540WMain’s List of Books You Must Read in 2022

We couldn’t close out the year without publishing our list of books you must read in 2022

How did you survive 2021? If you’re like us, reading kept you afloat over the last year as this pandemic maintained a stronghold on the world. Books are what sustain us, teach us, help us, and in many cases heal us. We couldn’t close out this year without publishing our annual reading list for 2022.

These titles represent a diverse roster of Black, brown, trans and femme thought leaders, advocates, activists, and scholars. Across the literary and cultural zeitgeist this list represents current and past titles, plus a few that have yet to be released.  Our 2022 list includes novels, memoirs, children’s books, and for the first time a cookbook!

We love reading, we love learning, and cannot wait to share themes from many of these authors in our programming throughout the year.

Check our essential reading list below, or revisit our lists from 2021, 2020, and 2019. And make sure that you read through to the end for our complimentary list of Black-owned books to ensure that you read and BUY BLACK.

Books You Must Read in 2021:

1. How the Word Was Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America | Clint Smith
2. The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing | Sonia Faleiro 
3. Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable From Ferguson to Flint and Beyond | Marc Lamont Hill 
4. This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism | Don Lemon 
5. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdome, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants | Robin Wall Kimmerer 
6. The 1619 Project: Born On The Water | Nikole Hannah-Jones,  Renee Watson,  Nikkolas Smith  
7. The Merciless Ones | Namina Forna
8. Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man | Emmanuel Acho
9. Becoming Abolitionists:   Police, Protests, And the Pursuit of Freedom |Derecka Purnell
10. Black Futures | Kimberly Drew & Jenna Wortham
11. Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood | Kwame Mbalia
12. Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood | Frederick T. Joseph
13. Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness | Da’Shaun L. Harrison
14. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story | Nikole Hannah-Jones 
15. Black Food | Bryant Terry 
16. Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family, and Home | Nikesh Shukla
17. The End of Policing | Alex Vitale
18. Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration | Victoria Law
19. I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir | Malaka Gharib
20. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States | Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
21. The Torture Letters: Reckoning with Police Violence by Laurence Ralph 
    
22. Me & White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become A Good Ancestor | Layla F. Saad
23. The Undefeated | Kwame Alexander & Kadir Nelson
24. Men We Reaped | Jesmyn Ward
25. Ghana Must Go | Taiye Selasi
26. Unbowed: A Memoir | Wangair Maathai
27. The Gumbo Coalition: 10 Leadership Lessons That Help You Inspire, Unite & Achieve | Marc Morial
28. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 | Ibram X. Kendi, Keisha Blain

Buy Black, buy local

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