Collection: Staff Picks

Kerry James Marshall is one of America’s greatest living painters. History of Painting presents a groundbreaking body of new work that engages with the history of the...

An immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race—and promises to change the way we read American...

Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. Gifty is...

From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of...

  A definitive selection of Audre Lorde’s "intelligent, fierce, powerful, sensual, provocative, indelible" (Roxane Gay) prose and poetry, for a new generation of readers. Self-described...

Life Lessons from the Bronx — A wild, hilarious guide to life from the hosts of the hit late-night show Desus & Mero and the Bodega Boys podcast Who could have...

In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. The body...

From New York Times bestselling author Mary H.K. Choi comes a funny and emotional story about two estranged sisters and how far they’ll go to save one...

  As Told to Alex Haley In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and...

An archive of collective memory and exuberant testimony A luminous map to navigate an opaque and disorienting presentAn infinite geography of possible futuresWhat does it mean to be...

Combining trenchant philosophy with lyrical memoir, Afropessimism is an unparalleled account of Blackness. Why does race seem to color almost every feature of our moral and political...

Sharp, lyrical poems celebrating the Black vernacular—its influence on pop culture, its necessity for familial survival, its rite in storytelling and in creating the safety...

No one wants what no one wants. And how do we even know what we want? How do we know we’re ready to take it?Edie...

  Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful...

It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the story of the moments...

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans...

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and...

A new manifesto for cyberfeminism. The divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. How do...

In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed Black son to a complicated and brilliant Black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his...

  Combat Racism, Change the World & Become a Good Ancestor — Updated and expanded from the original workbook (downloaded by nearly 100,000 people), this critical...

“When truth teller and careful writer bell hooks offers a book, I like to be standing at the bookshop when it opens.” –Maya Angelou Renowned...

The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism,...