2024 Reading List | |||||||
Fiction Titles in Pink - Favorites in Bold
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Title | Author | Genre/Subject | Year | fiction | shorts | read | rec |
Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines | Joy Buolamwini | technology, social justice | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution | Cat Bohannon | science, social justice, feminism | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness | Michelle Alexander | social justice | 2010 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor | Virginia Eubanks | social justice | 2018 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Are Prisons Obsolete? | Angela Y. Davis | social justice | 2003 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Not “A Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion | Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz | history, social justice | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution | Vincent Bevins | social justice, movement analysis | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Wild Seed | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1980 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World | Meredith Broussard | technology, social justice | 2018 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Mind of My Mind | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1977 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Voices in the Code: A Story About People, Their Values, and the Algorithm They Made | David G. Robinson | technology, social justice | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress | Robert A. Heinlein | science fiction | 1966 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America | Michael Harriot | history | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation | Anna Malaika Tubbs | history, social justice, feminism | 2021 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Hunger Games | Suzanne Collins | science fiction | 2008 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation | Cathy O’Neil | technology, psychology, social justice | 2022 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Chatching Fire | Suzanne Collins | science fiction | 2009 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Mockingjay | Suzanne Collins | science fiction | 2010 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Token Black Girl: A Memoir | Danielle Prescod | memoir | 2022 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech | Meredith Broussard | technology, social justice | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective | Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor | social justice, feminism | 2017 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor | Hamilton Nolan | labor | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code | Ruha Benjamin | technology, social justice | 2019 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need | Sasha Costanza-Chock | technology, social justice | 2020 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir | Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele | memoir | 2018 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
A Disability History of the United States | Kim E. Nielsen | social justice, labor, history | 2018 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Go Tell It On the Mountain | James Baldwin | semi-autobiographical novel | 1953 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Belonging: A Culture of Place | bell hooks | essays | 1990 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Selected Works of Audre Lorde | Audre Lorde, Edited by Roxane Gay | feminism | 2020 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism | Harsha Walia | social justice, migration | 2021 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class | Jefferson R. Cowie | labor, history | 2010 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Ain’t I a Woman? | bell hooks | feminism | 1981 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land | Toni Jensen | memoir | 2020 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths about Native Americans | Dina Gilio-Whitaker and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz | history | 2016 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment | Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz | history, social justice | 2018 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds | adrienne maree brown | social justice | 2017 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Clay’s Ark | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1984 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms | Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law | social justice | 2020 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Patternmaster | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1976 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World | Patrisse Cullors | social justice, radical self-love | 2021 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love | bell hooks | feminism | 2004 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Parable of the Sower | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1993 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology | Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. | short stories | 2023 | Fiction | 1 | 1 | FALSE |
Parable of the Talents | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1998 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Kindred | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1979 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good | Written and Gathered by adrienne maree brown | social justice | 2019 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain | adventure fiction | 1876 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Fledgling | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 2005 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love | Sonya Renee Taylor | radical self-love | 2018 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World | Prentis Hemphill | social justice, radical self-love | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Dawn | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1987 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Adulthood Rites | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1988 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. | Luis J. Rodriguez | memoir | 1993 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Imago | Octavia E. Butler | science fiction | 1989 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Trippy: The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics | Ernesto Londono | psychiatry, mental health | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
All Systems Red | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2017 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Artificial Condition | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2018 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Imagination: A Manifesto | Ruha Benjamin | technology, social justice | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Rogue Protocol | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2018 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements | Edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha | short stories | 2015 | Fiction | 1 | 1 | TRUE |
Exit Strategy | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2018 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership | Brea Baker | history, social justice | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
All About Love: New Visions | bell hooks | feminism | 1999 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Network Effect | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2020 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Fugitive Telemetry | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2021 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
American Indian Stories | Zitkála-Sá | memior | 1921 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers | Edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams | short stories | 2019 | Fiction | 1 | 1 | TRUE |
System Collapse | Martha Wells | science fiction | 2023 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI | Madhumita Murgia | technology | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net | Jessica Calarco and Karen Murray | social justice | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Abolition. Feminism. Now. | Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie | social justice | 2022 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) | Dean Spade | social justice | 2021 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science | Kim TallBear | social justice, science | 2013 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community | Mia Birdsong | social justice | 2020 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
The Fifth Season | N. K. Jemisin | fantasy | 2015 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
The Obelisk Gate | N. K. Jemisin | fantasy | 2016 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Stone Sky | N. K. Jemisin | fantasy | 2017 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Annie Bot | Sierra Greer | science fiction | 2024 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story | Kara Swisher | technology | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
A Memory Called Empire | Arkady Martine | science fiction | 2019 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood | Gretchen Sisson | reproductive rights and family planning | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement | Ashley Shew | disability justice, technology | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm | Kazu Haga | social justice | 2020 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde | Alexis Pauline Gumbs | biography | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs | Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha | disability justice | 2022 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness | Da’Shaun L. Harrison | Blackness, fatness, and gender | 2021 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech | Sara Wachter-Boettcher | technology | 2017 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
All Fours | Miranda July | psychological humor | 2024 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land | Rebecca Nagle | Indigenous studies | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse | Edited by John Joseph Adams | short stories | 2008 | Fiction | 1 | 1 | FALSE |
Medical Gaslighting: How to Get the Care You Deserve in a System that Makes You Fight for Your Life | Ilana Jacqueline | health care, feminism, trauma | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety | Edited by Cara Page and Erica Woodland | social justice | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality | Renée DiResta | media | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress | Wesley Lowery | social justice | 2023 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom | Johanna Hedva | disability justice | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance | Erica Dhawan | communication | 2021 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement | Angela Y. Davis | interviews & speeches | 2015 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
The Message | Ta-Nehisi Coates | essays | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | TRUE |
Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance | Nick Estes | social justice | 2019 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times | edited by Peter Catapano and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson | essays | 2019 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
A Desolation Called Peace | Arkady Martine | science fiction | 2021 | Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Who’s Afraid of Gender? | Judith Butler | gender theory | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 1 | FALSE |
Loving Corrections | adrienne maree brown | social justice, healing | 2024 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 0 | TRUE |
Rocannon’s World | Ursula K. Le Guin | fantasy | 1966 | Fiction | 0 | 0 | FALSE |
Feminist, Queer, Crip | Alison Kafer | feminism, disability justice, queer theory | 2013 | Non-Fiction | 0 | 0 | FALSE |
Fiction
- Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (2015) edited by adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha
- Ceremony (1986) by Leslie Silko
- The Patternist Series (1976-1984) by Octavia Butler
- A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers (2019) edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert A. Heinlein
- Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998) by Octavia Butler
- Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (2023) edited by Shane Hawk, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
- Kindred (1979) by Octavia Butler
- Annie Bot (2024) by Sierra Greer
- Broken Earth series (2015-2017) by N. K. Jemisin
- Teixcalaan series (2019-2021) by Arkady Martine
Non-fiction
Movement Building and Analysis
- An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World (2021) by Patrisse Cullors
- Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017) by adrienne maree brown
- What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World (2024) by Prentis Hemphill
- If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (2023) by Vincent Bevins
- How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (2012) edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
- How Nonviolence Protects the State (2007) by Peter Gelderloos
- Women, Race & Class (1981) by Angela Davis
- Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm (2020) by Kazu Haga
- Loving Corrections (2024) by adrienne maree brown
- How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community (2020) by Mia Birdsong
- Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019) written and gathered by adrienne maree brown
- American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress (2023) by Wesley Lowery
History
- Not “A Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion (2021) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States (2015) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America (2023) by Michael Harriot (fantastic audiobook!)
- A Disability History of the United States (2018) by Kim E. Nielsen
- Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership (2024) by Brea Baker
- By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land (2024) by Rebecca Nagle
Aboliton
- We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice (2021) by Mariame Kaba
- From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (2017) by Elizabeth Hinton
- Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces (2013) by Radley Balko
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition (2010/2020) by Michelle Alexander
- Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) by Angela Davis
- Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms (2020) by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
- An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World (2021) by Patrisse Cullors
- Imagination: A Manifesto (2024) by Ruha Benjamin
- Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism (2021) by Harsha Walia
Technology
- Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines (2023) by Dr. Joy Buolamwini
- Also see her documentary on Netflix Coded Bias
- Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (2018) by Virginia Eubanks
- Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (2018) by Meredith Broussard
- Algorithms of Oppression (2018) by Safiya Umoja Noble
- More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (2024) by Meredith Broussard
- Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need (2020) by Sasha Costanza-Chock (open access)
- Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (2023) by Ashley Shew
Mental Health, Relationships, and Survival
- Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (2019) by Robert Whitaker
- The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation by Cathy O’Neil (author of the groundbreaking book, Weapons of Math Destruction)
- The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004) by bell hooks
- An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World (2021) by Patrisse Cullors (I know this is on several lists, but it is really good and applicable to so many facets.)
- Medical Gaslighting: How to Get the Care You Deserve in a System that Makes You Fight for Your Life (2024) by Ilana Jacqueline
Memoirs, Biographies, and Essay Collections
- Assata (1998) by Assata Shakur
- A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (1992) by Elaine Brown
- Belonging: A Culture of Place (1990) by bell hooks
- When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (2018) by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
- Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land (2020) by Toni Jensen
- Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde (2024) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
- The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs (2022) by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (2021) by Da’Shaun L. Harrison
- The Message (2024) by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom (2024) by Johanna Hedva