What readers think of Between the World and Me, plus links to write your own review.

The essential power of books is both simple and majestic: Knowledge can change lives. That is the power of this short book by Ta-Nehisi Coates that succinctly and poetically recounts America's racial history both nationally and in the author's own life. And it is absolutely riveting.

Written as a very personal letter to his teenage son, we readers are permitted to peer into this private missive and by doing so share in the joys, aspirations, love, anger, and bone-deep fear that one man has for his black son in modern-day America. I felt his joy. I felt his love. I felt his anger. And I, a 66-year-old white woman, definitely felt in a whole new way his bone-deep fear.

And there we have it: The power of books.

This book is spellbinding. Some of the stories Coates tells about his life on the streets of Baltimore, at Howard University, the killing of a close friend by a police officer, and how he felt when his son was born are compelling, vivid and as engrossing as a fine novel.

What troubles me the most is the deeply engrained fear that Coates has endured all his life. Just walking down the street or shopping or doing a simple, everyday activity is spiked with fear. No child should grow up learning that fear is the best (only?) way to survive. This must change. How can I help do that? That is the most important question I am asking myself.

While reading this book has given me a new sense of empathy and understanding, what it has done best is given me a new sense of the questions to ask. Coates encourages his son to do what we all should be doing: to question what we see. And then to question what we see after that. "…because the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers," he writes.