Books Briefing: Reading about race and racism

June 9, 2020

Books by Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo and Ijeoma Oluo have jumped onto best-seller lists in recent days.

Hi readers,

Here’s your weekly catch-up on everything you need to know going on in the book world.

The news:

Sales of books about race and racism are soaring, as protests and demonstrations continue across the country. “People want these books in hand today,” said Kelly Estep, one of the owners of Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Ky., where Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by the police in March. “They feel like it’s something they can do right now.”If you’re searching for a book on the subject, check out the antiracist reading list Ibram X. Kendi put together for us last year. It’s a mix of classics, newer works and relatively obscure titles. And parents hoping to explain the unrest might turn to some of these books — here’s a list with recommendations for children of all ages.
Authors and book publishing employees are speaking out against the homogeneity of their industry and how much writers of color are paid, issues that are gaining urgency as protests against systemic racism continue around the U.S.
As the audiobook market grows, publishers are increasingly seeking out narrators that reflect the race and experience of the books’ authors and characters. But what constitutes a black, Latino or Asian voice?
BookExpo, the publishing industry’s annual trade show, moved its panels and talks online this year, trading the Javits Center for Zoom and Facebook. Our writer has some takeaways.
“Strange Defeat,” a scholarly book about France’s defeat in World War II, has taken on a curious resonance in the country as it gazes across the border at Germany and asks why it has weathered the coronavirus pandemic better.
And today is the 150th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s death. His death, like his books, was a serialized affair, and over the ensuing months, The Times brimmed with stories about Dickens’s final hours, his funeral, his will, the auction of his art collection, even his estate sale.
Fiction out today: “Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars.,” by Joyce Carol Oates; “Pizza Girl,” by Jean Kyoung Frazier.
Nonfiction out today: “Our Time Is Now,” by Stacey Abrams; “All the Way to the Tigers,” by Mary Morris.

The critics:

Jennifer Szalai reviews Masha Gessen’s new book, “Surviving Autocracy,” which details the ways the Trump presidency has corroded democratic norms in the U.S. “To combat nonsense, Gessen counsels making sense,” Szalai writes, “including the reclamation of ‘politics’ and ‘political’ — words that have come to denote empty bombast and wily maneuvering when they should call to mind something more substantive.”
The French writer Hervé Guibert died at 36 in 1991, and more of his writing has become available in English. Parul Sehgal writes about his great AIDS novel, “To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life,” and a story collection, “Written in Invisible Ink.” As Sehgal puts it: “Guibert was a sojourner to the ends of the map and the darkest fringes of the imagination. Where others might be afraid, or prohibited, to go he traveled and tarried and reported back.”

That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and let me know what you think — whether it’s about this newsletter, our reviews, our podcast, our literary calendar, our Instagram or what you’re reading. We on the Books desk read all of it, and I’ll make every effort to write back. You can reach me at books@nytimes.com.

All my best,

Joumana Khatib

Books at The New York Times

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