Memoirs by various Black authors
c.2025
Multiple publishers
$28.00 – $34.00
Various page counts
Sometimes, you don’t want to know any more.
You’ve had it with bad news, up to your eyebrows, and no more. So maybe it’s time for some good news. Perhaps it’s time for some memoirs, biographies, and the goodness you’ll find inside these great books…
What goes better with a warm summer evening than a few tunes? A book about a musician, that’s what, and “From the Shadow of the Blues: My Story of Music, Addiction and Redemption” by John Lee Hooker Jr. with Julia Simon (Rowman & Littlefield, $34) is a great summertime read. It’s the story of a born singer, the son of a sharecropper, who struggled and got through it to become a Grammy Award-winning bluesman. Inspirational and lively, this memoir is as entertaining as its author’s performances.
You’ve undoubtedly read some of Toni Morrison’s work and might be eager to learn more about her long career. In “Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship” by Dana A. Williams (Amistad, $29.99), you’ll understand the great author’s somewhat-hidden career, work that many of her fans don’t know much about. Working at the publisher Random House gave Morrison a chance to nourish the careers of many Black authors and, in doing so, she helped change the entire publishing world, making it more open to diversity for readers, both Black and white. With its insight into Toni Morrison’s career and the behind-the-scenes of publishing past, this is truly a reader’s book.
If you can’t help yourself, you have to watch politics, you’ll want to read “Trailblazer: Perseverance in Life and Politics” by former Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun (Hanover Square Press, $32.99). Here, readers are taken back to Braun’s childhood to see what launched her to success. There were many barriers that Braun smashed through: she made history as the first Black woman elected to the Senate. First woman representing Illinois in Washington. First senator to be appointed as an ambassador (to New Zealand). And even if you’re not particularly a politics-watcher, this book is inspiring and empowering.
And, finally, if you haven’t exhausted your examination of racism yet, “The Science of Racism: Everything You Need to Know but Probably Don’t – Yet” by Keon West (Abrams Press, $28.00) offers a very different way of looking at the subject. West, who has “always been Black,” argues that we’ve left science out of the topic of racism for far too long. By adding scientific measures to the realities of racism, he says we can understand the issue a little better, and we might have a different conversation about it.. Go into this book with an open mind; it contains examples, thought-provoking words, and ideas. Look closely, and you’ll find some humor to get you through…
If you need more books on Black history or want another memoir by a Black author, head to your favorite bookstore or library. Ask the friendly face there, and you’ll find lots more.
