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12 Outstanding Books About 9/11

The 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and its subsequent events have not gone without the literary treatment. Here, a dozen related books that prove to be thoughtful, illuminating reading.

Read our Q&A with A Decade of Hope author Dennis Smith.

The Longest War : The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda

Peter L. Bergen

A revelatory, pull-no-punches history of the War on Terror, from before 9/11 to the present day. CNN national security analyst and journalist Bergen takes a critical look at all phases of the conflict between the West and al-Qaeda. Drawing on an impressive range of both Western and Islamic sources, the author examines the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the jihadist movement, most importantly as exemplified by Osama bin Laden…One of the deepest and most disturbing investigations of one of the defining issues of our era.

Kristen Breitweiser

The near-miss courtship of Kristen and Ron Breitweiser was anything but a fairy tale. Seton Hall law student Kristen initially believed Ron to be a boozy stalker and spurned his advances. But he was exceptionally persistent and eventually proved himself to be a romantic husband and a proud father. Daughter Caroline was born a year after the death, from cancer, of Kristen’s mother, and the author herself was diagnosed with a breast tumor just prior to September 11. Breitweiser’s devastation over the loss of her husband—he died at the World Trade Center—quickly morphed into vengeful frustration with the “bureaucracy of death.”…Just over a year after the tragedy, the author fired up her “Widowmobile,” headed to Washington and spoke before the Joint Intelligence Committee of Congress, arguing for the formation of an independent 9/11 Commission to investigate the nation’s intelligence failures…Valiant and heartbreaking.

Writer/filmmaker Downey looks inside one of New York's elite firehouses before and after 9/11. Brooklyn’s Rescue 2 company is charged with saving endangered firefighters from other houses. Following the Rescue 2 crews on their missions, staying in the firehouse between calls, the author began in the summer of 2000 a documentary film about their work…The author has a keen eye for character, and the rugged individualists of Rescue 2 give him plenty of material to work with. The book builds inevitably to 9/11, when eight men from Rescue 2, as well as their former Capt. Ray Downey, lost their lives. This narrative describes the tragedy without histrionics, making its impact even stronger. A powerful tribute to men whose daily lives are the stuff of heroism.

Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn

Two New York Times reporters take us inside the World Trade Center on 9/11 to give us a more capacious view of heroism. Dwyer, who won a Pulitzer as part of the group that covered the 1993 WTC bombing, teamed with special-projects editor Flynn to interview scores of survivors and their families; the pair also studied e- and voice-mails from those inside. From these sources they’ve pieced together a powerful account of the disaster that hesitates neither to confer laurels nor point fingers…Swift, photographic prose defines the dimensions of hell—and of humanity.

Susan Faludi

In a clear-eyed recounting of our culture’s reaction to the terrorist attacks, Faludi finds that we have been living in a dream that offers solace for a national tragedy we cannot comprehend. We need stories to live, she notes. Lacking a story for 9/11, we made up a compensatory narrative filled with heroes and John Wayne–like leaders who went to war to maintain a national aura of invincibility. In fact, there were no heroes on 9/11, she says flat out. Exhaustively examining events and their coverage in media from talk shows to comic books, the author shows how the tragedy sparked a “national frenzy to apotheosize” that turned firefighters into supersoldiers (although they were helpless at the Twin Towers) and cast 9/11 widows as venerated keepers of the hearth—unless they criticized the government or spent newfound money in unseemly ways…Readers with misgivings about post-9/11 America will appreciate Faludi’s fantasy busting; right-wing radio hosts will denounce her as a traitorous feminist. But all will find painful her tearing away of the comforting stories we have told ourselves instead of “learning to live with insecurity.”

John Farmer

Senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission Farmer presents a dismaying catalogue of incompetence and dissembling before and after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The author makes excellent use of declassified primary-source documents from 9/11—including transcriptions of frantic last-minute phone calls of air-traffic controllers—to demonstrate how a massively funded national-security system, a relic of the Cold War, failed to counter a small band of terrorists. Bipartisan in assigning blame, Farmer believes that failure resulted from a bureaucracy-laden government…An important systematic brief on how an elaborately constructed national-defense system was penetrated, and why lessons of that day for disaster response remain dimly understood.

Marian Fontana

The author married firefighter Dave Fontana on Sept. 11, 1993, and they were supposed to spend their eighth wedding anniversary toddling hand-in-hand through the Whitney Museum. But Dave never made it home that day; he died at Ground Zero. Marian mourned, gave countless interviews to reporters, planned Dave’s wake, wrote his eulogy and conferred with other widows. Gradually, she became a skilled political organizer, founding the 9-11 Widows’ and Victims’ Families Association…An impassioned, non-manipulative memorial, timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of 9/11.

David Halberstam

Peeled emotional energy characterizes this portrait by Halberstam of a firehouse that lost 12 of 13 men in the initial response to the World Trade Center attack. It’s a difficult story to tell from almost every angle. The notoriously insular firefighting community doesn't accept strangers in its midst, let alone confide in an outsider, and most of the subjects are dead. Halberstam is striving to achieve sympathetic yet realistic characterizations of men he never met, most of whom were very young. So it’s quite an achievement that the author manages to get into the soul of Engine 40, Ladder 35, to give a glimpse of what it meant for these men to be firefighters…Fine work that will leave most readers with even higher esteem for firefighters.

Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton

“The opportunity of the 9/11 Commission was to respond to a brutal attack on our democratic society with a demonstration of the value of democracy itself.” So write onetime New Jersey governor Kean and Indiana congressman Hamilton, both of whom know the workings of high-level committee investigations and were appointed by President Bush after original heads Henry Kissinger and George Mitchell could not meet Senate ethics committee requirements. “We were set up to fail,” Kean and Hamilton candidly remark; the 9/11 committee was given far too broad a mandate, too tight a deadline and too small a budget to do the job…As readers will discover, the White House was unhappy with that result, constantly invoking executive privilege to evade still closer examination. Furthermore, Bush failed to act on most of the committee’s carefully considered recommendations for averting another 9/11—which, Kean and Hamilton write in closing, is surely in the making. A valuable resource for those needing proof that the government machine could use a good overhaul.

Dean E. Murphy

Murphy was one of the reporters who covered that grave day and its aftermath, and for this collection he took on the unenviable task of asking those who survived by the skin of their teeth to relive the catastrophe, plus a handful of people who, by the grace of fortune, were slow at making their morning coffee or decided to change travel plans and so missed a doomed airplane. Murphy admits to some “compositing” of the testimony, but he strove for accuracy and credibility. And the stories simply rattle, first from those who had to wait in jam-ups to get onto escalators or out the door. But those that most whiten the knuckles by far are the near-escapes…One of the real keepers of the flurry of 9/11 publications, destined to find a place on the shelf and be turned to time and again.

By Robin Stern and Courtney E. Martin

Psychoanalyst Stern and journalist Martin combine their skills in this companion to Jim Whitaker's documentary Rebirth , which will premiere on Showtime on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The authors feature a diverse group…the contributors’ accounts open up the warmth and resilience that they shared and used to empower their outreach to others. Stern and Martin situate their contributors within a context informed by ongoing, current work in the medical and psychoanalytical professions on grieving, resilience and coping with loss. The eight contributors participated with the project over time, so the account reflects what these individuals and others like them endured, and also how the country rose to their assistance, as relief and medical programs were shaped to deal with the tragedy and new realities.

Lawrence Wright

Wright, a staff writer for the New Yorker and the author of titles dealing with subjects as divergent as “recovered memory” and Manuel Noriega, has written what must be considered a definitive work on the antecedents to 9/11. (He does deal briefly—and horrifyingly—with the attack itself.) Wright argues that the 1948 arrival of Sayyid Qutb in New York City was pivotal. Qutb saw a vast battle between Islam and the West and was disgusted by the decadence in the New World. His disciples would one day be myriad…But at the center is the story of Osama bin Laden. Wright carefully charts bin Laden’s upbringing and gradual metamorphosis into the world’s most notorious terrorist. (In a long note at the end, Wright acknowledges the difficulties of being certain of his facts in some cases.)…Essential for an understanding of that dreadful day.

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The top 10 novels about 9/11

B oth my first novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, and my latest one, The Last Illusion , are 9/11 novels. I have never minded that classification, as the attacks were a central event in both of them, just as they were in my life. Another reason is that I feel they are in good company. Critics have been quick to dismiss the 9/11 literature that has emerged, but there are several truly great books that have tackled this fairly impossible subject, and dozens more pretty good ones. These are my recommendations, published between 2003 and 2011.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Hamid is one of my favourite writers and this book is pretty mind-blowing. For one thing, its narrative structure is fascinating: the whole thing is a dramatic monologue. We’re in a cafe in Lahore and a Pakistani is telling his life story to an American. The Pakistani happens to be a former American – a successful Princeton graduate, who at one time had a great job and an American girlfriend. After 9/11, he retreats from it all, but the real question is: how much of a choice did he have?

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

Messud has been a great supporter of my work, so it may look biased to choose this; but many agree The Emperor’s Children is the best 9/11 novel. Messud captures the struggles of a still-very-much-alive Manhattan privileged intellectual class through the portrait of three friends, just as well as she evokes those months leading up to the attacks.

A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus

This is one of my favourite 9/11 works. To attempt a dark comedy about 9/11 is already something, but to make it this funny and crazy is something else – and something only a writer as good as Kalfus can do. He dares to ask: what if you actually were, for a moment, relieved to hear your spouse was in the towers? What if their survival was a disappointment? This portrait of a completely broken couple at a time when the world is also completely broken is unforgettable.

The Zero by Jess Walter

Another very original dark comedy about 9/11, Walter’s Kafka-esque political thriller has an outrageous premise: he takes an NYPD cop who has shot himself in the head and suffers from terrible memory gaps and assigns him the task of giving Ground Zero tours to celebrities …

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

DeLillo is one of my favorite authors, period, so it’s hard for me not to love everything he writes. This not my favourite DeLillo, but I still liked it. I love the simple premise of a lawyer who worked in the World Trade Centre surviving the attack and yet not quite surviving his life in the aftermath, intertwined with the narrative of a “falling man” performance artist.

Home Boy by HM Naqvi

This British-Pakistani novelist was big on the US slam poetry circuit for a while – and this is evident in his slang-studded, electric prose. This debut novel is a mix of the classic and the original: half immigrant fiction, half coming-of-age NYC novel. The three young guys of Pakistani origin on whom the book focuses give Naqvi a way to explore the post-9/11 Muslim experience, but they also offer insights as to what it means to be American – now or at any time.

The Submission by Amy Waldman

I met Amy Waldman at a writing residency just a year after this came out and we became friends. We share a journalism background but Amy was a hard-hitting news reporter at the New York Times, and this is very much the work of someone with that experience. Waldman puts forth a premise with unlimited consequences: what if an American Muslim were blindly selected to design the Ground Zero memorial? She examines the idea from every angle. The book is meticulously put together.

Oblivion by David Foster Wallace

I may be alone in considering this collection Wallace’s greatest work. It is dark, relentless, difficult, painful and breathtaking. Some of the stories were published before 9/11, but several seem to me the work of a post-9/11 Wallace, more disillusioned with American life than ever. Most memorable is The Suffering Channel, a 90-page novella set in the months before the attack, about a magazine with headquarters in the World Trade Center. It’s tinted with the dark gloss of the inevitable, but not entirely in ways you’d expect.

The Effect of Living Backwards by Heidi Julavits

This is one of the wildest and weirdest of the group. I loved the unrelenting inventiveness and audacity of this absurdist experimental novel. Two sisters are travelling through Morocco when their plane is hijacked. The way Julavits handles their thoughts, the logistics of the plane, the conversations, the past and the future is incredible.

A Better Angel by Chris Adrian

Three of the stories in this collection (a third of them) involve 9/11. The book is dark, haunted, deeply sad, relentlessly moving. In typical Adrian fashion, ethics and morality are intensely contemplated through a dynamic cast of characters, both celestial and terrestrial.

• Mohsin Hamid
• Don DeLillo
• David Foster Wallace
• September 11 2001

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On the Shelf

The Most Enduring Novels on 9/11 — And the Best One

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This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise but most of the memorable books you’d consider “9/11 novels” aren’t really about the narrow timeline of Sept. 11, 2001. They’re about desperation and survival (physical and emotional) and the sensation of being alive after witnessing mass public murder. They’re about the strength of a city brought to its knees but never laid out flat. They’re about social politics and identity politics and the politics of memory .

Twenty years have now passed since the bright-morning-turned-unholy-nightmare that forever changed the world (spawning, for just one example, America’s longest war, which we hope ended last week ). Those who weren’t direct witnesses or survivors may not think about that day as much as we once did. That’s one reason why we read: to remember the wound and the shift, to stay close to humanity at its most elemental when so many fresh distractions and anxieties want to pull us away.

Twenty years give us enough distance to assess what we have read (or haven’t but should) about that time — what fiction can pull us back in while at the same time expanding our understanding of what happened, and to whom. At this dark milestone, what follows is an attempt, perhaps futile, to cull the long list of 9/11 novels before selecting — with trepidation — the best of the bunch. It is not a definitive roundup, and even if it were, it would be absurdly subjective. Instead, it’s an overview of the fiction that has stayed with me over the years, a look back at books that never let go.

You might remember hearing about what it was like to be a Muslim after the attacks, or to even look like a Muslim. In Amy Waldman’s “ The Submission ” (2011), a jury is tasked with selecting a new 9/11 memorial from a group of anonymous entries. The winner, a beautiful garden, wins praise all around — until the architect is revealed to be a Muslim. At which point all hell breaks loose.

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It’s a great premise for a novel, one that touches numerous third rails. Waldman’s finest creation is the architect, Mohammad Khan. He’s an American native and a fiercely secular one at that, but the controversy awakens something in him, a stubborn individualism and a refusal to kowtow to ignorance. He goes out on a limb by insisting his work speak for itself, much as Waldman, a former New York Times reporter with a shrewd, subtle sense of satire, demands that artists be judged by their art.

Waldman excels at putting the reader in another person’s shoes. So does her fellow journalist Lorraine Adams , whose novel “ Harbor ” (2004) brings us inside an Algerian immigrant community in the Boston area. These strivers have no use for jihad, but the year is 1999 and the FBI is already on high terror alert. Beginning with the torturous journey of Aziz from Algeria, Adams reminds us that new arrivals are often escaping something far worse.

Aziz and his friends fall under FBI surveillance , priming us to scorn the feds. But then Adams flips the script and shifts to their perspective, illustrating the near-impossible process of hunting terrorists. “Harbor” reads like a lost season of “ The Wire ,” in which everyone tries and nobody wins. It’s a world unto itself, granular in detail but far-reaching in scope.

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Both “The Submission” and “Harbor” take seriously the idea that fiction breeds empathy, asking us to look at 9/11 through different lenses. Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid ’s “ The Reluctant Fundamentalist ” (2007) takes this even further: He constructs and then demolishes the Western narrative safety net of the America-loving immigrant, the model minority. His novel follows the aptly named Changez, a Pakistani immigrant who builds himself an all-American life: degree from Princeton, beautiful American girl, successful career in finance. Then the love affair ends. And when the terrorists attack the World Trade Center, Changez feels … almost euphoric.

Changez isn’t an unreliable narrator so much as a man coming to terms with the mask he has so easily worn. This is a novel of identity in flux, in which the protagonist’s American facade crumbles like the illusion of American invincibility. As Changez tells his story to an American in a Lahore cafe, he also unburdens himself to us — and dares us to judge.

One structure not uncommon to the 9/11 novel is the culmination: As in “Harbor,” the plot builds toward the horrible day, both illuminating the event’s impact on individual lives and employing it in the service of a dramatic climax. Claire Messud ’s “ The Emperor’s Children ” (2006) is a prime example. Her novel focuses on three thirtysomething New Yorkers navigating the question of what to do with their lives, not knowing they will soon be forever changed, their status pursuits thrown into stark relief.

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Movers and shakers in the world of arts, culture and ideas, these dubious heroes perform their own comedy of manners until the day catastrophe breaks down the door — and finally, two characters are doing what we all did: watching the unthinkable unfold. Messud’s blend of frivolity and death is risky, and it only works because it reflects the communal quality of the event. The pain of that day was distributed wildly unevenly, from the valleys of Afghanistan to the suburbs of New Jersey. But its impact was felt everywhere, especially in a city that for years had blithely ridden a wave of wealth and unquestioned power.

This communal effect is both a truism — tragedy brings people together — and an awful irony. In the days following the attacks, I remember feeling particularly close to my friends and loved ones, as if we’d survived the same plane crash. Don DeLillo , the high priest of chilly postmodernism, would seem an odd candidate for channeler of the 9/11 touchy-feelies. But there’s something about his parable, “ Falling Man ” (2007), that reminds us how we’re wired to stay together.

When Keith, a lawyer, narrowly escapes one of the burning towers, he stumbles about in the inferno outside, dazed and bloody. His lizard brain tells him to take shelter with his estranged wife, Lianne. What follows is a sort of memory play that makes one wish Alain Resnais (“ Hiroshima, Mon Amour ”) were around to adapt “Falling Man” for the screen. Then again, if he were, how might he capture this: “The dead were everywhere, in the air, in the rubble, on rooftops nearby, in the breezes that carried from the river. They were settled in ash and drizzled on windows, all along the streets, in his hair and on his clothes.”

If that sounds like a bit much, you might consider Jonathan Safran Foer ’s “ Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ” (2005). It’s about a scavenger hunt of sorts, with the scavenger, 9-year-old Oskar, searching for people who can tell him about a key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center. A troubled boy suffering from heavy trauma, he stretches the parameters of his shrinking world in the course of his investigation.

The book is remembered largely for its photo finish, a reverse flipbook of sorts in which a dead man leaps from the ground and up through the air, back into the no-longer-doomed tower. It’s a bit cute for such a grisly event, but not nearly so much as the downright maudlin movie adaptation.

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And what of the towers themselves? These audacious ’70s structures were widely mocked for their hubris and their monolithic rectangularity, symbols of big-box America and brutalist temples of high finance, which made them targets nearly 40 years later. They took on new meaning ever after, but the first person to force us to see them anew was a French tightrope walker named Philippe Petit , who decided to string a wire between them and dance among the clouds one morning in 1974.

This act is the loose organizing principle of Colum McCann’s “ Let the Great World Spin ” (2009), which, though mostly set in the 1970s, gets my vote as the best 9/11 novel. Like the Oscar-winning documentary “ Man on Wire ” and the underrated, magical 2015 Robert Zemeckis feature “ The Walk ,” McCann’s novel frames Petit’s stunt as a transcendent moment in New York’s history. But the author uses that transcendence to reflect on ordinary lives — and to suggest that, in fact, no life is ordinary.

An Irish immigrant ministers to prostitutes from a South Bronx project. A group of women gathers to drink tea and mourn their sons killed in Vietnam. An artist couple try to wrap their heads around a fatal car accident they might have caused. This New York teems with the interior life of James Joyce’s Dublin or Virginia Woolf’s London . As Petit walks in the sky, the city is brought together. One day it will have to come together again, its towers turned to rubble. But the city will survive; it has to.

“ Let the Great World Spin ” is a 9/11 novel but it’s much more than that. It’s a reminder of our common humanity. That’s what the best fiction does. It makes us think and feel together, and it insists we keep going.

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Oct. 16, 2023

U.S. marks 22 years since 9/11 with tributes and tears

Sept. 11, 2023

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September 11: The 9/11 Story, Aftermath and Legacy Hardcover – August 3, 2021

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This important and comprehensive book commemorates the 20th anniversary of September 11 as told through stories and images from the correspondents and photographers of The Associated Press—breaking news reports, in-depth investigative pieces, human interest accounts, approximately 175 dramatic and moving photos, and first-person recollections. AP’s reporting of the world-changing events of 9/11; the heroic rescue efforts and aftermath; the world’s reaction; Operation Enduring Freedom; the continuing legal proceedings; the building of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City as a place of remembrance; the rebuilding of downtown NYC and much more is covered. Also included is a foreword by Robert De Niro. The book tells the many stories of 9/11—not only of the unprecedented horror of that September morning, but also of the inspiring resilience and hope of the human spirit.

• Print length 224 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Union Square & Co.
• Publication date August 3, 2021
• Dimensions 9.25 x 1.25 x 11 inches
• ISBN-10 1454943599
• ISBN-13 978-1454943594
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This commemorative 20th anniversary volume serves as an enduring keepsake of September 11, 2001—not only of that devastating morning when the world as we knew it irreparably changed, but also of the courage and strength of the human spirit. It tells the complete story of 9/11 over the last twenty years, from AP’s wall-to-wall coverage of the cataclysmic events of that day to its effects in the years beyond up through today—as told though reports, recollections, and photographs from the journalists of The Associated Press.

September 11 is the most comprehensive illustrated book on the entire story of 9/11 ever published, featuring a detailed timeline of the events of 9/11 in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa.; breaking news stories; in-depth investigative pieces; human-interest accounts; first-person recollections, both new and archival; and more than 270 dramatic and moving photos.

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The Associated Press is an independent, not-for-profit news cooperative headquartered in New York City. The AP teams in over 100 countries tell the world’s stories, from breaking news to investigative reporting. The AP provides content and services to help engage audiences worldwide, working with companies of all types, from broadcasters to brands. The events of September 11, 2001, galvanized all AP news bureaus around the globe, and many of the key journalists who reported at the time and in the years that followed have contributed personal reflections exclusively for this project. 

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Union Square & Co. (August 3, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1454943599
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1454943594
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.25 x 1.25 x 11 inches
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From terrorism to heroism: Books on 9/11 offer perspective, grace

• Deep Read ( 5 Min. )
• By Barbara Spindel Correspondent

September 8, 2021

The events of 9/11 shocked the world, imprinting sounds and images that resonate to this day. For one writer, who was at the time a recent transplant to New York, the sadness of that day played out against a backdrop of personal grief and uncertainty. Twenty years later, she sought a broader understanding of what had happened, and a better grasp of the heroes, plotters, rescuers, and victims that stoked the narrative.  

Why We Wrote This

How are collective memories of 9/11 shaped? A half-dozen books chronicle everything from the efforts of first responders and the generosity of ordinary people to the rise of Al Qaeda and the failure of U.S. intelligence.

For a long time I resisted reading any book about 9/11, but recently, I’ve read many. I’ve been startled by their power, by how my heart pounded and tears came easily, even 20 years on. I still felt the confusion followed by horror and anguish.

I was living through a more personal heartbreak on that day. A New Yorker for more than two decades now, I’d only been in the city for 2 1/2 years as of Sept. 11, 2001. I already had a strong suspicion I was there to stay, though, symbolized by my decision to get married in New York rather than my native Miami Beach. The wedding was scheduled for the first weekend in October.

Then my father, following a brief illness, died on Sunday, Sept. 9. I flew with my fiancé to Florida early on the 10th. In my childhood home in Surfside, recently the scene of its own catastrophe, we awoke on Tuesday the 11th to the news of an airplane flying into the World Trade Center. For the next couple of hours, as the atrocities unfolded, my fiancé and I stared, dumbstruck, at the television. After the second tower fell, we turned the TV off and made our way to my father’s funeral. Numbness upon numbness, grief upon grief.

Reading about 9/11 immediately connects me to my own loss from that time, eliciting emotions that are easier to keep locked away. But the 20-year mark seemed like the right time to look back on the day, and as a reviewer, I was interested to look back through books. I gained much from doing so, from emotional catharsis to historical perspective on the current, awful situation in Afghanistan, which reminds us how much 9/11 continues to shape our world.

Garrett M. Graff’s “The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11” is the volume that moved me most. Published in 2019, it’s based on more than 500 oral histories collected by Graff, a former Politico editor, and by other journalists and historians. Graff has organized them masterfully, vividly conveying the shock of events through the recollections of first responders, survivors, members of the George W. Bush administration, victims’ relatives, and others.

Graff includes transcripts of the final messages people in the air and on the ground left for their loved ones. As wrenching as those are, details of less weighty moments can be unexpectedly gutting. A police officer who arrived at the twin towers was puzzled to see women’s shoes everywhere until it occurred to him that office workers were ditching their heels as they ran barefoot from the scene. An air traffic controller recalls being upset with himself for a lack of professionalism because his voice “did crack a little bit” while he helped fulfill the Federal Aviation Administration’s unprecedented order, minutes after the third hijacked airplane hit the Pentagon, that every plane in the air in the United States land immediately. The book stands out for its raw power, poignance, and moments of grace. 

Like “The Only Plane in the Sky,” Mitchell Zuckoff’s “Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11,” also published in 2019, seeks to memorialize those who died and provide a clear record of the day. His goal is to “delay the descent of 9/11 into the well of history.” An intimate and beautifully written narrative history, “Fall and Rise” was born from Zuckoff’s early reporting on the attacks for The Boston Globe and is based primarily on his interviews with people connected to the day’s tragic events. We get to know dozens of them, and in many cases, their bravery astonishes. For instance, Zuckoff describes impromptu rescue teams of military and civilian workers at the Pentagon who ran toward danger to help their colleagues, both friends and strangers, up until the affected portion of the building collapsed. Some repeatedly reentered the burning wreckage to search for survivors.

Reading about the day itself compelled me to seek out books about the history that preceded it. “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” remains the preeminent source in that regard. Lawrence Wright’s deeply researched Pulitzer Prize winner, published in 2006 (a miniseries based on the book premiered on Hulu in 2018), charts the intellectual and political roots of Islamic radicalism. The propulsive and riveting narrative begins with Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who studied in America in the late 1940s and, in part because of his disgust with the country’s decadence and sexual permissiveness, came to endorse violent jihad. His work inspired, among many others, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor who later partnered with Osama bin Laden in the group that became Al Qaeda. 

“The Looming Tower” also covers America’s counterterrorism efforts. As some in the intelligence community sounded the alarm about bin Laden, who declared war against the U.S. in 1996, their concerns were dismissed. “It was too bizarre, too primitive and exotic,” Wright writes. “Up against the confidence that Americans placed in modernity and technology and their own ideals to protect them from the savage pageant of history, the defiant gestures of bin Laden and his followers seemed absurd and even pathetic.” 

That mindset helps explain why the government was so unprepared on 9/11. “Existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen,” The 9/11 Commission Report concludes. Released in 2004, the report remains a valuable resource as well as an unlikely achievement, a government publication that’s also a page turner. (It was even a finalist for a National Book Award in nonfiction.) In clear, sober language, the report presents a comprehensive chronology of the day, explaining government procedures in place – many designed during the Cold War to face a very different kind of threat – and their utter inadequacy to meet the moment. Five Republicans and five Democrats sat on the commission that jointly produced the report, a reminder of the brief period of national unity that followed the attacks.  

The best books on 9/11 are, as they must be, harrowing and heartbreaking. But of the new books being published to coincide with the 20th anniversary, two stand out for their focus on stories of uplift. While there are indelible images of stunned survivors fleeing the World Trade Center on foot, L. Douglas Keeney’s “The Lives They Saved: The Untold Story of Medics, Mariners, and the Incredible Boatlift That Evacuated Nearly 300,000 People From New York City on 9/11” tells of the massive rescue involving passenger ferries, police boats, harbor-cruise ships, tugboats, and even tiny rubber dinghies. More than 100 civilian captains rushed to the scene by boat to help; many vessels transported casualties across the water to Jersey City, New Jersey, where ambulances awaited. Keeney calls the evacuation by sea “a missing piece of the September 11 story for two decades.”

Finally, Mac Moss’ “Flown Into the Arms of Angels: Newfoundland and Labrador’s Unsung Heroes of 9/11” describes how the Canadian province hosted and cared for 13,000 passengers and crew on 79 U.S.-bound aircraft diverted there on 9/11. (The same events inspired Jim DeFede’s 2002 oral history, “The Day the World Came to Town,” as well as the musical “Come From Away.”) 

Moss, then an administrator at a college campus in Gander, was part of the relief effort. In writing of the impressive coordination involved in hosting and feeding the stranded for days, he offers a heartfelt tribute to his thousands of neighbors “who brought blankets, sheets, pillows, casseroles, salads, and love.”

Love ended up being a big part of my 9/11 experience, too. 

Borne up by our families and friends, we went ahead with our New York wedding weeks after the attacks. There was grief – both for my father and for the unfathomable losses endured so recently by so many. But there was also joy and hope. 

We have two teenagers now, city kids who love New York fiercely. My son picked up “The Only Plane in the Sky” after I finished it, and he hasn’t put it down. As he encounters for the first time what, for him, is history, I remember.

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These 10 Books on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11 Elevate and Enlighten

We read—to make sense of complex history, to grasp tectonic cultural quakes around the globe, and to mourn lives cut short amid fire and ruin.

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On the twentieth anniversary of September 11th, the day that changed everything, we remember. We reflect. And we read—to make sense of complex history, to grasp tectonic cultural quakes around the globe, and to mourn lives cut short amid fire and ruin. From a granular governmental investigation to moving memoirs to a minute-by-minute recreation of the horrors and heroism in the Twin Towers, here are ten books that anchor us to 9/11 and its many meanings. They bless and comfort us as we look back and look forward.

The 9/11 Report by the 9/11 Commission

As night follows day, an official commission convenes to investigate a national tragedy. Helmed by Thomas Kean, a Republican, and Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, the Commission delved into all the jumbled pieces of the puzzle. Released in 2002, their official report brilliantly reconstructs the origins and execution of al-Qaeda’s nefarious plot, shifting, drone-like, across time and place, from caves in Afghanistan to the Pentagon to a Pennsylvania field to towering infernos in Manhattan.

102 Minutes by James Dwyer and Kevin Flynn

To these veteran New York Times journalists came the burden of sifting through phone calls, voicemail, emails, and texts to stitch together the final 102 minutes in the lives of those trapped inside the Twin Towers, such as Christine Olender, the crackerjack assistant manager at Windows on the World; Andrew Rosenblum, a grace-under-pressure Vice President at Cantor Fitzgerald; and Orio Palmer, the athletic firefighter who raced up seventy floors in a heroic if futile act of rescue. This National Book Award finalist is a tribute to the power of not looking away.

A Widow’s Walk by Marian Fontana

On their seventh wedding anniversary, firefighter Dave Fontana called his wife from the North Tower, describing the carnage as the “worst day of his life” and promising to phone back in twenty minutes. That call never came, leaving his wife mired in a welter of emotions as she cobbled together a support group for 9/11 widows. Fontana’s bracing heartbreak of a memoir explores the aftermath, balancing the thin line between meddling politicians and paparazzi and enduring grief.

Unmeasured Strength by Lauren Manning

A partner at the elite financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, located at the crown of the North Tower, Manning had just walked into the lobby when the first plane slammed into the building; she was scorched by a fireball that plummeted down an elevator shaft. The odds of her survival were slim, but after wrenching surgeries and grueling therapies, she battled back with love in her heart and a fresh mission on her mind. Her affecting, candid memoir evokes the road back like no other.

The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud

9/11 belongs to writers of all forms, including fiction. Messud’s piercing, provocative novel showcases a privileged trio of bright young things in New York—a glamorous writer, a television producer, and a freelance critic—as they navigate their fates in the early months of 2001, their public pretensions alloyed with private doubts. But in the background there’s a silhouette of a plane, a distant boom, and the world they know is poised to crash.

The Red Bandanna by Tom Rinaldi

The son of a firefighter, Welles Crowther was famous for the red bandanna he wore beneath sports uniforms in high school; he was also a clear natural in his role as a rookie equities trader in the South Tower. On 9/11, he discovered the building’s one clear stairwell; and with a bandanna masking his face from smoke, the fit twenty-four-year-old shepherded up to 18 people to safety—including carrying a severely injured woman on his back—before perishing in the collapse.

He appeared for years in survivor accounts as a kind of anonymous, ghostly savior before his identity was revealed. Here, an intrepid journalist sniffs out Crowther’s trail among the smoldering tower, a beautifully written homage to courage in the sky.

Where You Left Me by Jennifer Gardner Trulson

A tall, commanding executive at Cantor Fitzgerald, Doug Gardner was also a gentle giant who delighted in his wife and two toddlers, a provider par excellence, translating his knack for finance into a luxe Manhattan apartment and a beach house in the Hamptons...until American Airlines Flight 11 blasted a crater beneath his floor in the North Tower. At 35, Jennifer Gardner was abruptly cut off from her perfect life, holding other widows at arm’s length and vowing to devote herself to her children and legal practice. Big-hearted yet unsentimental, Gardner's memoir seams her past with her future as she unexpectedly brushes against a second chance at love.

American Widow by Alissa Torres, illustrated by Sungyoon Choi

9/11 was Eddie Torres’s second day of work as a broker at Cantor Fitzgerald, his dream job, the pinnacle of a young undocumented immigrant’s ambitious climb out of Colombia and poverty. In her spare, graphic memoir, his widow pays homage to a legacy shaped not by Ivy League connections but by brains and bravura, the allure of a singular romance.

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

Wright’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning account of the rise of al-Qaeda is a tour de force of investigative reporting. With his trademark wit and compassion, Wright peers clear-eyed into the cultural storms that gave birth to a global terrorist network, from Sayyid Qutb, the martyred Egyptian philosopher, to Ayman al-Zawahiri, a theocratic visionary, to Osama bin Laden, whose fatwa against the United States altered the course of a nation. A masterwork for history buffs as well as for aspiring journalists.

Fall and Rise by Mitchell Zuckoff

Zuckoff’s comprehensive, riveting book slants differently than other 9/11 histories, fleshing out the first responders at the World Trade Center and illuminating the lesser-known blow-by-blow of the Pentagon attack, conjuring “broken pipes...human remains, ruined furniture, and airplane wreckage,” a stab at the heart of American power. In intricate detail Zuckoff maps out the immensity of the tragedy, lives shattered beyond New York.

A former book editor and the author of a memoir, This Boy's Faith, Hamilton Cain is Contributing Books Editor at Oprah Daily. As a freelance journalist, he has written for O, The Oprah Magazine, Men’s Health, The Good Men Project, and The List (Edinburgh, U.K.) and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He is currently a member of the National Book Critics Circle and lives with his family in Brooklyn.  

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Books that examine how 9/11 and its aftermath reshaped our world

Recommended reading from uchicago press for the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the University of Chicago Press has curated a list of books that reflect on the tragedy of that event, as well as the many political, cultural and literary aftershocks that have followed.

Two decades later, we continue to grapple with the terrorist attacks and how they have dramatically reshaped our world. The list below offers a variety of expert perspectives that are shaping our understanding of 9/11 itself and how it has changed us. Including works from UChicago scholars Bruce Lincoln and W.J.T. Mitchell—as well as many other leading thinkers—these books examine topics ranging from citizenship, to religion, to the imagery of the war on terror.

Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present by Prof. W.J.T. Mitchell

“This is a brilliant and wide-ranging book that considers the role of images in the recent war on terror, locating a new logic of reproduction within the visual field. The centrality of imagery for understanding and waging the so-called war on terror is widely discussed, but few scholars are able to trace the animating effects of reproducible images with Mitchell’s acuity.” —Judith Butler, UC Berkeley

Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion After September 11 by Prof. Emeritus Bruce Lincoln

“Modernity has ended twice: in its Marxist form in 1989 Berlin, and in its liberal form on September 11, 2001. In order to understand such major historical changes we need both large-scale and focused analyses—a combination seldom to be found in one volume. But here Bruce Lincoln . . . has given us just such a mix of discrete and large-picture analysis.” —Stephen Healey, Christian Century

Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida by Giovanna Borradori

“9-11 is still calling. Who will answer? For Vassar professor Giovanna Borradori, who lived through 9-11 at her East Side apartment, that call goes out to philosophy. Her admirable response to her own grief and confusion was to interview two of Europe’s foremost philosophers, Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. . . . [ Philosophy in a Time of Terror ] reminds us that the most constructive response to 9-11 may simply be to recognize the event as an opportunity to ask the decisive questions about ourselves and our place in the world.” —Gregory Fried, Village Voice

Unsettled Belonging: Educating Palestinian American Youth After 9/11 by Thea Renda Abu El-Haj

“This is a highly original, extremely important, and compelling account of transnational citizenship. With her focus on Palestinian American youth and by fleshing out the concept of transnational citizenship, Abu El-Haj offers a unique book that will significantly push the anthropology of education forward and will take its place as one of the great educational ethnographies of our time.” —Andrea Dyrness, author of Mothers United

9/11: The Culture of Commemoration by David Simpson

“Within our collective consciousness, 9/11 is regarded as a cataclysmic disruption of the ordered world, the day after which nothing would ever be the same. Simpson dares to refute this claim, examining the ways in which 9/11 has been exploited in American public discourse, from the debates over how to commemorate the Ground Zero site, to the rush to invade Iraq.” — Toronto Globe and Mail

States of Terror: History, Theory, Literature by David Simpson

“The word ‘terror,’ translated across many languages and contexts, has left its mark on diverse literary traditions—tragedy, the Gothic novel, the sublime. Once the attribute of gods and kings, in the modern era it charts a course from the French Revolution to the ‘war on terror,’ and at a certain point in that trajectory enters into an ambivalent symbiosis with ‘terrorism.’ Many cultural critics have addressed themselves to the later phases of this word’s history, but, as far as I know, no one prior to David Simpson has taken on the task of untangling—insofar as this is possible—the entire philological knot that ‘terror’ represents for us. This powerful, wide-ranging study helps us reimagine the function of criticism in dark times.” —Marc Redfield, author of The Rhetoric of Terror: Reflections on 9/11 and the War on Terror

Dead Reckoning: Air Traffic Control, System Effects, and Risk by Diane Vaughan

“ Diane Vaughan’s famous analysis of the Challenger tragedy is followed here with a study of air traffic control. Vaughan really wants to know how it works and she succeeds. As a result she is in the right place, both physically and analytically, to explain what happened to a sky full of airplanes on 9/11. And Vaughan can write: just her introductory description of how she invaded the controllers’ domain is gripping. Like her Challenger book, this sets the gold standard.” —Harry Collins, Cardiff University

—A version of this story was first published by the University of Chicago Press .

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55 Books by Black Authors That Deserve a Spot on Your Bookshelf

Put these books on your must-read list.

G rowing up as a young Black girl in the South, I saw positive representations of Black and Brown excellence: My family members were college-educated, working professionals and pillars in their communities. They owned churches, shoe stores, homes and property, and they held themselves in high esteem despite some of the negative stereotypes presented on the news and in the media. I fondly remember my mother, who received her bachelor's in English Literature, bringing home books by Black authors—titles like Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America , Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery , The Souls of Black Folk , The Color Purple and The Bluest Eye .

Even in my youth, I was aware of the power of reading , and when my parents shared with me that it was once illegal for Black people to know how to read, I embraced it even more. I devoured books that showcased the vast and uniquely diverse spectrum of Black life. And despite often reading books in school that presented Black people and their ancestry homogeneously, I have always felt empowered in my identity as a result of the knowledge I gained from books and the wise people around me.

In my teenage years, I decided to become an English Literature major, like my mother. I always understood that books provide an entry point into the minds of others. Like an invitation to a well-thought-out event, the best books leave an indelible imprint. Whether teaching or entertaining, the written word has a way of moving people while providing a greater understanding of a person, place or thing. That is certainly true of books by Black authors, which can highlight certain experiences and issues that often don't receive the attention they deserve.

The books on this list include novels, memoirs, biographies and more, all written by Black authors in the past several years. While they deal with a wide range of issues—some are feminist stories, some are books about racism and others are pure entertainment—they all offer important and thought-provoking perspectives. They're also page-turners, and many of them have racked up numerous awards and earned a place in the hearts of millions of readers. You're about to see why.

Join the free Reader's Digest Book Club for great reads, monthly discussions, author Q&As and a community of book lovers.

1. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

There has long been an unspoken connection between the Black and Jewish communities, both of which take center stage in The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store . The story opens with a mystery in 1970s Pennsylvania before jumping back in time to 1925. Here, in the thriving Chicken Hill neighborhood, Black and Jewish people live together, bound by secrets, ambition and survival. With his latest novel, New York Times bestselling author James McBride showcases his powerful storytelling and suggests love and a sense of community have the power to transcend the weight that is often placed on matters of race. It's an excellent read worth savoring. Need more proof? A mere four months after its August 2023 publication, it earned the title of the best book of the year from both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

2. The Queen of Sugar Hill by ReShonda Tate

Hattie McDaniel is known for her roles in films like Gone with the Wind , Alice Adams and Song of the South , and she was the first Black woman to win an Oscar. Yet her journey was marred with racism, caricatures and, at times, rejection, not just by Hollywood but also by some of her Black contemporaries as well. Though she was a trailblazer who broke many barriers in Hollywood, many felt as if her portrayal of the mammy stereotype did more damage than good. But bestselling author ReShonda Tate's The Queen of Sugar Hill —a dynamic fictionalized account of McDaniel's life spanning immediately after her Oscar win in the 1940s to the time of her death in 1952—highlights her grit, tenacity and Hollywood experiences, along with the pain she endured at the hands of racist institutions during the height of her career. What I loved most about this novel is that it entertainingly shares the glamour of old Hollywood without shying away from some of the ugly truths about racism in America's history. Lovers of old Hollywood and meaty historical fiction books will adore this one!

Looking for your next great book? Read four of today's bestselling novels in the time it takes to read one with Fiction Favorites !

3. Purple Rising: Celebrating 40 Years of the Magic, Power and Artistry of The Color Purple by Lise Funderburg and Scott Sanders

Named one of Oprah's favorite things of 2023, Purple Rising pays homage to Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Color Purple . When it was published in 1982, Walker's novel became a global phenomenon, giving birth to a 1985 film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg, a 2005 Broadway musical and a 2023 film adaptation of the Broadway show. Purple Rising , published in November 2023, celebrates The Color Purple and its contributions to America's literary and film canons with more than 50 original interviews and new images from the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Taraji P. Henson, Blitz Bazawule, Oprah Winfrey and many others. But this book isn't just aesthetically pleasing; it's truly a beautiful compilation of The Color Purple 's legacy.

4. This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets edited by Kwame Alexander

Kwame Alexander is a literary force: He's won the Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, Coretta Scott King Award and countless other accolades. He recently received an Emmy for his television show The Crossover , based on his YA book of the same name. And he's currently the new literary and artistic director of the nonprofit education center Chautauqua Institute. So it's not surprising that his new poetry anthology, T his Is the Honey , was named by Publisher's Weekly and Lit Hub as one of the most highly anticipated books of 2024.

This Is the Honey features works by Amanda Gorman, Nikki Giovanni, Clint Smith, Rita Dove and Alice Walker, among many new voices, and centers themes that range from love and parenting to heritage, Black joy, politics and more. If you were a fan of Alexander's recent memoir Why Fathers Cry at Night , you will appreciate this compilation of prolific Black poets , which was published on Jan. 30, 2024.

5. 27 Summers: My Journey to Freedom, Forgiveness and Redemption During My Time in Angola Prison by Ronald Olivier and Craig Borlase

Life in prison and redemption are not often synonymous with one another. Yet in 27 Summers , author Ronald Olivier delivers the true story of his life sentence in prison and the power of God's grace and mercy. His tale is that of an overcomer, and this memoir candidly shares how he gained hope for a renewed life while in a prison cell for 27 summers. Olivier grew up in the Eighth Ward of New Orleans, and by the time he was 12 years old, he'd already witnessed a murder. At 16, he killed someone.

What I love most about this 2023 memoir is that it's not just another sad story about Black men and the prison system. Contrarily, this book is an aspirational testimony to how Olivier believes that it was God who stepped in and changed his life. Though he was convicted of second-degree murder and served almost 30 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Olivier's life changed, and he eventually became the director of chaplaincy at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. This feel-good book sends a message to readers of all backgrounds that even when the odds are against you, you can change for the better.

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6. Sex, Lies and Sensibility by Nikki Payne

If you're a fan of Jane Austen's romance novels , you'll love the latest book from the author of Pride and Protest . Nikki Payne's Sex, Lies and Sensibility , which hits shelves on Feb. 13, 2024, has been dubbed the sexy, modern adaptation of Austen's Sense and Sensibility . When two sisters find out that the only thing they've inherited from their father is a worn-down inn in a quaint Maine town, they roll up their sleeves and get to work revamping it. The only thing standing in their way is a good-looking squatter. If you value diversity and lead characters of color, this is the romance for you: It centers on the rich culture of Black and Indigenous people.

7. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Take My Hand was one of the most highly anticipated fiction books of 2022 , and for good reason. It delves into the forced sterilization of Black women in the American South during the 1970s. Based on true events, the timely story sheds light on the history of the health-care system in America and how it often negatively impacts the lives of those who are Black and poor. Our grim history is explored through the lives of tween sisters Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf, who are not sexually active and are being coerced into sterilization without knowing it. Dolen Perkins-Valdez masterfully makes an argument on behalf of the disenfranchised and marginalized and uses historical fiction to amplify the history of racial inequality and injustice in the health-care system. Take My Hand diplomatically cuts to the core of America's long-hidden legacy of traumatizing the Black body.

8. The Personal Librarian by Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict

The New York Times bestselling The Personal Librarian has been hailed by the Washington Post as "historical fiction at its finest" and tells the story of Belle da Costa Greene, a "White-passing" Black woman who became a powerful force in the art world. Not only was da Costa Greene the personal librarian of J.P. Morgan, but she also built his famous rare books and manuscript collection and became one of America's most prominent librarians. In 1924, she was named the first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library. The Personal Librarian , which came out in 2021, centers her story and provides an opportunity for readers to explore and further examine what it means to be Black in America.

9. Wahala by Nikki May

Published in 2022, Wahala centers on three Anglo-Nigerian pals whose longtime friendship is upset when the charming Isobel bursts into their group. Hailed as a mix between My Sister, the Serial Killer , Sex in the City and Big Little Lies , the book delicately delves into the dynamics of female friendship and explores themes of colorism, multiculturalism and even internalized racism. If you're curious about Nigerian cooking and fashion and want a refreshing take on culture through a biracial lens, this book is the perfect read for you.

10. Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Landing on the New York Times bestseller list when it came out in 2022, Black Cake opens with the death of matriarch Eleanor Bennett. She's left her two adult sons a small inheritance: a voice recording and a traditional Caribbean black cake. They raise more questions than answers, hinting at long-buried family secrets. As the men puzzle out their mother's history, they grapple with their estrangement from each other and the spiritual and emotional ramifications of their mother's hidden past. As readers soon find out, secrets, once discovered, can make or break a family. If you find yourself hungry for more after devouring Black Cake , you're in luck. It recently premiered as a Hulu original TV show produced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films.

11. Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb

If you were mesmerized by Brendan Slocumb's The Violin Conspiracy , there's good news: The author is back with another music-inspired story. (No surprise there: He's a violinist and spent years as a music teacher.) One of Reader's Digest 's most anticipated books of last year, Symphony of Secrets follows a music professor who gets the shock of a lifetime when he discovers that the object of his longtime study may have stolen his music from an unknown Black woman living in the 1920s. The modern-day mystery at the crux of the book uncovers a twisted history that could change the music world.

12. Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

Presidential inaugural poet—the youngest in U.S. history—Amanda Gorman captured the nation's attention in 2021 with her poem "The Hill We Climb." Published later the same year, Call Us What We Carry is a meditation on identity, history and language. This inspirational book is a definite must-read for anyone looking for a powerful poetry collection that shares messages of hope and reckoning.

13. Lone Women by Victor LaValle

From the award-winning author of The Changeling comes another tense horror novel that'll have you flipping pages faster than you can say "keep the lights on." Lone Women takes readers to the American West in 1915, where Adelaide Henry arrives with a steamer trunk. It's locked and must be kept that way—otherwise, people will die. A well-plotted, genre-blending tale that ratchets up the suspense and weaves mystery throughout (what, we ask, is in that trunk?), Lone Women is must-read fiction.

14. Decent People by De'Shawn Charles Winslow

A taut mystery that explores the types of murders that make headlines and see police action, De'Shawn Charles Winslow's 2023 novel, Decent People , tackles race, money and class in segregated '70s North Carolina. When three Black people are murdered and the police seem uninterested in solving the crime, a retiree who has just returned to town takes it upon herself to uncover the secrets.

15. Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

In her powerful 2022 debut novel, Tara M. Stringfellow explores three generations of a Southern Black family, along with long-buried secrets, matrilineal tradition and the healing power of art. When Joan, her mother and her little sister return to the family's ancestral home, family secrets come to light, and the family's lineage becomes an open gateway through which history and unspoken memories can pass. Memphis is a page-turner, and it's the perfect pick for simultaneous mother-daughter reads .

16. Y ou Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston

In the words of literary powerhouse Toni Morrison, "Hurston was one of the greatest writers of our time." And You Don't Know Us Negroes provides another opportunity to step into the mind of the great cultural anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. This collection of essays spans more than 35 years and further solidifies the vibrant Harlem Renaissance writer's place in literary history. Throughout her long career, she reshaped literature, took ownership of words (especially Black vernacular) and archived Black culture in the process.

Edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Genevieve West, this 2022 compilation of Hurston's essays offers her thoughts on Black vernacular, historically Black colleges and universities, religion, voting, jazz, folklore, race relations and many other topics. It includes essays like "What White Publishers Won't Print" and "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." If you're looking to dig deeper into the mind of an unapologetic literary genius, you will definitely want to read this book.

17. Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

If you loved Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad and devoured The Nickle Boys (or any of his other works), you'll consider this good news: The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner released another must-read novel in the Ray Carney series in 2023. So if you haven't read the first ( Harlem Shuffle ), now's the time to do so. In Crook Manifesto , you'll visit seedy New York City of the '70s, where Carney and his crew are running heists and other crimes. The city comes alive in Whitehead's skillful hands—it's as much a character as Carney and his endearing partner in crime. If you're looking for outstanding books by Black authors, you can't go wrong with Whitehead.

18. You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen

A powerful YA novel that shines a spotlight on characters often overlooked in literature, You Truly Assumed explores what it means to be both Black and Muslim. When a terrorist attack happens in a community, hatred and Islamophobia begin to grow. That's why Sabriya, a studious and thoughtful teenager, turns to her blog for comfort. But when a post she shares goes viral, it creates a wildly popular space for other Muslim teens to share their thoughts and experiences. Laila Sabreen's You Truly Assumed centers teen voices, the Muslim faith and Islamophobia with great care.

19. God Is a Black Woman by Christena Cleveland

When Christena Cleveland had a crisis of faith, she ended up on a 400-mile walking pilgrimage to the Shrines of the Black Madonnas to find healing. Readers will be able to draw a line from that experience to the publication of this 2022 book. God Is a Black Woman boldly rejects the notion of White, patriarchal Christianity while encouraging readers to connect with the divine outside the context of Western perceptions of the religion. A work of nonfiction , the book tackles themes of theology and healing while exploring the notion of the sacred Black feminine.

20. T he Great Mrs. Elias by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barbara Chase-Riboud, author of the award-winning Sally Hemings , is back with another book about a powerful woman hidden in history. The Great Mrs. Elias brings to life the story of Hannah Elias, one of the wealthiest Black women in the early 1900s. An unsolved murder and case of mistaken identity prompt the police to knock on Hannah's door, setting off a suspenseful tale studded with scandal and intrigue.

21. Black Girls Must Be Magic by Jayne Allen

The second installment in the Black Girls Must Die Exhausted book series, this 2022 title tackles what it means to be a Black woman and single mother. In Black Girls Must Be Magic , Tabitha Walker is at a crossroads in her life: She recently found out that she's pregnant. As the pressures of life mount, she must balance and prioritize self-love all while trying to keep her proverbial village together. This debut novel is a bit magical itself, combining an engaging plot, relatable situations and characters you'll absolutely root for.

22. Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray

Hailed as the "buzziest book of 2021" and optioned by Netflix in a seven-figure deal, Beasts of Prey is your new reading obsession. The first in a three-book fantasy series , it follows two Black teens as they journey into a magical jungle to track down a monster that has been menacing their city for a century. The book takes inspiration from Greek and Roman mythology, as well as Ayana Gray's discovery of Octavia Butler. It's packed with monsters, mythos and lots of Black girl magic.

23. We Are N ot Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

Many believe that the bonds of true friendship can never be broken, but what happens when issues of race fray the ties that bind? In We Are Not Like Them , a childhood friendship is tested by the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager by a White police officer. In this riveting book club pick , themes of friendship, marriage and career ambition collide against a backdrop of racial tension. Published in 2021, this is a timely story that's perfect for a buddy read with friends.

24. Hope and Glory by Jendella Benson

Jendella Benson's Hope and Glory , a heartbreaking yet hopeful family drama published in 2022, centers on a Nigerian immigrant family in London. With the death of her father, Glory Akindele returns home after living her most fabulous life in California to find her family has fallen apart. In her quest to reunite them, she learns a secret that could totally destroy everything she's working to reconcile.

25. Something Good by Vanessa Miller

If women's fiction is your go-to genre, you'll want to snap up this 2022 story that's sure to inspire. Vanessa Miller's Something Good is a redemptive tale about three women linked through an accident that left a man paralyzed. This inspirational story delves into themes of guilt, anger and forgiveness—read it when you need a pick-me-up. And if you love a good story about strong Black women, be sure to check out Miller's latest book, The American Queen .

26. Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Rom ance, Being Seen and Happily Ever Afters edited by Jessica P. Pryde

A play on the phrase Black Lives Matter , the title of this 2022 essay collection is a reminder that all aspects of Black lives have significance. And that includes Black romance, something modern entertainment is still sorely lacking. Black Love Matters is an insightful essay anthology that centers the voices of Black readers, writers and cultural commentators. It shares the diverse ways in which Black people express and perceive love.

27. Peace Is a Practice: An Invitation to Breathe Deep and Find a New Rhythm for Life by Morgan Harper Nichols

Life is stressful, but Morgan Harper Nichols's 2022 self-help book is a balm for trying times. In Peace Is a Practice , she invites readers to live in the present while actively pursuing and embracing peace. The beautiful book gently nudges us to let go of regrets, pursue meaning and purpose in life, and allow faith to usher in confidence while shoving anxiety and fear out the door. Through it, we can explore different ways of pursuing peace in our daily lives. It's one of the best books by Black authors for finding inspiration. And if you like to keep your bookshelves stocked with encouraging books, check out Nichols's You Are Only Just Beginning , a beautiful, colorful read full of motivation .

28. Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black

Jacob and Isaac haven't spoken in years, but now that he's on his deathbed, Jacob has something to say about family history, relationships and the terrible way he reacted when Isaac came out. With 2022's Don't Cry for Me , Daniel Black provides a peek inside the often-strained relationships between Black fathers and their gay sons. Poignant, timely and beautifully written, this LGBTQ book centers on themes of ancestral legacy, generational pain and family dynamics.

29. Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Pheby Brown isn't simply enslaved. The protagonist of Sadeqa Johnson's 2021 novel, Yellow Wife , lives in one of the most harrowing slave jails in all of Virginia. Though promised her freedom at the age of 18, she soon learns that nobody keeps a promise to a slave. This book, which details her fight for freedom, incorporates elements of the true story of Robert Lumpkin, one of the most brutal slave traders in the South. A definite must-read, it has drawn comparisons to Solomon Northup's 12 Ye ars a Slave and Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Wench .

30. Ida B. the Queen : The Extraordinary Life an d Legacy of Ida B. Wells by Michelle Duster

Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in 1862, but in 2020—nearly nine decades after her death—she won a Pulitzer Prize. Written by Wells's great-granddaughter Michelle Duster, 2021's Ida B. the Queen brings to life the legacy of a woman who was a force during the civil rights era and was considered a threat to the FBI. A truly incredible Black American you probably didn't learn about in history class, Wells was an investigative journalist, suffragist and anti-lynching activist who lived a life committed to fighting racial injustice and inequality. This nonfiction book dynamically delves into the impact she had on American society during a pivotal time in this country.

31. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Released in 2021, Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut novel, The Other Black Girl , delves into the microaggressions that editorial assistant Nella Rogers experiences as the only Black employee at her job with Wagner Books, a story Harris wrote while working as an editorial assistant herself. This smartly written satire examines issues of race, authenticity and workplace culture in a way that many of us can relate to. But it does so much more—expect thrills, twists and a genre-bending story you won't be able to put down. When you've turned the final page and are hankering for more, give the Hulu television series, which debuted in September 2023 to great critical acclaim, a binge-watch.

32. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

The caste system isn't something that happens only in faraway places—it's something that happens right here in America. That's what Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson explores in Caste , her 2020 book about the rigid hierarchy of human rankings. In addition to her unflinching look at the United States, she delves into the caste system in India and Nazi Germany as well.

So what, exactly, does caste mean? "Caste is the granting or withholding of respect, status, honor, attention, privileges, resources, the benefit of the doubt and human kindness to someone on the basis of their perceived rank or standing in the hierarchy," Wilkerson has said. "What some people call racism could be seen as merely one manifestation of the degree to which we have internalized the larger American caste system."

Want more? Wilkerson's bestseller was adapted for film, and the resulting flick—2023's Origin , directed by Ava Duvernay—was recently released to rave reviews.

33. Lifting as We Climb: Black Women's Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne

Evette Dionne won a Coretta Scott King Author Honor award for her 2020 novel, Lifting as We Climb . In it, she examines the contributions of Black women and their efforts in ending slavery, fighting for the right to vote and more. This book also examines the fight for Black women to be treated equally by their White peers, highlighting the reality that many White suffragists did not treat their Black female counterparts well or fairly.

34. Just as I Am by Cicely Tyson

In this poignant memoir , legendary actress Cicely Tyson shares her truth about her six decades in the entertainment industry, as well as the lessons about love, life and loss she learned along the way. Just as I Am was published just two days before Tyson passed away in late January 2021, and it quickly topped multiple bestseller lists. If you don't know much about Tyson, now is the time to learn. She was known for her integrity, her elegance and grace, and her unflinching commitment to taking on only those roles that elevated the consciousness of others and presented Black female characters with dignity.

35. Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

Black Buck is a New York Times bestseller that gets real about the many compromises Black people make while navigating America's workforce. Mateo Askaripour's debut novel is a racial satire, and it centers on a Black salesman who works at an extremely successful start-up and comes up with a plan to help young people of color infiltrate the country's sales force. It dives into code-switching and ultimately shows how this linguistic back-and-forth takes a toll psychologically and emotionally over time.

36. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

Released in 2021, this nonfiction book by Atlantic writer and poet Clint Smith explores America's history as a slave-owning nation and examines its many monuments and landmarks in relation to slavery. How the Word Is Passed reveals how important aspects of our country's history are often hidden in plain sight and how they have shaped our world.

37. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Are you a fan of historical fiction? You won't want to miss this page-turner, which reveals how the memory and residue of captivity still lingers generations later. It tells the story of two sisters—one who was captured and sold into slavery and the other who marries an Englishman and lives in a castle. Themes of generational trauma, blood memory and colonization run deep. Since its publication in 2016, Homegoing has received numerous literary accolades, including the Hemingway Foundation PEN Award, the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature and the American Book Award.

38. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Open Water , Caleb Azumah Nelson's 2021 debut novel, digs into race, masculinity and love. In this beautiful story, two Black British adults who both received scholarships to private schools, fall in love. She's a dancer, and he's a photographer, but while the two artists seem akin to soul mates, their relationship is tested by fear and violence. This novel explores the psychological and emotional trauma that can accompany being seen as just a "Black body."

39. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Set in a fictional Louisiana town in 1848, The Vani shing Half follows twin sisters Stella and Desiree. Both have light skin and hazel eyes. Both feel the impact of the hierarchy of racial constructs. Yet their futures stand in stark contrast. This sweeping, generational novel examines themes of "passing," colorism and the concept of race. This thought-provoking work from Brit Bennett, author of The Mothers , was named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR , the Washington Post, the New York Times and even Barack Obama.

40. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi's follow-up to Homegoing is equally stunning and completely different. In 2020's Transcendent Kingdom , she tells the story of a Ghanaian family based in Alabama that is greatly impacted by depression, grief, science, faith and love. Gifty, who's working on her PhD in neuroscience at Stanford, is determined to understand the science behind all the pain she has seen in her family. But in the process of looking for answers, she is drawn back to the faith of her youth.

41. Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

The 2021 prequel to the blockbuster YA novel The Hate U Give offers a glimpse into Garden Heights nearly two decades earlier. Familiarity with Thomas's debut novel is nice but not necessary. In Concre te Rose , she provides a thorough and introspective look inside the psyche of the 17-year-old son of an infamous drug lord and the many challenges he faces. While the protagonist, Maverick Carter, appears to have everything under control, his world is upended when he finds out he has a child. He's forced to decide whether he wants to aspire to the drug-lord legacy of his father or break free from that generational pattern to give his child a different life. Some good news for bargain hunters: The e-book is free on Kindle Unlimited .

42. The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne

This biography of Malcolm X chronicles the iconic leader's life from his childhood in Nebraska to his death in Harlem in 1965, focusing on his integral role in the struggle for Black freedom. The Dead Are Arising made quite a splash when it debuted in 2020, and it has since racked up a number of accolades, including the 2021 Pulitzer Prize and the 2020 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

43. Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink

Travel back to 1921 with Randi Pink's Angel of Greenwood . In this YA novel, set in a neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, dubbed Black Wall Street, 17-year-old Isaiah Wilson, an avid reader, and Angel Hill, a studious, Bible-loving 16-year-old, come together to help their English teacher run a mobile library. All is well until one fateful day—May 31, 1921—when their city is attacked by a White mob. For those who aren't aware, that event subsequently became known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, and it left 36 people dead. The 2021 publication of Pink's novel marked the 100-year anniversary of the massacre and serves as a reminder of the events that get lost in history.

44. White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue … and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson

In 2019's White Negroes , author Lauren Michele Jackson calls for a brutally honest look at cultural appropriation . The book's message asserts that while America and Americans have profited from Blackness, Black pioneers are often left behind when it comes to the benefits. A mixture of narrative, scholarship and critique, Jackson's exploration of the topic is insightful and highlights how this cultural theft has exacerbated inequality in this country.

45. Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu

Family secrets leave an emotional residue, and the people involved in them have to somehow press through the pain. That's the throughline of 2021's Aftershocks , which deeply cuts into Nadia Owusu's experiences as a woman who has lived in many different nations, has had many different career paths and has grappled with secrets come to light. Of her writing, Owusu has said, "A story is a flashlight and a weapon. I write myself into other people's earthquakes. I borrow pieces of their pain and store them in my body. Sometimes, I call those pieces compassion. Sometimes, I call them desecration."

46. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Warning: You won't be able to put this one down. Kiley Reid's debut novel, published in 2019, examines race and privilege , raising powerful questions about identity, class, interpersonal relationships and more. Emira, a babysitter in the home of Alix, a blogger and public speaker, learns of her employer's racist past through Alix's ex, who Emira is coincidentally dating. But nothing is ever as it seems when it comes to well-meaning racists. Such a Fun Age immediately became a New York Time s bestseller and went on to win the African American Literary Award in 2020. If you're a fan, be sure to check out Reid's newest novel, Come and Get It .

47. You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Leah Johnson's debut YA novel, which came out in 2020, centers on Liz Lighty, a high schooler who devises a plan to leave her small town of Campbell, Indiana. With no other way to earn the cash, she joins a prom contest with the hopes of winning scholarship money and finds herself with a crush on one of the other girls in the competition. Yo u Should See M e in a Crown is the fun, queer romance novel you (and your teen) have been waiting for. And don't miss Johnson's sophomore effort, Rise to the Sun .

48. Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

How's this for the punishment not fitting the crime: Amal, a talented 16-year-old, is put in prison for throwing a punch. So begins this novel in verse, a story about the fiercely sympathetic Amal and his fight for justice. Award-winning author Ibi Zoboi co-wrote this gem with Yusef Salaam, who spent six years in prison as a result of a wrongful conviction. Published in 2020, Punching the Air humanizes the many multidimensional human beings behind bars who have had their lives interrupted by an unjust and racially biased judicial system and institutional racism .

49. Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson

This thought-provoking, riveting mystery shines a bright light on rape culture, impressionable teenage girls and the older male predators who can spot vulnerability a mile away. Enchanted Jones aspires to become a professional singer, so she's thrilled when R&B artist Korey Fields notices her at an audition. But things don't turn out as she planned. See, Korey is dead. And though she can't remember the night before, Enchanted knows that's blood on her hands … Like Tiffany D. Jackson's gripping debut, Allegedly , 2020's Grown is a tightly plotted mystery full of twists and turns.

50. T he Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person by Frederick Joseph

It's not enough to say that you're not racist—you need to be anti-racist . And even if you mean well, there are a few things you need to learn to be a true ally. This honest and powerful book, published in 2020, offers up the author's personal experiences with everyday racism, along with the experiences of well-known artists and activists. It features interviews with Toni Tone, writer Angie Thomas and April Reign, creator of the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. What makes The Black Friend so potent is that Frederick Joseph speaks directly to White people as a Black person—a Black friend—and highlights the dangers of Black tokenism in an honest, unapologetic manner.

51. Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard by Echo Brown

Morris Award finalist Black Girl Unlimited —a semi-autobiographical tale infused with magical realism —centers on a girl from the East Side whose childhood in a rough neighborhood has been far from perfect. When she transfers to a wealthy school on the West Side, she finds inspiration. But at the same time, depression creeps in as she struggles to understand the intersection of the two worlds she's living in. The guilt and pressure that often accompany those who "make it out" of their disenfranchised neighborhoods and communities make for an important sub-narrative in the book, which came out in 2020.

52. Black Girl Magic by Mahogany L. Browne

Designed to encourage young Black girls and teens to embrace their beauty and brilliance, this poem was published in 2018 as a form of resistance to society's message that Black girls aren't enough. Within the pages of this poetry book , Mahogany L. Browne has crafted words of empowerment and strength that will inspire young Black girls to embrace their own unique "magic." If you have little ones, this is one of the best children's books by Black authors to read with them.

53. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

This thrilling fantasy novel received one of the biggest YA publishing deals ever, had film rights scooped up by Fox 2000 Pictures and became an instant No. 1 New York Times bestseller when it was released in 2018. The first in a three-book YA series , Children of Blood and Bone is a West African–inspired fantasy that will appeal to teens and adults alike. Pick up this novel for exquisite world-building, well-drawn characters, magic and a fight for power. Children of Blood and Bone is a thrilling read that, while strictly fantastical, explores relevant issues of police brutality, discrimination and violence.

54. Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown

Next time you're in the mood for magic, pick up Diane Marie Brown's multigenerational historical fiction novel, Black Candle Women , which will transport you to 1950s New Orleans. The 2023 novel introduces readers to four generations of Black women dealing with a family curse: Anyone they fall in love with ends up dead. The narrative sails through a present timeline and the past, when the women's line was originally cursed. Fans of Practical Magic will go wild for this story—it's a perfectly witchy read for Halloween.

55. Sisters in Arms by Kaia Alderson

Based on the true story of the women of the Six Triple Eight—the primarily Black postal battalion of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps—Kaia Alderson's 2021 novel, Sisters in Arms , is like a slice of hidden history. Dive into the lives of the fictional Grace Steele and Eliza Jones, two Black women members shipping out with the battalion on a mission to deliver mail in the European Theatre of World War II. This timely book is a great read for history buffs looking to learn more about Black women and the role they played in World War II.

Why trust us

At Reader's Digest , we're committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. For this piece, Lynnette Nicholas tapped her background as an entertainment journalist with more than 10 years of experience writing about culture, books and the arts to curate this list. We relied on reputable primary sources, verified all facts and data, and backed them with credible sourcing. We will revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team , our contributors and our editorial policies .

The post 55 Books by Black Authors That Deserve a Spot on Your Bookshelf appeared first on Reader's Digest .

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Author Interviews

A conversation with the author of 'there's always this year'.

NPR's Scott Detrow speaks to Hanif Abdurraqib about the new book There's Always This Year . It's a mix of memoir, essays, and poems, looking at the role basketball played in Abdurraqib's life.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

The new book "There's Always This Year" opens with an invitation. Here's a quote - "if you please imagine with me, you are putting your hand into my open palm, and I am resting one free hand atop yours. And I am saying to you that I would like to commiserate here and now about our enemies. We know our enemies by how foolishly they trample upon what we know as affection, how quickly they find another language for what they cannot translate as love." And what follows from that is a lyrical book about basketball but also about geography, luck, fate and many other things, too. It's also about how the career arc of basketball great LeBron James is woven through the life of the book's author, Hanif Abdurraqib, who joins us now. Welcome back to the show.

HANIF ABDURRAQIB: Thank you for having me again, Scott. It's really wonderful to be here.

DETROW: You know, I love this book so much, but I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. It's part memoir, part meditation, part poetry collection, part essay collection. How do you think about this book?

ABDURRAQIB: You know, it's funny. I've been running into that too early on in the process and now - still, when I'm asked to kind of give an elevator pitch. And I think really, if I'm being honest, that feels like an achievement to me because so much of...

DETROW: Yeah.

ABDURRAQIB: ...My intent with the book was working against a singular aboutness (ph) or positioning the book as something that could be operating against neat description because I think I was trying to tie together multiple ideas, sure, through the single - singular and single lens of basketball. But I kind of wanted to make basketball almost a - just a canvas atop which I was laying a lot of other concerns, be it mortality or place or fatherhood and sonhood (ph) in my case. I think mostly it's a book about mortality. It's a book about the passage of time and attempting to be honest with myself about the realities of time's passing.

DETROW: Yeah, it seems to me like it could also be a book about geography, about being shaped by the place you grew up in and that moment where you choose to stay or leave, or maybe leave and come back. And I was hoping you could read a passage that that deals directly with that for us.

ABDURRAQIB: Of course. Yeah. This is from the third quarter or the third act of the of the book.

(Reading) It bears mentioning that I come from a place people leave. Yes, when LeBron left, the reactions made enough sense to me, I suppose. But there was a part of me that felt entirely unsurprised. People leave this place. There are Midwestern states that are far less discernible on a blank map, sure. Even with an understanding of direction, I am known to mess up the order of the Dakotas. I've been known to point at a great many square-like landscapes while weakly mumbling Nebraska. And so I get it. We don't have it too bad. People at least claim to know that Ohio is shaped like a heart - a jagged heart, a heart with sharp edges, a heart as a weapon. That's why so many people make their way elsewhere.

DETROW: What does Ohio, and specifically, what does Columbus mean to you and who you are?

ABDURRAQIB: I think at this stage in my life, it's the one constant that keeps me tethered to a version of myself that is most recognizable. You know, you don't choose place. Place is something that happens to you. Place is maybe the second choice that is made for you after the choice of who your parents are. But if you have the means and ability, there are those of us who at some point in our lives get to choose a place back. And I think choosing that place back doesn't happen once. I mean, it happens several times. It's like any other relationship. You are choosing to love a place or a person as they are, and then checking in with if you are capable of continuing to love that place or person as they evolve, sometimes as they evolve without you or sometimes as you evolve without them. And so it's a real - a math problem that is always unfolding, someone asking the question of - what have I left behind in my growth, or what has left me behind in a growth that I don't recognize?

So, you know, Columbus doesn't look the way - just from an architectural standpoint - does not look the way it looked when I was young. It doesn't even look the way it looked when I moved back in 2017. And I have to kind of keep asking myself what I can live with. Now that, for me, often means that I turn more inward to the people. And I began to think of the people I love as their own architecture, a much more reliable and much more sturdy architecture than the architecture that is constantly under the siege of gentrification. And that has been grounding for me. It's been grounding for me to say, OK, I can't trust that this building will stay. I can't trust that this basketball court will stay. I can't trust that this mural or any of it will stay. But what I do know is that for now, in a corner of the city or in many corners of the city, there are people who know me in a very specific way, and we have a language that is only ours. And through that language, we render each other as full cities unto ourselves.

DETROW: Yeah. Can you tell me how you thought about basketball more broadly, and LeBron James specifically, weaving in and out of these big questions you're asking? - because in the first - I guess the second and third quarter, really, of the book - and I should say, you organize the book like a basketball game in quarters. You know, you're being really - you're writing these evocative, sad scenes of how, like you said, your life was not unfolding the way you wanted it in a variety of ways. And it's almost like LeBron James is kind of floating through as a specter on the TV screen in the background, keeping you company in a moment where it seems to me like you really needed company. Like, how did you think about your relationship with basketball and the broader moments and the broader thoughts in those moments?

ABDURRAQIB: Oh, man, that's not only such a good question, but that's actually - that's such a good image of LeBron James on the TV in the background because it was that. In a way, it was that in a very plainly material, realistic, literal sense because when I was, say, unhoused - right? - I...

ABDURRAQIB: ...Would kind of - you know, sometimes at night you kind of just wander. You find a place, and you walk through downtown. And I remember very clearly walking through downtown Columbus and just hearing the Cavs games blaring out of open doors to bars or restaurants and things like that, and not having - you know, I couldn't go in there because I had no money to buy anything, and I would eventually get thrown out of those places.

So, you know, I think playing and watching basketball - you know, even though this book is not, like, a heavy, in-depth basketball biography or a basketball memoir, I did spend a lot of time watching old - gosh, so much of the research for this book was me watching clips from the early - mid-2000s of...

ABDURRAQIB: ...LeBron James playing basketball because my headspace while living through that was entirely different. It's like you said, like LeBron was on a screen in the background of a life that was unsatisfying to me. So they were almost, like, being watched through static. And now when I watch them, the static clears, and they're a little bit more pleasureful (ph). And that was really joyful.

DETROW: LeBron James, of course, left the Cavs for a while. He took his talents to South Beach, went to the Miami Heat. You write - and I was a little surprised - that you have a really special place in your heart for, as you call them, the LeBronless (ph) years and the way that you...

ABDURRAQIB: Oh, yeah.

DETROW: ...Interacted with the team. What do you think that says? And why do you think you felt that way and feel that way about the LeBronless Cavs?

ABDURRAQIB: I - you know, I'm trying to think of a softer word than awful. But you know what? They were awful.

DETROW: (Laughter).

ABDURRAQIB: I mean they were (laughter) - but that did not stop them from playing this kind of strange level of hard, at times, because I think it hit a point, particularly in the late season, where it was clear they were giving in and tanking. But some of those guys were, like, old professionals. There's, like, an older Baron Davis on that team. You know, some of these guys, like, did not want to be embarrassed. And...

ABDURRAQIB: ...That, to me, was miraculous to watch where - because they're still professionals. They're still NBA players. And to know that these guys were playing on a team that just could not win games - they just didn't have the talent - but they individually did not want to - at least did not want to give up the appearance that they weren't fighting, there's something beautiful and romantic about that to me.

DETROW: It makes a lot of sense why you end the book around 2016 when the Cavs triumph and bring the championship to Cleveland. But when it comes to the passage of time - and I'll say I'm the exact same age as you, and we're both about the same age as LeBron. When it comes to the passage of time, how do you present-day feel about LeBron James watching the graying LeBron James who's paying so much attention to his lower back? - because I don't have anywhere near the intense relationship with him that you do. But, I mean, I remember reading that Sports Illustrated when it came out. I remember watching him in high school on ESPN, and I feel like going on this - my entire adult life journey with him. And I feel like weirdly protective of LeBron James now, right? Like, you be careful with him.

ABDURRAQIB: Yeah.

DETROW: And I'm wondering how you think about him today and what that leads your brain to, given this long, long, long relationship you have with him.

ABDURRAQIB: I find myself mostly anxious now about LeBron James, even though he is still - I think he's still playing at a high level. I mean, I - you know, I think that's not a controversial statement. But I - while he is still playing at a high level, I do - I'm like everyone else. So I'm kind of aware that it does seem like parts of him - or at least he's paying a bit more attention to the aches that just come with aging, right?

ABDURRAQIB: I have great empathy and sympathy for an athlete who's dedicated their life to a sport, who is maybe even aware that their skills are not what they once were, but still are playing because that's just what they've done. And they are...

ABDURRAQIB: ...In some cases, maybe still in pursuit of one more ring or one more legacy-building exploit that they can attach to their career before moving on to whatever is next. And so I don't know. And I don't think LeBron is at risk of a sharp and brutal decline, but I do worry a bit about him playing past his prime, only because I've never seen him be anything but miraculous on the court. And to witness that, I think, would be devastating in some ways.

And selfishly, I think it would signal some things to me personally about the limits of my own miracle making, not as a basketball player, of course, but as - you know, because a big conceit of the book is LeBron and I are similar in age, and we have - you know, around the same age and all this. And I think a deep flaw is that I've perhaps attached a part of his kind of miraculous playing beyond what people thought to my own idea about what miracle is as you age.

And so, you know, to be witness to a decline, a sharp decline would be fascinating and strange and a bit disorienting. But I hope it doesn't get there. You know, I hope - I would like to see him get one more ring. I don't know when it's going to come or how it's going to come, but I would like to see him get one more. I really would. My dream, selfishly, is that it happens again in Cleveland. He'll come back here and team up with, you know, some good young players and get one more ring for Cleveland because I think Cavs fans, you know, deserve that to the degree that anyone deserves anything in sports. That would be a great storybook ending.

DETROW: The last thing I want to ask about are these vignettes and poems that dot the book in praise of legendary Ohio aviators. Can you tell me what you were trying to do there? And then I'd love to end with you reading a few of them for me.

ABDURRAQIB: Yeah. I'm so glad you asked about that. I haven't gotten to talk about that as much, and that - those were the first things I wrote for the book. I wrote 30 of them...

DETROW: Really?

ABDURRAQIB: ...I think. And of course, they all didn't make it. But that was kind of an exercise, like a brain exercise. And I was trying to play with this idea of starting out with folks who were literally aviators. So it begins with John Glenn and Lonnie Carmen, and then working further and further away from aviation in a literal sense, much like the book is working further and further away from, say, basketball in this concrete sense - because ascension in my mind isn't just moving upward, it is expansion, too. It is, I think, any directional movement away from where your position is. And so I got to be kind of flexible with ideas of ascent and growth and moving upward.

DETROW: And the last aviator you did this for was you. And I'm hoping you can read what you wrote about yourself to end this.

ABDURRAQIB: Oh, gosh. OK, yeah. This is Hanif Abdurraqib, Columbus, Ohio, 1983 to present. (Reading) Never dies in his dreams. In his dreams, he is infinite, has wings, feathers that block the sun. And yet in the real living world, the kid has seen every apocalypse before it arrives, has been the architect of a few bad ones. Still wants to be alive most days. Been resurrected so many damn times, no one is surprised by the magic trick anymore.

DETROW: That's Hanif Abdurraqib, author of the new book "There's Always This Year: On Basketball And Ascension." Thank you so much.

ABDURRAQIB: Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FLEETWOOD MAC SONG, "ALBATROSS")

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Fourth Wing Author Rebecca Yarros Announces Third Book in the Empyrean Series

The highly-anticipated fantasy novel will be published in 2025

Rebecca Yarros/Instagram

The wait is almost over, Rebecca Yarros fans. On Thursday, the acclaimed Fourth Wing author announced on Good Morning America that a third book in her Empyrean series is on its way. “I’m excited to finally announce that the third book in the Empyrean series will be released January 21, 2025," Yarros, 42, said in a video shared on the show. "I can’t tell you much yet, but I can tell you the title: Onyx Storm .”

The author also teased that the new novel, which will be published by Entangled Publishing, will include both new storylines and continue following those that first attracted her readers. “There will be politics, new adventures, old enemies and, of course, dragons,” Yarros said. “The book is out for pre-order now and I can’t wait to share more details with you later.”

Fourth Wing , the first book in the Empyrean series, was published in April 2023, and follows Violet Sorrengail as she navigates her first year at Basgiath War College, all while on her way to become an elite dragon rider. Violet’s story continued during a treacherous second year at the school in Iron Flame , which was published in fall 2023.

In October 2023, a TV series based on the books was announced as in the works at Amazon MGM studios. The rights were acquired by Amazon and Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society, and Yarros will serve as a non-writing executive producer on the series.

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Onyx Storm hits shelves in January 2025 and is now available for pre-order.

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A Bronx Teacher Asked. Tommy Orange Answered.

When the author received an impassioned email, he dropped everything to visit the students who inspired it.

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By Elisabeth Egan

Elisabeth Egan is still in touch with her high school English teachers.

Tommy Orange sat at the front of a classroom in the Bronx, listening as a group of high school students discussed his novel “There There.”

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A boy wearing blue glasses raised his hand. “All the characters have some form of disconnection, even trauma,” Michael Almanzar, 19, said. “That’s the world we live in. That’s all around us. It’s not like it’s in some faraway land. That’s literally your next-door neighbor.”

The class broke into a round of finger snaps , as if we were at an old-school poetry slam on the Lower East Side and not in an English class at Millennium Art Academy, on the corner of Lafayette and Pugsley Avenues.

Orange took it all in with a mixture of gratitude and humility — the semicircle of earnest, engaged teenagers; the bulletin board decorated with words describing “There There” (“hope,” “struggle,” “mourning,” “discovery”); the shelf of well-thumbed copies wearing dust jackets in various stages of disintegration.

His eyebrows shot up when a student wearing a sweatshirt that said “I Am My Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams” compared the book to “ The Road ,” by Cormac McCarthy . When three consecutive students spoke about how they related to Orange’s work because of their own mental health struggles, he was on the verge of tears.

“That’s what drew me to reading in the first place,” Orange said, “The feeling of not being as alone as you thought you were.”

It’s not often that an author walks into a room full of readers, let alone teenagers, who talk about characters born in his imagination as if they’re living, breathing human beings. And it’s equally rare for students to spend time with an author whose fictional world feels like a refuge. Of all the classroom visits he’s made since “There There” came out in 2018, the one at Millennium Art Academy earlier this month was, Orange said later, “the most intense connection I’ve ever experienced.”

The catalyst for the visit was Rick Ouimet, an energetic, pony-tailed English teacher who has worked in the fortresslike building for 25 years. Ouimet is the kind of teacher students remember, whether it’s for his contributions to their literary vocabulary — synecdoche, bildungsroman, chiasmus — or for his battered flip phone.

He first learned about “There There” from a colleague whose son recommended it during the pandemic. “I knew from the first paragraph that this was a book our kids were going to connect to,” he said.

The novel follows 12 characters from Native communities in the lead-up to a powwow at a stadium in Oakland, Calif., where tragedy strikes. “Orange leads you across the drawbridge, and then the span starts going up,” a critic with The New York Times, Dwight Garner, wrote when it came out. The novel was one of The Times’s 10 Best Books of 2018 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. According to Orange’s publisher, over one million copies have been sold.

Ouimet’s hunch proved true: “Students love the book so much, they don’t realize they’re reading it for English class. That’s the rare find, the gift of gifts.”

Some relevant statistics: Attendance rates at Millennium Art are below the city average. Eighty-seven percent of students are from low-income households, which is above the city average.

In the three years since Orange’s novel became a mainstay of the Millennium Art curriculum, pass rates for students taking the Advanced Placement literature exam have more than doubled. Last year, 21 out of 26 students earned college credit, surpassing state and global averages. The majority of them, said Ouimet, wrote about “There There.”

When three students in the school’s art-bedecked hallway were randomly asked to name a favorite character from “There There,” they all answered without hesitation. It was as if Tony, Jacquie and Opal were people they might bump into at ShopRite.

Briana Reyes, 17, said, “I connected so much with the characters, especially having family members with alcohol and drug abuse.”

Last month, Ouimet learned that Orange, who lives in Oakland, was going to be in New York promoting his second novel, “ Wandering Stars .” An idea started to percolate. Ouimet had never invited an author to his classroom before; such visits can be pricey and, as he pointed out, Shakespeare and Zora Neale Hurston aren’t available.

Ouimet composed a message in his head for over a week, he said, and on Monday, March 4, just after midnight, he fired it off to the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau.

“The email felt like a raw rough draft, but I didn’t agonize,” he said. “It was my midlife college essay.”

The 827-word missive was written in the go-for-broke style Ouimet encourages in his students’ work, full of personality, texture and detail, without the corporate-speak that infiltrates so much Important Professional Correspondence.

Ouimet wrote: “In our 12th-grade English classroom, in our diverse corner of the South Bronx, in an under-resourced but vibrant urban neighborhood not unlike the Fruitvale, you’re our rock star. Our more than rock star. You’re our MF Doom, our Eminem, our Earl Sweatshirt, our Tribe Called Red, our Beethoven, our Bobby Big Medicine, our email to Manny, our ethnically ambiguous woman in the next stall, our camera pointing into a tunnel of darkness.”

Orange, he added, was a hero to these kids: “You’ve changed lives.” There was Tahqari Koonce, 17, who drew a parallel between the Oakland Coliseum and the Roman Colosseum; and Natalia Melendez, also 17, who noted that a white gun symbolized oppression of Native tribes. And then there was Dalvyn Urena, 18, who “said he’d never read an entire book until ‘There There,’” and was now comparing it to a Shakespearean sonnet.

He ended with: “Well, it was worth a shot. Thanks for taking the time to read this — if it ever finds its way to you. In appreciation (and awe), Rick Ouimet.”

“I took a chance,” Ouimet said. And why not? “My students take a chance every time they open a new book. There’s groaning, and they open the page. To see what they gave this book? The love was palpable.”

Within hours, the message reached Orange, who was in the midst of a 24-city tour with multiple interviews and events each day. He asked Jordan Rodman, senior director of publicity at Knopf, to do whatever she could to squeeze Ouimet’s class into the mix. There would be no fee attached. Knopf donated 30 copies of “There There” and 30 copies of “Wandering Stars.”

In a big, bustling school full of squeaky soles, walkie-talkies and young people, moments of silence can be hard to come by. But when Orange cracked open his new novel, you could hear a pin drop.

“It’s important to voice things, to sound them out, like the way we learn to spell by slowly saying words,” Orange read.

He went on: “It’s just as important for you to hear yourself speak your stories as it is for others to hear you speak them.”

The students followed along in their own copies, heads bent, necks looking vulnerable and strong at the same time. Their intentness proved that, like the spiders described in “There There,” books contain “miles of story, miles of potential home and trap.” On this nondescript gray Thursday, Orange’s work offered both.

After the 13-minute reading came the questions, fast and furious, delivered with refreshing bluntness: “What even inspired you to write these two books?” and “Did Octavio die?” and, perhaps most pressing, “Why did ‘There There’ end that way?” Not since “ The Sopranos ” has an ambiguous denouement caused more consternation.

“We were like whaaaat ?” a student said, holding the last word in a high note.

“It was a tragic story,” Orange said. “Some people hate it, and I’m sorry.”

He admitted that he hadn’t been a reader in high school: “Nobody handed me a book and said, This book is for you. I also had a lot going on at home.” He talked about how he staves off writer’s block (by changing points of view), how he reads his drafts aloud to hear how they sound. Orange shared his Cheyenne name — Birds Singing in the Morning — and introduced a childhood friend who is traveling with him on tour.

Through it all, Ouimet stood quietly at the side of the room. He shot gentle stink eye at a gaggle of chatty girls. He used a long wooden pole to open a window. Mostly, he just beamed like a proud parent at a wedding where everyone is dancing.

The truth is, “There There” didn’t cast a spell only on his students: It also had a profound effect on Ouimet himself. When he started teaching the book, he’d just given up coaching soccer and softball after 22 years.

“I was afraid: If I don’t have coaching, am I still going to be an effective teacher? ‘There There’ was this kind of renaissance. I don’t want to get too sappy,” he said, “but it was a career-saver in some way.”

Eventually the bell sounded. The students pushed back from their desks and lined up to have their books signed by Orange, who took a moment to chat with each one.

Over the din, to anyone who was still listening, Ouimet called: “If you love a book, talk about it! If you love a story, let other people know!”

Audio produced by Tally Abecassis .

Elisabeth Egan is a writer and editor at the Times Book Review. She has worked in the world of publishing for 30 years. More about Elisabeth Egan

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‘Fourth Wing’ author Rebecca Yarros reveals the series’ 3rd book and release date

Rebecca Yarros, author of the bestselling romantasy book “Fourth Wing,” has announced the third book in her “Empyrean” series.

“Onyx Storm” will release Jan. 21, 2025, Yarros and her publishers with Red Tower Books announced on Instagram March 28.

“I can’t tell you much yet, but I can tell you the title,” Yarros said in her video. “There will be politics, new adventures, old enemies, and of course, dragons.”

“The Empyrean” series began with 2023’s “Fourth Wing,” which follows Violet, a young woman preparing to attend a war college. Though she intended to study to be a scribe or a historian for the fictional realm of Navarre, she’s forced into the riders quadrant. In the process of learning to fight and ride a dragon, she also encounters a love triangle between Dain, her childhood friend, and Xaden, the son of failed rebels.

“Fourth Wing” has became a staple recommendation for fans of romantasy, the emerging hybrid genre that combines fantasy with tropes commonly found in romance novels.

A “Fourth Wing” sequel called “Iron Flame” released Nov. 7, 2023. “Onyx Storm” will mark Yarros’ third book in less than two years.

Yarros previously told TODAY.com  that she has planned five books in the “Empyrean” series.

“The whole series is plotted out and arced and all of that,” she said. “And I think it really deals with the theme of history: Who’s allowed to tell our history, and what happens when only people in power are the ones who record our history.”

Maddie Ellis is a weekend editor at TODAY Digital.