America's must reads: The nation studies its flaws
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A statue of Christopher Columbus was found beheaded yesterday in Boston's North End. Photo: Tim Bradbury/Getty Images
Authors and publishers eagerly await each Wednesday's advance look at the weekly New York Times bestseller list. The list for June 21, which dropped yesterday, is a vivid new snapshot of an America where race is suddenly at the center of the conversation.
Why it matters: Amid a pandemic where African Americans are suffering disproportionately, and a global eruption following the death of George Floyd, the culture is now alive with fresh voices.
Check out the top 10 entries on the Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction list:
- "White Fragility," by Robin DiAngelo.
- "So You Want to Talk About Race," by Ijeoma Oluo.
- "How to Be an Antiracist," by Ibram X. Kendi.
- "Me and White Supremacy," by Layla F. Saad.
- "The New Jim Crow," by Michelle Alexander.
- "The Color of Law," by Richard Rothstein.
- "Between the World and Me," by Ta-Nehisi Coates: "A meditation on race in America."
- "Untamed," by Glennon Doyle: "The activist and public speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice."
- "Stamped from the Beginning," by Ibram X. Kendi: "[A]nti-black racist ideas and their effect on the course of American history."
- "Just Mercy," by Bryan Stevenson: "[D]ecades of work to free innocent people condemned to death."
- And at No. 11: "Becoming," by Michelle Obama.
The Times' Paperback Nonfiction list opens with six of the titles above, then picks up with:
- 7. "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" by Beverly Tatum: "The president emerita of Spelman College examines whether self-segregation is a problem or a coping strategy."
- 8. "Born a Crime," by Trevor Noah: "A memoir about growing up biracial in apartheid South Africa by the host of 'The Daily Show.'"
- 9. "Raising White Kids," by Jennifer Harvey.
- 10. "White Rage," by Carol Anderson.
Topping the Hardcover Fiction list in its debut week is "The Vanishing Half," by Brit Bennett:
- "The lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern black community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine."
And No. 1 on the Young Adult Hardcover list:
- "The Hate U Give," by Angie Thomas: "A 16-year-old girl sees a police officer kill her friend" — on the list for 171 weeks.
