If you’re looking for a long weekend read, but a pick that’s less frothy and salacious than what you dove into peak summer, we’ve got just the thing.
Dustorials
If you’re looking for a long weekend read, but a pick that’s less frothy and salacious than what you dove into peak summer, we’ve got just the thing. Below are 5 books that range from race in America to a tale of perseverance led by an unrelenting passion for the art of coffee.
Resident book aficcionado and Duster co-founder of Andrea Racey shares her favorite books for an end of summer/start of fall literary adventure.
The Monk of Mokha
By Dave Eggers
One of the most gorgeous books I've read in a long time. Eggers regales this true story in a way that reads like a novel. If you're looking for something with history, family, roots, entrepreneurship, perseverance, and a happy ending.
Harlem Shuffle
By Colson Whitehead
I love books that take you completely out of your current world and give you a glimpse into a space and time you ordinarily wouldn't be able to conjure in your mind yourself. This is a novel about race, power, and the history of 1960s Harlem all disguised as a thrill-ride crime novel.
An American Marriage
By Tayari Jones
A beautiful, albeit heartbreaking, glimpse into a love story that is faced with the realities of race in America. Tayari Jones gives a complex yet intimate voice to one American marriage in a novel that's incredibly hard to put down. This one will make you think.
Between the World and Me
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates is one of my favorite writers, and this summer I've read BTWM, and reread We Were Eight Years in Power and The Water Dancer. So it was hard for me to choose just one for this list. Formatted as a letter to his son, Between the World and Me weaves together some of the biggest questions about American history with intimate lessons and concerns from a father to his son. Beautiful, profound, painful, and necessary.
Heartburn
By Nora Ephron
One of my favorite qualities in a human being is someone who can find some sort of humor in the midst of suffering. Nobody does this better than Nora, and I miss her voice. So I picked this oldie but goodie up again this summer, and it didn't disappoint.
