Booksellers of color lift up diverse voices

What if you walked into a bookstore and saw table after table piled with books written by Black authors? Or entire shelves of contemporary Mexican-American or Native poets? 

We don’t often think about the role booksellers play in lifting up the abundance and diversity of writers of color. 

Friday at 9 a.m., MPR News host Kerri Miller talked to three women proprietors about opening their bookstores and how they are pushing fiction and poetry to help us understand the challenges of our moment. 

Guests:

• Dionne Sims is owner of Black Garnet Books in Minneapolis. 

• Sarah Rafael García is owner of LibroMobile in Santa Ana, Calif. 

• Amber Collins is owner of the The Soul Book Nook in Waterloo, Iowa. 

Here are are some of their recommendations: 

• “Creating the Black Utopia of Buxton, Iowa” by Rachelle Chase 

• “Potted Meat” by Steven Dunn

• “Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America” by John Lewis 

• “Movement in Black” by Pat Parker 

• “Plot” by Claudia Rankine 

• “From Our Land to Our Land” by Luis J. Rodriguez

• The Logan Family Saga, a series by Mildred Taylor 

• “Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward

• “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wikerson 

Use the audio player above to listen to the program.

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