Most Popular Books by Ta-Nehisi Coates

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. “[Coates] is intellectually fearless . . . unshackled by political or racial ideology, humane in his judgments, respectful of facts, acutely aware of the difference between what is knowable and what is not.”—The New Yorker Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities. In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground. Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

In this “urgently relevant”* collection featuring the landmark essay “The Case for Reparations,” the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath”*—including the election of Donald Trump. New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times • USA Today • Time • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Essence • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Week • Kirkus Reviews *Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.” But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period—and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president. We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates’s iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including “Fear of a Black President,” “The Case for Reparations,” and “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coates’s own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era. We Were Eight Years in Power is a vital account of modern America, from one of the definitive voices of this historic moment.

An exceptional father-son story from the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me about the reality that tests us, the myths that sustain us, and the love that saves us. Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence—and through the collapsing civilization of Baltimore in the Age of Crack—and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free. Among his brood of seven, his main challenges were Ta-Nehisi, spacey and sensitive and almost comically miscalibrated for his environment, and Big Bill, charismatic and all-too-ready for the challenges of the streets. The Beautiful Struggle follows their divergent paths through this turbulent period, and their father’s steadfast efforts—assisted by mothers, teachers, and a body of myths, histories, and rituals conjured from the past to meet the needs of a troubled present—to keep them whole in a world that seemed bent on their destruction. With a remarkable ability to reimagine both the lost world of his father’s generation and the terrors and wonders of his own youth, Coates offers readers a small and beautiful epic about boys trying to become men in black America and beyond. Praise for The Beautiful Struggle “I grew up in a Maryland that lay years, miles and worlds away from the one whose summers and sorrows Ta-Nehisi Coates evokes in this memoir with such tenderness and science; and the greatest proof of the power of this work is the way that, reading it, I felt that time, distance and barriers of race and class meant nothing. That in telling his story he was telling my own story, for me.”—Michael Chabon, bestselling author of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay “Ta-Nehisi Coates is the young James Joyce of the hip hop generation.”—Walter Mosley

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom. “This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist.”—San Francisco Chronicle IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, directed by Nia DaCosta, and produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • Vanity Fair • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Paste • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures. This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen. Praise for The Water Dancer “Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations—and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer . . . is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance. . . . What’s most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal. . . . Timeless and instantly canon-worthy.”—Rolling Stone

Collects Captain America (2018) #13-30. Acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates concludes his examination of the Sentinel of Liberty''s place in modern-day America! Framed for a crime he did not commit and pursued by a dogged Nick Fury, Steve Rogers takes on the Power Elite and their insidious minions - with help from the Daughters of Liberty! Disgraced and hunted, he has been forced underground - but he''s not down and out yet. And the hour is drawing nigh when Steve will once again pick up the shield and don the stars and stripes! But which of Cap''s closest allies will do the same with the armor of the Iron Patriot? And who will be the new Agent 13? Just as Captain America returns, so too does his greatest enemy - and now, Steve Rogers must marshal his forces to face the reborn Red Skull!

Collects Captain America (2018) #1-12 and material from Free Comic Book Day 2018 (Avengers/Captain America) #1. Acclaimed BLACK PANTHER scribe Ta-Nehisi Coates takes on the Sentinel of Liberty! For more than 70 years, Captain America has stood in stalwart defense of his country and its people. But in the aftermath of Hydra’s brief takeover of the nation, Cap is a figure of controversy carrying a tarnished shield — and a new enemy is rising! Distrusted by his own country and facing threats including the Taskmaster and an army of Nuke super-soldiers, Steve Rogers is a man out of time — and out of options! As things get worse, Cap finds himself wanted for murder — and the victim is a major figure in the Marvel Universe! The walls are closing in on Steve Rogers. Will he end up as Captain of Nothing? Or does the Living Legend still have some allies in his corner?

Collects Captain America (2018) #13-19. Captain America must find a way to prove his innocence. Framed for a crime he did not commit and pursued by a dogged Nick Fury, Steve Rogers takes the fight back to the Power Elite and their insidious minions — with help from the Daughters of Liberty! First, it’s a trip to the border with White Tiger to uncover secrets behind the group known as THEM! Then, Cap and Mockingbird journey to Iowa, where THEM holds an entire town in thrall! And Cap and Jessica Drew must tackle a familiar foe who is contaminating the water supply of a rust belt city! But when the killing of a cop sets off a powder keg in the New York streets, can Cap help Misty Knight contain it — while remaining one step ahead of the conspiracy against him?

Collects Black Panther (2016) #5-8, Jungle Action #6-7. Counting down the final days of the kingdom of Wakanda! As Zenzi and The People poison Wakandau0092s citizens against the Black Panther, a cabal of nation-breakers is assembled. And Ayo and Aneka, the Midnight Angels, are courted to raise their land to new glory! His allies dwindling, Tu0092Challa must rely on his elite secret police, the Hatut Zeraze, and fellow Avenger Eden Fesi, a.k.a. Manifold! And with Tu0092Challau0092s back truly against the wall, some old friends lend a hand: Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Storm! But Wakanda may be too far gone for this all-new, all-different crew u0097 and thereu0092s one job the Panther must handle alone. Only he can voyage into the Djalia! Getting there is hard enough, but can he even find his sister Shuri inside Wakandau0092s collective memory?

Collects Captain America (2018) #26-30. One last showdown! Captain America has been framed for murder, imprisoned and then made a fugitive - his reputation smeared and his spirit tested - all at the shadowy hands of the manipulative Power Elite. Now, Cap will take his fight straight to the Power Elite. But his greatest enemy awaits, reborn deadlier than ever: the Red Skull! Prepare for an all-out fight to the finish and a climactic conclusion to the saga that has tested the ethics and ideals of the man who embodies America like no other! Acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates concludes his extraordinary exploration of Steve Rogers - the man, the myth, the living legend that is Captain America!

Adapted from the adult memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Water Dancer and Between the World and Me, this father-son story explores how boys become men, and quite specifically, how Ta-Nehisi Coates became Ta-Nehisi Coates. As a child, Ta-Nehisi Coates was seen by his father, Paul, as too sensitive and lacking focus. Paul Coates was a Vietnam vet who''d been part of the Black Panthers and was dedicated to reading and publishing the history of African civilization. When it came to his sons, he was committed to raising proud Black men equipped to deal with a racist society, during a turbulent period in the collapsing city of Baltimore where they lived. Coates details with candor the challenges of dealing with his tough-love father, the influence of his mother, and the dynamics of his extended family, including his brother "Big Bill," who was on a very different path than Ta-Nehisi. Coates also tells of his family struggles at school and with girls, making this a timely story to which many readers will relate.

Ta-Nehisi Coates'' complete, acclaimed story of a king who sought to be a hero...a hero who was reduced to a slave...a slave who became a legend! The award-winning author confronts the Black Panther with dramatic upheaval in his homeland -- first with a violent uprising, then the return of ancient gods! Meanwhile, T''Challa''s sister Shuri makes a transformative journey through Wakanda''s past, and Storm returns to the Panther''s life! But in the far reaches of space, a new cosmic power emerges: the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda! How did this happen? What does its ruthless Emperor N''Jadaka have planned? And what difference can one nameless-yet-familiar warrior, with no memory of his past, make to the rebellion? The Black Panther -- and Wakanda -- will never be the same!

Collects Marvel''s Black Panther Prelude #1-2, Black Panther (2005) #2, Black Panther (2016) #1 and material from Jungle Action #6-7 & Black Panther (1998) #19. Wakanda. The most technologically advanced nation in the world u0097 and protected by the mighty Black Panther! Now, learn how Tu0092Challa became the legendary hero of his homeland in an all-new tale set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! See how the mantle was passed to the future king at a time when super heroes were just emerging in the larger world. But can the new monarch defeat the merciless mercenary Zanda? Plus: Classic Panther tales by all-time great creators! Ferocious villain Erik Killmonger fuels the Pantheru0092s rage! Familiar friends and foes play their part including Everett K. Ross, the deadly Dora Milaje and Tu0092Challau0092s archfoe, Klaw! And the future of Wakanda is here as a revolution begins!

Collects Black Panther (2016) #166-172. Klaw stands supreme! The Black Pantheru0092s greatest foe has returned, ready for war! Can Tu0092Challa finally defeat Ulysses Klaw, the man who killed his father, before his country rips itself apart? To make matters worse, Wakandau0092s gods disappear u0097 and the Originators return! The former gods are back, but what are their intentions for a land that has forgotten them? And all that is only the beginning as a cadre of villains returns, monsters pour through strange gateways and Wakanda is brought to its knees! Tu0092Challa must defend his country from within u0097 but with his hands full, who will come to Ayo and Anekau0092s aid? Who will join the Pantheru0092s ill-fated crusade? And who, or what, is Ras the Exhorter? The answers will surprise you!

Collecting Rise Of The Black Panther #1-6. The secret origin of Tu0092Challa, the Black Panther! Wakanda has always kept itself isolated from Western society, but thatu0092s about to change. Young Tu0092Challa knows heu0092s destined to become king, but when his father is murdered by outsiders, he finds himself taking up a mantle he may not be ready for. Experience the troubled reign of King Tu0092Chaka! Discover the mother Tu0092Challa never knew! And see how the world first learns of the wondrous nation of Wakanda u0097 including Namor, King of Atlantis; the Winter Soldier; and the ruler of Latveria, Doctor Doom! Plus: As Erik Killmonger makes a devastating move, a missing chapter of Tu0092Challa and Stormu0092s lifelong romance comes to light u0097 and the Black Panther must decide his unique role in a world full of super heroes!

Collecting Black Panther (2018) #1-6. A bold new direction for the Black Panther! For years, Tu0092Challa has protected Wakanda from all invaders. Now, he will discover that his kingdom is much bigger than he ever dreamed. Across the vast Multiverse lies an empire founded in Tu0092Challau0092s name. Readers caught a glimpse of it in MARVEL LEGACY #1. Now learn the truth behind the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda! A Panther story unlike any other begins with Tu0092Challa as a stranger in a strange land u0097 with no memory of his past, only the suffering of a present spent toiling in the Vibranium mines. But all hope is not lost. A rebellion is growing u0097 and they have a plan. But who will lead these lost citizens? Where is the Black Panther? And what is the Mu0092Kraan Shard?

Collecting Black Panther (2016) #13-18. Where next for the Black Panther? Find out as a sensational new arc begins! Eons ago - before Black Panthers, before Wakanda, before time itself - there were only the Orishas! The pantheon of gods and goddesses from which the world as we know it was manifested: Asali. Ogutemeli. Bast. But now, when Wakanda burns, they are silent. When she was flooded, they were silent. While her people war amongst themselves, ever silent they remain. Where have all the gods of Wakanda gone? T''Challa means to find out... MacArthur Fellow and national correspondent for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) is joined by rising superstar Wilfredo Torres (Moon Knight) - and together they set out to redefine faith and theology for the Marvel Universe!

Black Panther, Storm, Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Manifold band together to take on a dangerous wave of street-level threats in a new series by co-writers Ta-Nehisi Coates (New York Times best-selling author of Between the World and Me and Marvel''s Black Panther) and Yona Harvey (Black Panther: World of Wakanda), and legendary artist Butch Guice! The death of a Harlem activist kicks off a mystery that will reveal surprising new secrets about the Marvel Universe''s past - and set the stage for a huge story in the near future! Fear, hate and violence loom, but don''t worry, The Crew''s got this: They are the streets. COLLECTING: BLACK PANTHER AND THE CREW #1-6.

Collects Black Panther (2018) #19-25. The end of an era for the Black Panther! Ta-Nehisi Coates’ landmark run reaches a tipping point as the ruthless N’Jadaka comes for Earth! To protect our planet from N’Jadaka’s violent invasion, the nation of Wakanda must go to war against its own future — and its first, best and only hope lies in the Panther! But where is he? Even the gods are beginning to despair — but Bast will not abandon her avatar, even if she has to recruit an outsider to save him! Coates brings T’Challa full circle, back to the home he left behind and the crown he has never fully accepted. This is the story of a king who sought to be a hero, a hero reduced to a slave and a slave who advanced into legend!

Collects Black Panther (2018) #13-18. Has T’Challa learned what it means to be king just in time to lose his kingdom? Weeks ago, the Black Panther disappeared on a mission into deep space, leaving behind his country, his family and the woman he loves. Now, at last, find out what Wakanda Prime has done without its king! And light-years away, as the race against Emperor N’Jadaka’s expansion continues, the goddess Bast makes a dramatic move and T’Challa reaches out for the life he left behind! The Maroons are looking to turn the tide, but when N’Jadaka comes for his revenge, will T’Challa’s plan be enough to free those the Empire has enslaved and open his pathway home? And even if he can, can he truly rid himself of the Intergalactic Empire and its despotic ruler?

Collects Black Panther (2018) #7-12. The Maroons strike back! You watched them steal the M’Kraan Shard from the empire. Now the rebels are ready to show who they really are. “He Who Put the Blade Where It Belonged” retakes his rightful title, and the Black Panther is reborn! With the Panther once again among their ranks, they’re certain of victory — but at what cost? T’Challa faces a creature of nightmare and journeys to the home world of the Between, the place where N’Jadaka’s rise began! But what he learns there will lead him to question the rebellion’s very foundation. Will Bast’s champion ever be fully restored? Learn at last how the king of Wakanda found himself a slave in the Vibranium mines of a half-familiar world as T’Challa’s lost past is revealed!

A new era for the Black Panther starts here! The indomitable will of Wakanda, the famed African nation known for its vast wealth, advanced technology and warrior traditions, has long been reflected in the will of its monarchs, the Black Panthers. But now the current Black Panther, T''Challa, finds that will tested by a superhuman terrorist group called The People that has sparked a violent uprising among the citizens of Wakanda. T''Challa knows the country must change to survive... the question is, will the Black Panther survive the change? Collecting BLACK PANTHER (2016) 1-12.

With a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda on the horizon, T''Challa struggles to find balance in his roles as king and the Black Panther. His people are restless, a superhuman terrorist group sparks a violent uprising, two former Dora Milaje become Midnight Angels to liberate oppressed Wakandans, and his sister, Shuri, is trapped between life and death. T''Challa knows Wakanda needs to change to survive, but can he survive the change? Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Spotlight is a division of ABDO.

The Black Panther faces a superhuman terrorist group that calls itself The People, which has thrown the African nation of Wakanda into turmoil.