Anti-Racism Book Requests Rise At Ridgewood's Bookends, Elsewhere

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — Nationwide protests against the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have led to a rise in purchases of anti-racist and black-authored literature both locally and nationwide.

At Bookends in Ridgewood, the situation is no different. The bookstore, which is doing pick-up sales because of the coronavirus, has seen an uptick in sales.

Owner Walter Boyer says three titles, 'How To Be An Antiracist' by Ibram X. Kendi, 'Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption' by Bryan Stevenson and 'White Fragility' by Robin DiAngelo, have been the top requested at his store.

At Bookends, he says there is a back order on these titles, and he hopes to get additional copies at the end of next week

These books can also be found on reading lists published by various media outlets, including Time Magazine, The New York Times, Glamour and New York Magazine's The Strategist vertical.

The Fair Lawn Library, in a tweet, mentioned that they had an increased demand for suggestions. Rather than recommending their own list, they pointed readers to a Twitter thread from Victoria Alexander, one of a few tweets to gain mass attention on the platform.

Bookends, the famous Ridgewood bookstore notorious for attracting celebrities and noteworthy authors for book events, has been closed due to the coronavirus. A book launch event with Hillary and Chelsea Clinton scheduled for March 31 was cancelled as well.

The store is open virtually from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and local delivery and curbside pickup are also available on those days. However, Boyer said they will be opening as of Monday, June 15.

The trend Boyer noticed through these new modified order requests seems to be consistent with what national booksellers are seeing as well.

On Amazon's bestseller list, which is updated hourly, the top four spots are occupied by books about race, including two works by Kendi, as well as 'White Fragility', which is currently the site's bestseller. Half of the top 10 books deal in issues of race, and the trend doesn't fall off past that.

'How To Be An Antiracist' and 'White Fragility' are sold out on Amazon, at Bookends and, Boyer said, at most stores across the country.

Boyer explained that this occurence — a purview shifting event happens, people want to read about why it happened, books sell out — isn't atypical for the publishing industry, but that it does create a race to be the first store to get those titles back in stock.

Hanif Abdurraqib, a Columbus, Ohio based author, and editor at Medium's Gen Magazine, posted to Instagram that, amidst a noticeable uptick in sales, he will be donating all of his 2020 book royalties from 'A Fortune For Your Disaster' to the Okra Project. The Okra Project is a collective that provides home-cooked, healthy meals and resources to black trans people.

Though the lists seem generally well-intentioned, Vulture writer Lauren Michele Jackson questions in a recent article why they also look fairly uniform in their contents, and who the lists are truly made for, and if they're the best way to help those people learn.

Author Clint Smith said on Twitter he also felt the lists could be performative, but believed they could also be beneficial if people understood reading was an entry point into being anti-racist, not the finish line.

As eyes turned toward the literary world, black authors also shared the blatant pay disparity when compared to their white counterparts.

Young adult authors Tochi Onyebuchi and L.L. McKinney created the hashtag #publishingpaidme on Twitter, and soon a group of fellow black and non-white authors began sharing what they were paid for their work, some of which were featured on bestseller lists.

So what should we read?

Below is a list of anti-racist, pro-black or black-authored literature from a collection of book lists linked above:

• 'Heavy' by Kiese Laymon
• 'A Fortune For Your Disaster' by Hanif Abburaqib
• 'The Other Wes Moore' by Wes Moore
• 'Women, Race & Class' by Angela Y. Davis
• 'Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot' by Mikki Kendall
• 'Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements' by Charlene A. Carruthers
• 'Between the World and Me' by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness' by Michelle Alexander