1. Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
This posthumously published book by one of the great American writers is framed as a conversation with the man known as the last survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. Barracoon is heartbreaking and fascinating in equal measure, a superb addition to Hurston’s remarkable bibliography.
Amistad
2. Becoming by Michelle Obama
Sure, the very nature of this enormously successful memoir is history-making — it’s the first-ever written by a black First Lady — but Be