We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to the library. Find a location near you.

Noname Book Club Selections 2021

Launched in the summer of 2019 by Chicago rapper Noname, the book club picks two titles a month to discuss both online and in-person in discussion groups around the country. Described as “reading material for the homies”, Noname Book Club highlights books that speak on human conditions in critical and original ways while encouraging members to support the works of authors of color.

Showing 1 - 20 of 23  There are a total of 23 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "As long as grass grows"
Star rating for As long as grass grows
Description:
"Interrogating the concept of environmental justice in the U.S. as it relates to Indigenous peoples, this book argues that a different framework must apply compared to other marginalized communities, while it also attends to the colonial history and structure of the U.S. and ways Indigenous peoples continue to resist, and ways the mainstream environmental movement has been an impediment to effective organizing and allyship"--
Book cover for "The autobiography of Malcolm X"
Star rating for The autobiography of Malcolm X
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
ONE OF TIME’S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that...
Book cover for "Belly of the beast"
Star rating for Belly of the beast
Description:
"An exploration of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness at the intersections of race, police violence, gender identity, fatness, and health"--
Book cover for "Black slaves, Indian masters"
Star rating for Black slaves, Indian masters
Description:
In this beautifully illustrated study of intellectual and art history, Johnson explores the representation of classical myths by renowned French artists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, demonstrating the extraordinary influence of the natural sciences and psychology on artistic depiction of myth.
Book cover for "Bloodchild and other stories"
Star rating for Bloodchild and other stories
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
Six extraordinary stories from the author of Kindred, a master of modern science fiction—including a Hugo and Nebula award–winning novella.
Octavia E. Butler's classic "Bloodchild," winner of both the Nebula and Hugo awards, anchors this collection of incomparable stories and essays. "Bloodchild" is set on a distant planet where human children spend their lives preparing to become hosts for the offspring of the alien...
Book cover for "Cane"
Star rating for Cane
Book cover for "The end of policing"
Star rating for The end of policing
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"How the police endanger us and why we need to find an alternative Recent years have seen an explosion of protest and concern about police brutality and repression--especially after long-held grievances in Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in months of violent protest following the police killing of Brown. Much of the conversation has focused on calls for enhancing police accountability, increasing police diversity, improving police training, and emphasizing...
Book cover for "The end of white world supremacy"
Star rating for The end of white world supremacy
Book cover for "Facing the rising sun"
Star rating for Facing the rising sun
Description:
The surprising alliance between Japan and pro-Tokyo African Americans during World War II In November 1942 in East St. Louis, Illinois a group of African Americans engaged in military drills were eagerly awaiting a Japanese invasion of the U.S.-- an invasion that they planned to join. Since the rise of Japan as a superpower less than a century earlier, African Americans across class and ideological lines had saluted the Asian nation, not least because...
Book cover for "Heavy"
Star rating for Heavy
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about the physical manifestations of violence, grief, trauma, and abuse on his own body. He writes of his own eating disorder and gambling addiction as well as similar issues that run throughout his family. Through self-exploration, storytelling, and honest conversation with family and friends, Heavy seeks to bring what has been hidden into the light and to reckon with all of its myriad sources, from the most...
Book cover for "The hip hop wars"
Star rating for The hip hop wars
Author:
Description:
How hip hop shapes our conversations about race, and how race influences our consideration of hip hop. Hip hop is a distinctive form of black art in America, from Tupac to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Kendrick Lamar, hip hop has long given voice to the African American experience. As scholar and cultural critic Tricia Rose argues, hip hop, in fact, has become one of the primary ways we talk about race in the United States. But hip hop is in crisis....
Book cover for "Homegoing"
Star rating for Homegoing
Author:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath...
Book cover for "How we get free"
Star rating for How we get free
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the last several years, Black feminism has reemerged as the analytical framework for the activist response to the oppression of trans women of color, the fight for reproductive rights, and, of course, the movement against police abuse and violence. The most visible organizations and activists connected to the Black Lives Matter movement speak openly about how Black feminism shapes their politics and strategies today. The interviews I have compiled...
Book cover for "I can't date Jesus"
Star rating for I can't date Jesus
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"In the style of New York Times bestsellers You Can't Touch My Hair, Bad Feminist, and I'm Judging You, a timely collection of alternately hysterical and soul-searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity. It hasn't been easy being Michael Arceneaux. Equality for LGBT people has come a long way and all, but voices of persons of color within...
Book cover for "A little devil in America"
Star rating for A little devil in America
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"A Little Devil in America is an urgent project that unravels all modes and methods of black performance, in this moment when black performers are coming to terms with their value, reception, and immense impact on America. With sharp insight, humor, and heart, Abdurraqib examines how black performance happens in specific moments in time and space--midcentury Paris, the moon, or a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. At the outset of this project,...
Book cover for "Looking for Lorraine"
Star rating for Looking for Lorraine
Description:
"A revealing portrait of one of the most gifted and charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century" -

17. Monster

Book cover for "Monster"
Star rating for Monster
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.
Book cover for "My sister, the serial killer"
Star rating for My sister, the serial killer
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Satire meets slasher in this short, darkly funny hand grenade of a novel about a Nigerian woman whose younger sister has a very inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends. "Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer." Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede's practicality...
Book cover for "No name in the street"
Star rating for No name in the street
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works. In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early conciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain--the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his retum to the American South to...
Book cover for "The skin I'm in"
Star rating for The skin I'm in
Series:
Description:
Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.