The Love You Save | A Conversation with Goldie Taylor

In partnership with Books Are Magic, join us to celebrate the release of Taylor's memoir. 

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings meets Educated in this harrowing, deeply hopeful memoir of family, faith and the power of books—from acclaimed journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor.

Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. For her young niece Goldie Taylor, abandoned by her mother and coping with trauma of her own, life in Gerald’s East St. Louis comes with nothing but a threadbare blanket on the living room floor.

But amid the pain and anguish, Goldie discovers a secret. She can find kinship among writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She can find hope in a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice. And books, she realizes, can save her life. Goldie Taylor's debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post–Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul.

About the Author

Goldie Taylor is a veteran journalist, cable news political analyst and human rights activist who has written about national politics and social justice issues for over thirty years. She been featured on NBC News, MSNBC, ABC News, CNN, HLN, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, The Dr. Phil Show, The Steve Harvey Show, and Good Morning America, as well as NPR's All Things Considered. She has written for Salon, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Creative Loafing, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Grio, Huffington Post, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, Essence, and most recently as editor-at-large for The Daily Beast. Her novel Paper Gods, is currently in development with John Legend’s Get Lifted Productions and Sony Television. She lives in Boston.

About the Conversation Partner

Rebecca Carroll is a cultural critic, podcast host, author of the memoir, Surviving the White Gaze, and editor at large at The Meteor.