What To Read

Few contemporary writers have shaped American discourse on race, history, and identity as profoundly as Ta-Nehisi Coates. Bridging journalism, memoir, fiction, and even comics, Coates has emerged as one of the most influential public intellectuals with writing that confronts the legacies of white supremacy, interrogates national myths, and demands moral clarity in a time of political and social upheaval.

Coates first gained national prominence through his writing for The Atlantic, with essays that catalyzed conversations that had long been marginalized in mainstream media such as his groundbreaking "The Case for Reperations." His memoirs and nonfiction works have become foundational texts in classrooms and book clubs alike, celebrated for their emotional honesty and historical depth. Arguably the most notable of these works is the National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the long awaited release of a paperback edition.

Reading through Coates’ major works is more than a literary journey—it’s an immersion into some of the most urgent questions of our time. Whether you’re just beginning or revisiting with fresh eyes, the books below offer a roadmap through his evolving thought and powerful storytelling.

Between the World and Me (2015)

Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, this urgent, poetic letter to Coates’ teenage son wrestles with the realities of being Black in America. Drawing from history, personal experience, and cultural criticism, Coates examines systemic racism, bodily vulnerability, and the elusive promise of the American Dream in a voice that’s intimate, unflinching, and deeply resonant.

In response to the book, the great Toni Morrison wrote, "I've been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, like Coates's journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory. This is required reading."

The Message (2024)

A finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, NPR, Vanity Fair, and more, The Message is Coates at his most reflective and far-reaching. Originally conceived as a meditation on language and writing, the book evolves into three powerful essays exploring how the stories we tell—through journalism, imagination, and myth—can both reveal and distort the truth. From Dakar to South Carolina to Palestine, Coates wrestles with national narratives, cultural memory, and the weight of history, urging readers to confront the myths that shape our world—and free ourselves through truth.

Kirkus Reviews called it, "A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys."

The Water Dancer (2019)

A New York Times bestseller and a pick for Oprah's Book Club, Coates’ first novel blends historical fiction with magical realism to tell the story of Hiram Walker, an enslaved man with a mysterious power tied to memory and water. As Hiram becomes involved in the Underground Railroad, Coates illuminates the emotional and psychic toll of slavery in a richly imagined narrative that is both epic and lyrical.

The book received widespread praise, with the New York Times' Dwight Garner writing, "The Water Dancer is a jeroboam of a book, a crowd-pleasing exercise in breakneck and often occult storytelling that tonally resembles the work of Stephen King as much as it does the work of Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead and the touchstone African-American science-fiction writer Octavia Butler... It is flecked with forms of wonder-working that push at the boundaries of what we still seem to be calling magical realism."

We Were Eight Years in Power (2017)

This acclaimed essay collection, which was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, spans the Obama presidency, featuring Coates’ most impactful pieces from The Atlantic alongside new commentary reflecting on their creation and context. With intellectual rigor and moral clarity, he explores race, class, and the backlash to Black progress, culminating in a sobering account of how white supremacy endures—and adapts—in American life.

The Boston Globe called it, "Essential... Coates's probing essays about race, politics, and history became necessary ballast for this nation's gravity-defying moment."

The Beautiful Struggle (2008)

In his first book, Coates offers a vivid and candid memoir of his youth in West Baltimore during the crack epidemic. Raised by a strict, politically radical father who ran a Black publishing press, Coates navigates a world of street corners, books, and identity politics. Told in rhythmic, lyrical prose, this coming-of-age story captures the tensions of family, masculinity, and self-discovery.