Toni Morrison

Kicking off on Monday, October 26th and running through Monday, November 30th, Oprah Winfrey’s “The Books That Help Me Through” will feature 7 titles—5 of which are Penguin Random House titles—that have provided her solace during uncertain times. This series will be featured on Oprah’s Book Club, Twitter & Instagram accounts. Each week will be

“It’s August, so I wanted to let you know about a few books I’ve been reading this summer, in case you’re looking for some suggestions. To start, you can’t go wrong by reading or re-reading the collected works of Toni Morrison. Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Sula, everything else — they’re transcendent, all of them. You’ll be glad you read them. And while I’m at it, here are a few more titles you might want to explore.” President Barack Obama on Instagram, 8/14/19

Banned Books Week takes place September 22 – 28. For every book that is challenged or banned, there are advocates fighting to get [it] reinstated. For accounts and libraries fighting for our freedom to read, this list features challenged and cherished PRH titles, including classics and contemporaries. Does not include children’s banned books.

It’s time for another celebration of the right to read! Join the ongoing and imperative mission by working with booksellers to feature titles whose value has been contested at local and national levels. 

This year’s honorary (and inaugural) chair of Banned Books Week, Jason Reynolds: “To censor a book is to damage the framework in which we live,” adds Reynolds. “Any time we eliminate or wall off certain narratives, we are not getting a whole picture of the world in which we live. And navigating the world in a way that is closed-off, closed-minded, is poisonous. It means that we limit our vocabulary, which complicates how we communicate with one another. We have to celebrate stories and ensure that all books have a space on the shelves and the opportunity to live in the psyches of our children, as they grow into the human beings who will inherit this wonderful place.” 

On her Substack, author and Pulitzer finalist Rebecca Makkai recently proposed an award honoring backlist titles: “With the Pulitzer Prize announcements for last year coming on Monday, prizes have been on my mind. And specifically, this pipe dream I’ve had for a while now of starting a new and unconventional prize: one that celebrates the

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story will be published by One World Books on 11/16/19, offering a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present and a dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism.

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

There are many fiction titles that tackle the topic of Antiracism in ways that are both eye-opening and entertaining. Recommend this list of bestselling thought-provoking titles to use as starting points in critical conversations—between book clubs, families, friend groups, colleagues, and more.