The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs (Flatiron Books)
Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin were three of the most influential men of the 20th century, advocating for the voices and rights of Black Americans. But little is known about their mothers. Tubbs researched the lives of Alberta King, Louise Little, and Berdis Baldwin, to reveal the public and private lives of the women responsible for shaping the men who set out to reshape the country. (Available now)
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 edited by Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain (One World)
Featuring the voices of 80 Black writers and 10 Black poets, Four Hundred Soulsrecords the history of Black America, starting with the arrival of the first slaves in Jamestown, Va., in 1619. Each five-year segment, ending in 2019, is represented by a different writer, including Angela Davis, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Kiese Laymon, and more. (Available now)
This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith (Grand Central Publishing)
In Cross-Smith’s latest novel, Tallie Clark, a recently divorced therapist, spots a man standing on the edge of a bridge. She pulls over to help and invites the man for a coffee. Emmett agrees to return home with Tallie where he can be safe. Tallie doesn’t reveal she’s a therapist, and Emmett withholds information of his own. But the pair are about to be forever changed as Tallie learns what drove Emmett to the bridge. (Available now)
Speak, Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki Brina (Knopf)
In her debut memoir, New Orleans-based writer Elizabeth Miki Brina shares what it was like to grow up in upstate New York, daughter to an Okinawan war bride and a Vietnam veteran. As adolescence comes and goes, Brina feels no strong connection to her roots. But as the decades pass, she comes to understand the shame that follows both she and her mother and the relationship it has to her mother’s place of birth. (Available Feb. 23)