiny, but we need to keep in mind as well the importance of being seen, of being brought into focus— especially in social and institutional settings where not being visible and not being heard results in diminishment. We’re talking about a certain kind of seeing and listening attuned to ability, desire, and environment. The yield is a rich, complex knowledge that blends the diagnostic and the intuitive, the calculated judgment and the hunch. This knowledge is purposeful, combines with knowledge of subject matter to help people grow and realize who they want to be.”
—Mike Rose
About the Author
Christian Coleman is the digital marketing manager at Beacon Press and editor of Beacon Broadside. Before joining Beacon, he worked in writing, copy editing, and marketing positions at Sustainable Silicon Valley and Trikone. He graduated from Boston College and the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. Follow him on Twitter at @coleman_II and on Bluesky at @colemanthe2nd.bsky.social.