Tina's UPDATED Short List
readings and watchings for surviving and thriving in spite of current times
James Madison in Federalist Paper #47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judicial, may justly be pronounced the definition of tyranny.”
Below you will find what I am calling “the short list” of movies and books that explore living under authoritarian rule and/or ways to resist it. It’s the short list because it is selected by me and by the nature of my own ignorance there will be glaring omissions. Seriously, I don’t know what I don’t know. And neither can anyone else. Let’s be kind to each other though. I thank you for letting me know what’s missing.
As part of the mystery of resistance, I have included items that may not fit with the traditional ideas of what resistance looks like, instead I included philosophies that by their very nature are a radical act against this climate of extraction. My hope is to offer us something that is different than our normal playbook, something that supports our resilience as we hold our ground. To me, resilience isn’t the same as endurance, resilience has the freshness of new growth about it.
The first Short List was published on the Full Moon of February 12, 2025, just days into Trump’s second term, and has now been updated by new times, new experiences, a new reality. And in this version below, I have especially focussed on many perspectives on American History and it’s cultural heritage. To use the words of Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier - “If you know your history/then you would know where you coming from/then you wouldn’t have to ask me/who the heck do you think I am”
May the future of this list continue to swell and change with the energy of the Full Moon and your resistance.
Books
Fiction
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Tracks by Louise Erdrich
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
Non-Fiction
The Price of Democracy by Venessa Williams
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
Pleasure Activism: the politics of feeling good by adrienne marie brown
Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade
Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown
Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer
Erasing History by Jason Stanley (also How Fascism Works)
Hope in the Dark: the untold history of people power by Rebecca Solnit
How to Be Brave by Mariann Edgar Budde
In This Economy: how money and markets really work by Kyla Stanlon
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Movies and TV Shows
Mrs. America (miniseries)
The Get Down (miniseries)
Nuremberg (2025)
American History X (1998)
Brazil (1985)
Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
JoJo Rabbit (2019)
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Chi-Raq (2015)
The Power of the Dog (2021)
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Documentary Films
Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny, American Masters
The American Buffalo (2023)
Awake: A Dream From Standing Rock (2017)
Fell in Love With Fire (2024)
Join or Die (2023)
Occupy Love (2012)
Rick Steve’s Story of Fascism in Europe
What is Democracy? (2018)
and as an added bonus, something to listen to:
a Spotify playlist for surviving and thriving
May you read/watch/listen in good health and equanimity, then resist with ferocity.