20 Books You Must Read in 2024 by 540WMain

Dear Community,

This year’s essential reading list blends enduring selections from previous years with groundbreaking new works, each a cornerstone for understanding the complexities of intersectionality, gender, and racism. In an era where the distinction between fact and fiction blurs and the significance of truth wanes, these books emerge as beacons of knowledge, empowering us to break free from the oppressive chains of white supremacy and capitalism.

Check our essential reading list below, and revisit our lists from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019.

Buy Black, buy local

1. The Secondhand Librarian (instagram.com/thesecondhandlibrarian) | Rochester, NY
2. Hipocampo Children’s Books (hipocampochildrensbooks.com) | Rochester, NY
3. Writers & Books (wab.org) Rochester, NY

20 Books You Must Read in 2024

1. Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey 
2. Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini
3. Deaf Republic by IIya Kaminsky
4. When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era by Donovan X. Ramsey
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
6. Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law by Richard Rothstein and Leah Rothstein
7. Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land
8. Green by Alex Gino 
9. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis
10. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
11. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
12. The City We Became by N.K Jemisin
13. A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
14. Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern 
15. Nobody’s Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong
16. Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
17. The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro
18. Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir by Deborah A. Miranda 
19. The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos by Mark Chiusano 
20. Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo by Dayton Duncan
21. Bonus: Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All
    by Laura Bates