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Home · Entertainment

The 19 Best New Winter Reads

See what stories we're tossing in our travel totes and downloading to our tablets this holiday season.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
By Keyaira Boone · Updated December 3, 2021

Black authors are soaring higher than ever this season with creative concepts and new ‘Bookstagram’ friendly formats ready to feed our fast-paced lifestyles. 

Merging audio content, striking images, and unique storytelling devices, they are taking readers through the joys and missteps of rural Black fatherhood, inside the public courtrooms and secluded chambers of our troubled judiciary system, to the front pew of the churches upheld by the devotion (and at times degradation) of pious Black women, and introducing them to the spicy secrets of Ghanaian kitchens. 

Jasmine Guillory is serving the ultimate bedtime stories with the help of our homegirl Keke Palmer. Nikole Hannah-Jones is working with Jasmine Mans to share a broader origin story and book festivals hosted by Literary Arts and Well Read Black Girl in places like Portland and Queens are giving readers a chance to connect with one another and the pen-pushers who keep them informed and entertained through their work. 

This season’s literary offerings also include pensive memoirs that revisit sets of hit 90s sitcoms, the back of rowdy 2000s tour buses, reality show reunion couch seating arrangements, and star rosters of sport dynasties to share the true stories behind the relationship goals and career highlights memes have exalted. Black celebrities are setting the record straight about what they expected from the spotlight and revealing their perspectives on some of the most long standing feuds in pop culture.  

Black essayists and cultural critics are using their voices to contribute to landscape shifting anthologies. They are also speaking out about the need for intersection in the approach to the climate crisis, the regional intricacies associated with food desserts, and the stress associated with being trapped in lightless cubicles and living within a system with health guidelines that do not include or prioritize Blackness. 

See 19 of the best new winter reads we are curling up with this season below.

01
Will Smith – Will Smith, Mark Manson
The star proves to be just as transparent as his wife in this remarkably detailed memoir.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Buy Here
02
Call Us What We Carry Poems – Amanda Gorman
The poet laureate infuses hope into a “shipwrecked,” moment.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Pre-Order Here
03
Sankofa – Chibundu Onuzo
A woman’s journey of self-discovery is pushed off course when she finds a letter her mother left behind with clues about her family history.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Catapult
Buy Here
04
Getting Something to Eat in Jackson – Professor Joseph Ewoodzie
This text is a well sourced examination of how race and class intersection with the diet of American Southerners.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Buy Here
05
Right Within How to Heal from Racial Trauma in the Workplace – Minda Harts
Vanessa Nakate stresses the urgent need to decolonize the narrative surrounding climate change through her personal stories.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Seal Press
Buy Here
06
A Bigger Picture: My Fight To Bring A New African Voice To The Climate Crisis
Vanessa Nakate stresses the urgent need to decolonize the narrative surrounding climate change through her personal stories.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
HMH Books
Buy Here
07
Filthy Animals – Brandon Taylor
Taylor’s follow up to ‘Real Life’ includes a set of powerful short stories.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Buy Here
08
Belly Of The Beast The Politics Of Anti-Fatness As Anti-Blackness – Da’shaun L. Harrison
Harrison takes the platitudes tossed at fat people to task.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Buy Now
09
Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed – Saraciea J. Fennell
This anthology features spirited essays from across the Latinx diaspora.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
McMillian
Buy Now
10
Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen – Zoe Adjonyoh
Adjonyoh celebrates the march into an African food revolution with easy to follow recipes.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Little, Brown and Company
Buy Here
11
Red Lip Theology For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing To The Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough – Candice Marie Benbow
Benbow speaks for those who jotted down Ciara’s prayer and still have a few questions after Sunday service.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Buy Now
12
The Last Enforcer Outrageous Stories From the Life and Times of One of the NBA’s Fiercest Competitors – Charles Oakley
Oakley takes readers through his illustrious NBA career.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Buy Now
13
You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays – Zora Neale Hurston, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Genevieve West
This collection spans three decades of the legend’s work.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Harper Collins
Buy Here
14
The Pursuit of Porsha How I Grew Into My Power and Purpose – Porsha Williams, Joi-Marie McKenzie
The former peach holder provides a closer look at her personal and professional lives beyond the Bravoverse.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Worthy Publishing
Buy Here
15
Her Honor My Life on the Bench…What Works, What’s Broken, and How to Change It Author- LaDoris Hazzard Cordell
Hear a critique of our country’s justice system straight from the bench.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Macmillan
Buy Here
16
Letters To The Sons Of Society – Shaka Senghor (1/18)
The best-selling author writes moving letters to his children.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Convergent Publishing
Buy Here
17
What The Fireflies Knew – Kai Harris (2/1)
A pair of Detroit children scramble to pick up the pieces at the home of their estranged grandfather after the death of their father and vanishing of their mother.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Penguin Random House
Buy Now
18
The Deeper The Roots A Memoir of Hope And Home – Michael Tubbs
Tubbs takes readers from his childhood in Stockton California through his political career.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Macmillan
Buy Here
19
Between The Lines Stories From The Underground – Uli Beutter Cohen
This anthology features work from Jamel Shabazz, Jeremy O. Harris, Roxane Gay, and Ashley C. Ford.
The 19 Best New Winter Reads
Simon & Schuster
Buy Now
TOPICS:  black books Books
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