Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – I will never forget taking my firstborn book, The Warmth of Other Suns, out into the world and hearing the most startling endorsement it has ever received. On a community radio show in NYC, we were soberly discussing the impact of the Great Migration and the fortitude of the ancestors when an enthusiastic reader who happened to be a minister cut to the chase:
“This book is so important, you have to read it,” he told listeners.
“And if you can’t afford to buy the book,” he said, “steal the book.”
It may have been metaphorical, but he had made his point.
Around the same time, I went to Chicago on book tour and excitedly went into what was then the main book store in Hyde Park — Borders Books on 53rd Street — and was anxious to see my newborn on the shelf. I looked all over for it in Nonfiction and in History and in African-American Studies. I couldn’t find it anywhere and started to get worried that it wasn’t getting the placement it should have gotten.
I went to the front desk to ask about it.
“Oh that book,” the clerk said. “We had to put it behind the counter. It was walking out on its own.”
And so there it was next to Jay Z’s memoir and Terry McMillan’s newest best seller and another of John Grisham’s blockbusters. Never in a million years would I have expected a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction to need to be locked behind the counter with those commercial heavyweights.
Now, 14 years later, The Warmth of Other Suns is available for a limited time for $1.99 on Amazon in Kindle format to kick off Black History Month. Thrilled for every new reader who will now have even more chances to know Ida Mae, Robert and George and the courage of the people of the Great Migration.
May we come to a deeper appreciation of our country’s history this month because Black History is American History.
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The first photo is of me at the indie bookstore, Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, where I signed Warmth and Caste for the holidays, in addition to signings at McNally Jackson, Barnes & Noble, and Cafe Con Libros.
#thewarmthofothersuns #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents
#blackhistorymonth #history | Posted on 02/Feb/2024 03:29:29
