Black Lives Matter
American spy : a novel
Lauren Wilkinson
FICTION Wilkinson, Lauren
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. Yes, even though she secretly admires the work Sankara is doing for his country. Yes, even though she is still grieving the mysterious death of her sister, whose example led Marie to this career path in the first place. Yes, even though a furious part of her suspects she’s being offered the job because of her appearance and not her talent. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American. Inspired by true events—Thomas Sankara is known as “Africa’s Che Guevara”—American Spy knits together a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a passionate romance. This is a face of the Cold War you’ve never seen before, and it introduces a powerful new literary voice.
Added by Brian
The sellout
Paul Beatty
FICTION Beatty Paul
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
"A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court"--
Added by Brian
The vanishing half
Brit Bennett
FICTION Bennett Brit
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise"--
Added by Brian
Their eyes were watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
FICTION Hurston, Zora Neale
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.
Added by Brian
Sing, unburied, sing : a novel
Jesmyn Ward
FICTION Ward Jesmyn
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"--
Added by Brian
Devil in a blue dress
Walter Mosley
MYSTERY Mosley, Walter
Mystery, Black Lives Matter
Set in the late 1940s, in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles, Devil in a Blue Dress follows Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.
Added by Brian
An American marriage
Tayari Jones
FICTION Jones Tayari
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
"Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control"--
Added by Brian
Native son
Richard Wright
FICTION Wright, Richard
Fiction, Black Lives Matter
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what it means to be black in America.
Added by Brian
Riot baby
Tochi Onyebuchi
SCIENCE FICTION Onyebuch Tochi
Science Fiction, Black Lives Matter
"Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is both a global dystopian narrative and an intimate family story with quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience. Ella and Kev are brother and sister, both gifted with extraordinary power. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by structural racism and brutality. Their futures might alter the world. When Kev is incarcerated for the crime of being a young black man in America, Ella - through visits both mundane and supernatural - tries to show him the way to a revolution that could burn it all down"--
Added by Brian
This was my first read by Colson Whitehead, but will certainly not be my last. “The Nickel Boys” is a fictionalized account based on an actual reform school in Florida, set during the Jim Crow era. It follows Elwood Curtis, a hardworking teenage boy, inspired by the ideals upheld by Dr. Martin Luther King. Elwood was on track to attend a local black college, but one innocent misstep sends him to a segregated juvenile reform school, where violence, brutality and abuse alter his life forever. A poignant and important read that exposes unjust political and social structures. -Becky