The Carver

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Race and equity now at the center of American culture

Jim Schaffer

"The Hate U Give," by Angie Thomas: "A 16-year-old girl sees a police officer kill her friend" — on the best seller list list for 171 weeks. Also,

Authors and publishers eagerly await each Wednesday's advance look at the weekly New York Times bestseller list.

Amid a pandemic where African Americans are suffering disproportionately, and a global eruption of awareness and protest following the hideous death of George Floyd, new voices are being heard — and read. The list for June 21 is a vivid snapshot of what’s on America’s mind.

No. 1 on the Young Adult Hardcover list: "The Hate U Give," by Angie Thomas: "A 16-year-old girl sees a police officer kill her friend" — on the list for 171 weeks.

The top 10 entries on the Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction list for June 21: 

  1. "White Fragility," by Robin DiAngelo.

  2. "So You Want to Talk About Race," by Ijeoma Oluo.

  3. "How to Be an Antiracist," by Ibram X. Kendi.

  4. "Me and White Supremacy," by Layla F. Saad.

  5. "The New Jim Crow," by Michelle Alexander.

  6. "The Color of Law," by Richard Rothstein.

  7. "Between the World and Me," by Ta-Nehisi Coates: "A meditation on race in America."

  8. "Untamed," by Glennon Doyle: "The activist and public speaker describes her journey of listening to her inner voice."

  9. "Stamped from the Beginning," by Ibram X. Kendi: "[A]nti-black racist ideas and their effect on the course of American history."

  10. "Just Mercy," by Bryan Stevenson: "[D]ecades of work to free innocent people condemned to death."

  • And at No. 11: "Becoming," by Michelle Obama.

The Times' Paperback Nonfiction list opens with six of the titles above, then picks up with:

  • 7. "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" by Beverly Tatum: "The president emerita of Spelman College examines whether self-segregation is a problem or a coping strategy."

  • 8. "Born a Crime," by Trevor Noah: "A memoir about growing up biracial in apartheid South Africa by the host of 'The Daily Show.'"

  • 9. "Raising White Kids," by Jennifer Harvey.

  • 10. "White Rage," by Carol Anderson. 

    And No. 1 on the Hardcover Fiction list (making its debut) is "The Vanishing Half," by Brit Bennett: "The lives of twin sisters who run away from a Southern black community at age 16 diverge as one returns and the other takes on a different racial identity but their fates intertwine."