If you told me you didn’t play pretend as a child, I wouldn’t believe you. Even as adults, a made-up world from our imagination is probably better than what we have going for us in reality.
Suggested Reading
It’s been established that authors create worlds within their stories—even if the story is nonfiction—because there is always another way to view a situation. That’s exactly what this week’s authors accomplished; for starters, James Baldwin’s The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948-1985 has been published as a paperback for the first time with an additional 46 essays to show readers another side to his wisdom. Charles M. Blow’s The Devil You Know is also now available in paperback, and though he never wanted to write a “race book,” he effectively crafts a new narrative and thesis to grapple with Black disenfranchisement, which he spoke about The Root’s literary podcast, The Root Presents: It’s Lit!
Fictional worlds created include a fake dating love story (a trope that is being widely written about lately) in The Dating Playbook by Farrah Rochan. Jay Coles’ Things We Couldn’t Say shows us a world the main character creates to escape from the struggles he is facing.
Let’s face it: it’s incredibly hard not to just close our eyes and dream up a world where things could be better. Thankfully, these authors put those thoughts and words on the page for you to read.
Every Body Looking – Candice Iloh (Young Adult)
2020 National Book Award finalist Candice Iloh brings a complex character to life in the novel Every Body Looking. The story follows Ada as she leaves home to discover who she is both physically and emotionally. During her freshman year at an HBCU she discovers the world of dance and her sexuality. However, the further she gets from her family, the more she grapples with their issues—her mother’s addiction and her father’s attempts to make a home for her—and ultimately decides to “brush off the destiny others have chosen for her and claim full ownership of her body and her future.”
September 21, 2021, Dutton Books for Young Readers
The Dating Playbook – Farrah Rochan (Fiction)
No one is a better personal trainer than Taylor Powell—but even her fitness skills aren’t enough to pay the bills and debt that keep piling up. So when former NFL player Jamar Dixon, taps Taylor to be his trainer, he lets her in on a secret—no one can know what they’re doing. In order to not arouse suspicions, Jamar suggests they fake a relationship for the public to see. But at some point, it all goes south, and Jamar and Taylor are left wondering what is real and what was just pretend.
September 17, 2021, Grand Central Publishing
The Devil You Know – Charles M. Blow (Nonfiction)
Race has been deemed a “social construct,” but racism is still an act. Journalist and author Charles M. Blow never intended to write a “race” book but after the events of summer 2020, he felt it necessary to define a new narrative for Black people to identify with. Based on personal accounts and the stories of others, he envisioned this book as a “succinct, counterintuitive, and impassioned corrective to the myths that have for too long governed our thinking about race and geography in America.”
In a podcast interview with former Editor-in-Chief of The Root Danielle Belton and Managing Editor of The Glow Up Maiysha Kai for The Root’s literary podcast, It’s Lit, Blow tells the pair: “I was fascinated by this...not that reverse migration was a new thing—it’s a very old concept...but thinking of it as using the constitutional tools available to you—breaking no laws, having no armed insurrection, just using the tools and your feet—you could seize power.”
Blow’s The Devil You Know is now available in paperback.
September 21, 2021, HarperCollins
The Trees: A Novel – Percival Everett (Fiction)
A series of uncanny murders is plaguing the rural town of Money, Mississippi. Two outside detectives come in, and are met an an unwelcome presence in the town by the sheriff, coroner and racist white citizens. After discovering that these murders are taking place all over the country, the detectives expect the murders to be a form of retribution—and the deaths become a puzzle as the second man lynched bears an uncanny resemblance to Emmett Till.
September 21, 2021, Graywolf Press
The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948-1985 – James Baldwin (Nonfiction Essays)
James Baldwin’s “personal and prophetic” essays explore what it means to live in America and what Black men and women do to survive. This “essential collection of his great nonfiction writing” is available for the first time as a paperback with 46 additional pieces including the full texts of, Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows my Name, The Fire Next Time, No Name in the Street and The Devil Finds Work.
According to Beacon Press, “This collection provides the perfect entry into Baldwin’s prescient commentary on race, sexuality, and identity in an unjust American society.”
September 21, 2021, Beacon Press
Things We Couldn’t Say – Jay Coles (Young Adult)
It’s hard to be sure of who you are when you’re internally divided. Gio, a bisexual Black boy, is desperate to find love with just about anyone since his spectrum is so open. However, there’s a hole in Gio’s life that’s bigger than his sexuality or his father’s alcoholism. It’s the shape of his biological mom, who left him when he was nine. For eight years, he’s worked on healing and stitching himself back together...but when she comes back Gio no longer knows what to do. A new boy enters his life and with a whirlwind of emotions, Gio becomes unsure about what he’s supposed to do, who he’s supposed to pursue, and who he may have to forgive.
September 21, 2021, Scholastic Press
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