We surveyed our patrons and staff to see what books stood out as their best reads in 2022 and why. Then we put them on display! Looking for your next read? Start here with some listed below or peruse the display in person near our main floor service desk.
Featuring interviews with former NBA player Etan Thomas with over fifty athletes, executives, media figures, and others, interwoven with essays and critiques by Thomas, We Matter shares the personal tales and opinions of these interviewees about the social and personal costs of racism, black resistance, white supremacy, and more.
In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.
In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless.
DeRay Mckesson lays down the intellectual, pragmatic, and political framework for a new liberation movement. Continuing a conversation about activism, resistance, and justice that embraces our nation's complex history, he dissects how deliberate oppression persists, how racial injustice strips our lives of promise, and how technology has added a new dimension to mass action and social change. He argues that our best efforts to combat injustice have been stunted by the belief that racism's wounds are history, and suggests that intellectual purity has curtailed optimistic realism. The book offers a new framework and language for understanding the nature of oppression.
Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin.
Widespread reporting on aspects of white supremacy--from police brutality to the mass incarceration of Black Americans--has put a media spotlight on racism in our society. Still, it is a difficult subject to talk about. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
Updated and expanded from the original workbook (downloaded by nearly 100,000 people), this critical text helps you take the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources, giving you the language to understand racism, and to dismantle your own biases, whether you are using the book on your own, with a book club, or looking to start family activism in your own home.
In this remarkable book—winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—Dr. King recounts the story of Birmingham in vivid detail, tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future, assessing the work to be done beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African Americans. Above all, Dr. King offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas—from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities—that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.
After 400 years of white supremacy in America, a reckoning is here. On the eve of America becoming a majority-minority nation, D.L. Hughley warns, the only way for America to move forward peacefully is if Whites face their history, put aside all their visions of superiority, and open up their institutions so they benefit everyone in this nation. Surrender, White People! offers D.L.'s satirical terms for reparations and reconciliation.
On the night of May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a white cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history and the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the sixties. While Floyd’s death was certainly the catalyst, it was in truth the fuse that lit an ever-filling powder keg. In five beautifully argued chapters, Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism.
Activist, teacher, author and icon of the Black Power movement Angela Davis talks Ferguson, Palestine, and prison abolition.
In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting. Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don’t have to settle for less. When Cooper learned of her grandmother's eloquent rage about love, sex, and marriage in an epic and hilarious front-porch confrontation, her life was changed. And it took another intervention, this time staged by one of her homegirls, to turn Brittney into the fierce feminist she is today.This book argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one's own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.
In the form of a letter from a father to his adolescent son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Drawing on Black intellectual and grassroots organizing traditions, including the Haitian Revolution, the US civil rights movement, and LGBTQ rights and feminist movements, Unapologetic challenges all of us engaged in the social justice struggle to make the movement for Black liberation more radical, more queer, and more feminist. This book provides a vision for how social justice movements can become sharper and more effective through principled struggle, healing justice, and leadership development. It also offers a flexible model of what deeply effective organizing can be, anchored in the Chicago model of activism, which features long-term commitment, cultural sensitivity, creative strategizing, and multiple cross-group alliances. And Unapologetic provides a clear framework for activists committed to building transformative power, encouraging young people to see themselves as visionaries and leaders.
After fleeing an abusive husband with her six-year-old son, Tommie, Beverly is creating a new life for them in a small town off the beaten track. But Tommie insists he’d been hearing someone walking on the roof and calling his name late at night. Failed musician Colby Mills heads a small family farm in North Carolina. Seeking a rare break, he spontaneously takes a gig playing in a bar in St. Pete Beach, Florida, where he meets Morgan Lee. Morgan has graduated from a prestigious college music program with the ambition to become a star. Romantically and musically, she and Colby complete each other. Fate will draw all three people together, forcing each to wonder whether the dream of a better life can ever survive the weight of the past.
In Gerrardsville, Colorado, a woman dies under the wheels of a moving bus. Jack Reacher saw what happened: A man in a gray hoodie and jeans pushed the victim to her demise. With a killer on the loose, Reacher has no time to waste to track down those responsible. But Reacher is unaware that these crimes are part of something much larger and more far-reaching: an arsonist out for revenge, a foster kid on the run, a cabal of powerful people involved in a secret conspiracy with many moving parts. They don’t consider Reacher a threat. But he is relentless when it comes to making things right.
When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she doesn't think it's love at first sight. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her: 1) Never ask about the past; 2) Don’t expect a future. They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.
Diana O’Toole knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos. But then a virus appears in the city, and Finn has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since their nonrefundable trip would go to waste. Reluctantly, Diana goes but her dream vacation goes immediately awry. The whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she connects with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana. In the Galápagos Islands, Diana finds herself examining her own life and wonders if she is evolving into someone completely different.
New Year's Eve 1952: Aloysius Archer is in Los Angeles celebrating with aspiring actress Liberty Callahan when their evening is interrupted by screenwriter Eleanor Lamb. Eleanor fears that her life is in danger, and she wants to hire Archer to look into the matter. Before Archer can officially take on her case, a dead body turns up inside of Eleanor's home and Eleanor disappears. With the help of Callahan and his partner Willie Dash, Archer launches an investigation that will take him from mob-ridden Las Vegas to the darkest corners of Los Angeles, where the powerful people responsible for his client's disappearance will kill Archer without a moment's hesitation if they catch him.
LAPD detective Renée Ballard has returned to the force to lead the cold case unit at the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. For years, Harry Bosch has been working a case that haunts him, so Ballard offers to make Bosch an investigator in her new Open-Unsolved Unit in exchange for the use all LAPD resources to pursue his case. First priority for Ballard is to clear the unsolved rape and murder of a sixteen-year-old girl, the sister of the now-councilman who supported re-forming the cold case unit. When Ballard gets a "cold hit" connecting the killing to a similar crime, she has to pull Bosch off his own investigation. The two must put aside their resentments to capture two dangerous killers.
Stephanie Plum turns up for work at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli, who is as reliable as the tides in Atlantic City, hasn’t shown up. Stephanie’s worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor, who will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail. Unfortunately, this coin is nowhere to be found. The quest to discover the coin, learn its value, and save Connie will require the help of Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur, her best pal Lula, her boyfriend Morelli, and hunky security expert Ranger. As Connie’s captor grows more threatening, Stephanie has no choice but to throw caution to the wind, follow her instincts, and go rogue.
Olivia McAfee never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown with her teenage son Asher, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school and a fresh start. Olivia and Lily's paths cross when Asher and Lily fall for each other. With Ash, Lily feels yet wonders if she can trust him completely. Then Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent but as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.
NYPD master homicide investigator Michael Bennett and top FBI abduction specialist Emily Parker have a history. Working case after case, each can predict the other's next move. So when she fails to show at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, Bennett risks venturing far outside his jurisdiction. The investigation he undertakes is the most brilliant detective work of his career...and the most intensely personal. A portrait begins to emerge of a woman as adept at keeping secrets as forging powerful connections. A woman whose enemies had both the means and the motives to silence the real Emily Parker--and her protectors.
For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry but also notorious for corruption and vice. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast.” Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. Keith went to law school and followed in his father’s footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father’s clubs. The two families were headed for a courtroom showdown.
Amos Decker is called to South Florida to investigate the deaths of a federal judge and her bodyguard. The judge's face sported a blindfold with two eye holes crudely cut out. Not only did the judge have more enemies than Decker can count, but the bodyguard presents additional conundrums. Decker must also contend with a new partner, Special Agent Frederica "Freddie" White, and a devastating event that brings Decker's own tragic past back to the present. As potential witnesses start disappearing, Decker and White are inexorably pulled into Decker's deadliest threat yet.
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Lowen keeps the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes how she could benefit if he reads his wife's words. A truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.
In Texas, 1921, Elsa Wolcott is deemed too old to marry until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
Every day Travis Devine boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city's most prestigious investment firm. Then one morning Devine's tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead. Sara Ewes, Devine's coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building. Before the day is out, Devine is threatened unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm. This treacherous role will take him from the impossibly glittering lives he once saw only through a train window to the bulls-eye of a killer.
In “Homecoming,” Jake Brigance is called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, who three years earlier stole money from his clients, divorced his wife, filed for bankruptcy, and left his family in the middle of the night. Now Mack is back, but his homecoming does not go as planned. In “Strawberry Moon,” young death row inmate, Cody Wallace, is only three hours away from execution. As the clock winds down, Cody has one final request. Brothers Kirk and Rusty Malloy are the “Sparring Partners, two successful young lawyers who inherited a once prosperous firm. They loathe each other, and speak only when necessary. Can Diantha Bradshaw, the only person the partners trust, save the Malloys, or does she take a stand for the first time in her career and try to save herself?
