Ta-Nehisi Coates

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About Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me, a finalist for the National Book Award. A MacArthur "Genius Grant" fellow, Coates has received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, and the George Polk Award for his Atlantic cover story "The Case for Reparations." He lives in New York with his wife and son.

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Books By Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Between the World and Me Jul 14, 2015

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

( 15,455 )

$12.99

#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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

The Water Dancer: A Novel Sep 24, 2019

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

( 8,468 )

$13.99

#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, 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

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy Oct 3, 2017

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

( 1,528 )

$12.99

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.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood May 6, 2008

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

( 744 )

$9.99

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

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , Audio CD

The Beautiful Struggle (Adapted for Young Adults) Jan 12, 2021

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

( 4 )

$10.99

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.

Other Formats: Hardcover

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Vol. 1: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1 (Black Panther (2016-2018)) Aug 31, 2016

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Stan Lee , Brian Stelfreeze , Jack Kirby

( 709 )

$8.99

Collects Black Panther (2016) #1-4, Fantastic Four (1961) #52.

A new era begins for the Black Panther! MacArthur Genius and National Book Award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) takes the helm, confronting T'Challa with a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda that will make leading the African nation tougher than ever before. When a superhuman terrorist group calling itself The People sparks a violent uprising, the land famed for its incredible technology and proud warrior traditions will be thrown into turmoil. As suicide bombers terrorize the population, T'Challa struggles to unite his citizens, and a familiar villain steps out of the shadows. If Wakanda is to survive, it must adapt — but can its monarch, one in a long line of Black Panthers, survive the necessary change? Heavy lies the head that wears the cowl!

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

Black Panther Book 8: The Intergalactic Empire Of Wakanda Part Three (Black Panther (2018-)) Jan 8, 2020

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Daniel Acuna

( 86 )

$10.99

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?

Other Formats: Paperback

Captain America by Ta-Nehisi Coates Vol. 3: The Legend Of Steve (Captain America (2018-)) Mar 25, 2020

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Jason Masters , Alex Ross , Sean Izaakse , Niko Walter

( 80 )

$10.69

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?

Other Formats: Paperback

Black Panther Vol. 5: Avengers of the New World Part 2 (Black Panther (2016-2018)) May 30, 2018

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Leonard Kirk , Chris Sprouse , Brian Stelfreeze

( 69 )

$12.09

Collects Black Panther (2016) #166-172.

Klaw stands supreme! The Black Panther's greatest foe has returned, ready for war! Can T'Challa finally defeat Ulysses Klaw, the man who killed his father, before his country rips itself apart? To make matters worse, Wakanda's gods disappear — 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! T'Challa must defend his country from within — but with his hands full, who will come to Ayo and Aneka's aid? Who will join the Panther's ill-fated crusade? And who, or what, is Ras the Exhorter? The answers will surprise you!

Other Formats: Paperback

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Vol. 2 (Black Panther (2016-2018)) Jan 24, 2017

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Donald McGregor , Chris Sprouse , Brian Stelfreeze , Rich Buckler

( 246 )

$8.09

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 Wakanda's 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, T'Challa must rely on his elite secret police, the Hatut Zeraze, and fellow Avenger Eden Fesi, a.k.a. Manifold! And with T'Challa's 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 — and there's 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 Wakanda's collective memory?

Other Formats: Paperback

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Vol. 3 (Black Panther (2016-2018)) Apr 12, 2017

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Brian Stelfreeze , Chris Sprouse

( 196 )

$8.99

Collects Black Panther (2016) #9-12 and material from New Avengers (2013) #18, 21, 24.

The full truth of the People's revolution - and the power players supporting it - has been revealed! Now, T'Challa must fight like never before for the fate of his nation - and one of his most trusted allies is back to stand by his side. As the final battle begins, the entirety of Wakanda's glorious history may be their most potent weapon. But even if the People fall, can the monarchy still stand? The pieces are all in position, now it's time for Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze to knock over the board as their revitalization of Black Panther continues!

Other Formats: Paperback

Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Vol. 1 Collection (Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Collection) Aug 15, 2017

by Ta-Nehisi Coates , Brian Stelfreeze , Chris Sprouse

( 99 )

$16.99

Collects Black Panther (2016) #1-12.

A new era for the Black Panther begins as the kingdom of Wakanda enters what might be its final days! National Book Award winner and New York Times Best-Selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) confronts T’Challa with dramatic upheaval in his homeland that will make leading the African nation tougher than ever before. When a superhuman terrorist group that calls itself The People sparks a violent uprising, the country famed for its incredible technology and proud warrior traditions will be thrown into turmoil! As Zenzi and Tetu, leaders of The People, poison the populace against its king, the spirit of T’Challa’s presumed-dead sister, Shuri, makes a transformative journey through Wakanda’s past, and a group of heroes, including Storm and Luke Cage, come together as The Crew to help Black Panther out. If Wakanda is to survive, it must adapt — but can its king, one of a long line of Black Panthers, survive the necessary change? Heavy is the head that wears the cowl!

Other Formats: Hardcover

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