Three voices on what they’re reading in 2020

In recent weeks, we’ve returned to some of our favorite conversations with nonfiction authors including Ijeoma Oluo, Ibram X. Kendi and Verna Myers about race. But that isn’t the only type of written work that looks at and offers insight on the racial reckoning our nation is facing amid a pandemic.

MPR News host Kerri Miller talked with two authors and the head of the National Book Foundation about what’s been on their reading list in terms of fiction, memoirs and poetry this year.

Guests:

• Brit Bennett is one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 2016 honorees. Her first novel, “The Mothers,” was a bestseller and her latest novel is titled “The Vanishing Half.”

• Lisa Lucas is the executive director of the National Book Foundation.

• Kiese Laymon is the author of several works including his latest, “Heavy: An American Memoir.”

Here’s what Bennett, Lucas and Laymon are reading:

• Novel: “The Glass Hotel” by Emily St. John Mandel

• Novel: “Actress” by Anne Enright

• Essay: “When the World Went Away, We Made a New One” by Leslie Jamison

• Poetry: The works of Wanda Coleman

• Nonfiction: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson

• Poetry: “Homie” by Danez Smith

• Nonfiction: “Are Prisons Obsolete?” by Angela Y. Davis

• Fiction: “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia E. Butler

• Memoir: “Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir” by Natasha Trethewey

• Nonfiction: “Breathe: A Letter To My Sons” by Imani Perry

• Nonfiction: “Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own” by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

• Poetry: The works of June Jordan

• Poetry: The works of Eve. L. Ewing

• Poetry: The works of Jericho Brown

• Testimony: 1964 Testimony by Fannie Lou Hamer before the Credentials Committee, Democratic National Convention.

To listen to the full conversation, use the audio player above.

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