The Readers' Social Book List
We know the importance of great literature that transports readers into new universes and educational non-fiction that informs a hungry mind. The vivid impressions authors construct on paper run deep and stir conversations amongst those following the stream of consciousness flowing across the page of a book or lighting up a tablet’s screen. It's why we created The Readers’ Social, Adventure in Black’s weekly virtual book club, to share these experiences in print together with you. Here are the ten selections you will be choosing from starting tomorrow vote for your book through our daily polls on Instagram for the premiere choice of The Readers’ Social.
Becoming
Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama’s top-selling memoir, Becoming, opens by following her path from her beginnings on Chicago’s South Side, college days at Princeton and law school years at Harvard, Barack’s courtship of her to her time at the Sidley Austin law firm where she met her then-future husband Barack and the courtship that led to marriage and parenthood with the births of their daughters Sasha and Melia. Becoming goes beneath the surface of her time as The First Lady of the United States and the wisdom gained during the eight-year-tenure as the mother of The First Family up until her last day in The White House.
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
Issa Rae
“I’m awkward—and black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be.” This is the quote that best sums up Issa Rae’s memoir The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. Filled with relatable experiences, Her story is a love-letter to the self-depreciative and social-awkwardness in all of us that we often try to conceal and often to no avail. Her off-beat and eccentric style but always funny and charming delivery make this book a must-read for slice-of-life fans. And for fans of Awkward Black Girl, her web-series adaptation of the same name is also worth a visit.
The Tao of Wu
The Rza
Legendary hip-hop artist/producer and Wu-Tang Clan brain trust, The Rza, comes out with a collection of artistic segments constructed for the reader to observe his personal journey to his own spiritual enlightenment in The Tao Of Wu. The various approaches Rza uses to communicate his story comprises in hip-hop lyrics, anecdotal stories, and different explanations for the beliefs such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, which had a profound impact on him throughout his personal journey. For anyone who wants a deep-dive into the story behind one of hip-hop’s most-storied talents, we couldn’t recommend a better book.
Between The World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
NAACP Image Award-winning author and journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates, writes an open letter to his teenage son in Between The World and Me. His stories about his time at Howard University and the events that cemented his definition of what it’s like to be a Black man in America. Fear comes across in his candor as he expresses the hardships sustained trying to maneuver through a system, built on the principles of institutional racism ingrained in our society. In his early life, Coates realizes that the American Dream is achievable only by whites built on the backs of African Americans.
Black Girl in Paris
Shay Youngblood
Eden Daniels, a writer in the making, is the center of Shay Youngblood’s, Black Girl in Paris. All hopes of following the same footsteps of her literary heroes in The City of Light by walking in their paths make Eden stumble on her own. The misadventures that test her dignity off-the-page are what The Pushcart Prize and Astrea Writer Award winner inks by showing readers her character’s victories and setbacks. Throughout her journey, she finds her voice and learns what it takes to survive in a world that isn’t very forgiving.
Hood Feminism: The Women The Movement Forgot
Mikki Kendall
Feminism’s second wave, led by writers/activists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem in the 1960s, was viewed by many as a unifying call for women’s equality at home and in the workplace. Yet, not all forward-leaning movements are inclusive. Essayist Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism: The Women The Movement Forgot gives a new take on how white liberal idealism failed to then and continues to miss the mark when addressing the disparities faced by black women. Candidly-poignant, Kendall frames the generations-long maze of social inequalities and racial injustices she and other black women are asked to navigate daily.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Marlon James
Searching. Tracker knows the art well. This expert hunter takes you every step of the way in Marlon James’ first installment of the Dark Star trilogy--Black Leopard Red Wolf. Tracker and his troop clash with unworldly creatures as they feverishly scour through mysterious forests and cities to find a child who disappeared from his village three years earlier. His keen sense of smell is one of the many talents that keep him fresh on the trail, but also leads him into the unforeseeable twist and turns of the journey told in the first person.
Overground Railroad: The Green Book and The Roots of Black Travel
Candacy Taylor
America’s open roads were closed to many prior to the fall of segregation. Traveling from town-to-town--and state-to-state--for people of color was a head-on excursion into intimidation or death in some cases. Candacy Taylor’s Overground Railroad: The Green Book and The Roots of Black Travel examines the oft-underappreciated impact of Victor Hugo Green’s yellow-pages for the road along with the economic, social and political impact of this tire-propelled revolution. Taylor’s study of the publication’s thirty-year-run tells readers of the thriving black businesses and nameless heroes who opened up their homes to travelers seeing America.
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The past is never prologued in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ debut novel The Water Dancer. Set on a Virginia plantation where white cotton is picked by the calloused fingertips of black hands during The Civil War, Hiriam Walker follows his memories through the atrocities of slavery for his freedom. He is the son of the decaying estate’s owner and the woman that same man sold to another plantation when Walker was nine-years-old. He is blessed with precise recall. This remarkable gift leads him on his mental quest to finally see the one person absent from the library of vivid memories fueling his magic power--his mother.
I Almost Forgot About You
Terry McMillan
To her friends, colleagues and family, Dr. Georgia Young’s life checks all the boxes on the surface. The San Francisco-based optometrist however only sees a distorted image when she looks in the mirror. Freeing herself of the paragon status that has made contentment her norm soon becomes the primary focus. Terry McMillan’s I Almost Forgot About You chronicles the doctor’s choices that lead her to augment her current state of life and the recollective jaunt through a list of visiting past loves that make her an apt pupil for some tough lessons on the heart.