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 Title: The Undocumented Americans
Author: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Non-fiction. Born in Ecuador and brought to the United States when she was five years old, Cornejo Villavicencio has lived the American Dream. Raised on her father’s deliveryman income, she later became one of the first undocumented students admitted into Harvard. She is now a doctoral candidate at Yale University and has written for The New York Times. Looking well beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMERS, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented as rarely seen in our daily headlines. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Shuggie Bain : A Novel
Author: Douglas Stuart
Fiction. The story of Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland, taking care of his beloved mother Agnes. Agnes is a proud, beautiful woman who turns herself out like her idol Elizabeth Taylor, but she is an alcoholic, and spends most of the family’s weekly benefits money on alcohol. Shuggie is meanwhile doing all he can to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but Agnes’s addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her, especially her beloved Shuggie. Summary adapted from publisher.
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Title: Apeirogon : A Novel
Author: Colum McCann
Fiction. Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of intractable conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to take to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend. But their worlds shift irreparably when ten-year-old old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet meant to quell unruly crowds, and again when thirteen-year-old Smadar becomes the victim of suicide bombers. When Bassam and Rami learn one another’s stories and the loss that connects them, they become part of a much larger tale that ranges over centuries and continents. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Deacon King Kong : A Novel
Author: James McBride
Fiction. From James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, comes a wise and witty novel about what happens to the witnesses of a shooting. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .45 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters–caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York–overlap in unexpected ways. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: A Long Petal of the Sea : A Novel
Author: Isabel Allende; translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson
Fiction. In the late 1930s, when Spain’s General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants, and embark on the SS Winnipeg along with 2,200 other refugees in search of a new life. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: The Ideas That Made America : A Brief History
Author: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
Non-fiction. Spanning a variety of disciplines, from religion, philosophy, and political thought, to cultural criticism, social theory, and the arts, Ideas That Made America: A Brief History shows how ideas have been major forces in American history, driving movements such as transcendentalism, Social Darwinism, conservatism, and postmodernism. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Jazz from Detroit
Author: Mark Stryker
Non-fiction. Jazz from Detroit explores the city’s pivotal role in shaping the course of modern and contemporary jazz. With more than two dozen in-depth profiles of remarkable Detroit-bred musicians, complemented by a generous selection of photographs, Mark Stryker makes Detroit jazz come alive as he draws out significant connections between the players, eras, styles, and Detroit’s distinctive history. Jazz From Detroit will appeal to jazz aficionados, casual fans, and anyone interested in the vibrant and complex history of cultural life in Detroit. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Music : A Subversive History
Author: Ted Gioia
Non-fiction. Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, historian Gioia tells a four-thousand-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval. He shows how social outcasts have repeatedly become trailblazers of musical expression: slaves and their descendants, for instance, have repeatedly reinvented music, from ancient times all the way to the jazz, reggae, and hip-hop sounds of the current day. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Wildly Successful Farming : Sustainability and the New Agricultural Land Ethic
Author: Brian DeVore
Non-fiction. Wildly Successful Farming tells the stories of farmers across the American Midwest who are balancing profitability and food production with environmental sustainability and a passion for all things wild. Whether producing grain, vegetables, fruit, meat, or milk, these next-generation agrarians look beyond the bottom line of the spreadsheet to the biological activity on the land as key measures of success. Written by agricultural journalist Brian DeVore, the book is based on interviews he has conducted at farms, wildlife refuges, laboratories, test plots, and gardens over the past twenty-five years. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States : Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health
Edited by Devon A. Mihesuah and Elizabeth Hoover ; foreword by Winona LaDuke
Non-fiction. An anthology of essays, written from the perspective of practitioners from around the nation, that both identifies the challenges facing Indigenous communities in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, as well as highlights the inspiring and successful food and health initiatives. Summary adapted from publisher.
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 Title: Tulsa, 1921 : Reporting a Massacre
Author: Randy Krehbiel ; foreword by Karlos K. Hill
Non-fiction. Tulsa’s Greenwood District (“Black Wall Street”) was one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States. But on May 31, 1921, a white mob, inflamed by rumors that a young black man had attempted to rape a white teenage girl, invaded Greenwood. By the end of the following day, thousands of homes and businesses lay in ashes, and perhaps, as many as 300 people were dead. Krehbiel analyzes local newspaper accounts in an unprecedented effort to gain insight into the minds of contemporary Tulsans. Summary adapted from publisher.
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For more books, ebooks, audiobooks and other information on diversity, equity and inclusion, please see the Antiracist Reading & Resource List.
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