№ 01
“Basically the finest essay I've ever read. Baldwin refused to hold anyone's hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you.” source
Author and MacArthur Fellow
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of Between the World and Me, The Beautiful Struggle, The Water Dancer, and The Message. A former national correspondent for The Atlantic, he received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015 and has written Marvel's Black Panther and Captain America runs. His picks below come from a curated list he built for New York's One Grand Books.
10
Recommendations
2016
Most recent list
Literary Fiction
Most-recommended
On the record
All Ta-Nehisi Coates book recommendations.
№ 02
“I'm a sucker for efficiency. This book gets so much out of what is, ultimately, a rather slim story. I adore it.” source
№ 03
“A book that deeply informs my journalist sense. Writers, particularly American writers, constantly feel the pull of solutionism, the desire to assure their readers that there is a way out, even when there isn't. Judt refused this.” source
№ 04
“What a strange and beautiful book. The story of a postbellum American newspaper editor investigating the undead. Doctorow's most underrated work.” source
№ 05
“The definitive history of the Civil War. One of the greatest works of history I've ever read and arguably the best one volume history in existence.” source
№ 06
“God, I love this book. It's the history of an utterly depressing war with no real nobility, that ultimately descends into cannibalism. Right up my alley.” source
№ 07
“History of soul music, told in profiles. I read this as a young man really trying to understand what journalism and history meant.” source
№ 08
“Probably my favorite living poet. No one else taught me more about how important it was to think about how words make people feel.” source
№ 09
“Again, I like this book for its willingness to embrace the tragic. No happy endings. The book is a defense of elitism, something I guess I oppose. But I found it credible, here.” source
№ 10
“Another book of poetry that taught me what the form was. Forche has a beautiful sense of rhythm. It's all about what you don't say.” source
Readers with overlapping taste
