#5 in Politics & society
The Message
- 257
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 7 weeks on the list, peaked at #3
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Our view
“The Message” joins memoir, travel writing and reflections on the writer’s craft in one passionate, plainly argued book. Coates visits Dakar, South Carolina, East Jerusalem and the West Bank; the second half, on ten days in Israel and Palestine in 2023, is what readers discuss most. There he argues that complexity should not bury moral clarity, and some readers praise the links he draws between struggles. It is advocacy, addressed partly to his writing students.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Message is a nonfiction book by American author Ta-Nehisi Coates, published on October 1, 2024, by Random House under its One World imprint. The Associated Press described the book as "part memoir, part travelogue, and part writing primer". The narrative reflects on his visits to Dakar, Senegal; Chapin, South Carolina; and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The latter half of the book covers Coates's ten-day trip in the summer of 2023 to Israel-Palestine – his first time in the region – and his argument against "the elevation of factual complexity over self-evident morality". The New York Times called it "the heart of the book, and the part that is bound to attract the most attention". According to a profile in New York magazine, The Message "lays forth the case that the Israeli occupation is a moral crime, one that has been all but covered up by the West". In the book, Coates writes: "I don't think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel."
Where the score comes from
The sources average 9.0 across 117 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 44% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Politics & society average of 8.0. That is how 8.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 9.0 | 117 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Message?
It has 257 pages — shorter than 69% of the ranked books in Politics & society.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Politics & society — with scores between 7.4 and 8.5, closest to this book.
