Recently I’ve loved the books you can read in a day, so I wanted to make a list of books you can read in just a couple of days but contain powerful and important themes nonetheless. So, let’s dive in to three semi-hidden gems written from Black authors your bookshelf might be missing out on. You already know that this list is procured with the love of a proud bookworm.
Kashana Cauley’s novel, The Survivalists, follows a lawyer’s experience into the underground world of doomsday preppers. You might’ve seen the TV shows, but this is a paperbound rollercoaster of emotions and realisations about anxiety. As the lawyer is also grieving the loss of her mother, this book is layered and complex, very much humanistic and relatable to how we’d react to such excessive survivalists.
Decent People by De’Shawn Charles Winslow
The author of In West Mills writes another novel set in the same community, Decent People. It’s 1976 and three secretive siblings have been shot in the still-segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina. The authorities don’t have a sense of urgency about the crime, but someone has a lot of questions for which she expects answers — Jo Wright, freshly back home from NYC and ready to take matters into her own hands.
Content Warning: Everything by Akwaeke Emezi
Akwaeke Emezi, award-winning author of Freshwater, PET, and The Death of Vivek Oji, released her poetry collection. Now, why is this in the nonfiction category? It’s a multi-genre phenomena. Emezi shares real experiences. From home to homesickness, belonging and leaving, this collection is unlike anything released before.
Honestly, it’s a triumph of a creative mind. It’s multi-genre and multi-disciplinary.
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