Reading Authors of Color

I recently heard someone point out that given today's politics, it is a good time to make an effort to read books by authors of color. I agreed. And then I thought, but I have no idea how many authors of color I read. That's not something I've tracked.

So far in 2017 I've read 16 books but 3 are by authors of color which is pretty good: 19%. In 2016 I read 10 out of 100, or 10%. In 2015 I read 7 out of 100, or 7%. So I've been improving! I hope I can keep that improving rate going! Although when I look at what I have on tap for the year, it's not looking impressive for authors of color. I might have to make more of an effort. Luckily there are lots of lists I can work from like here and here and here.

And here's a breakdown by ethnicity below, which is interesting. I haven't read any books by East Asian authors since 2015. And I'm happily surprised at how many books I've read by authors of Middle Eastern heritage.

African-American:
2017
Elizabeth Alexander
2016
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stephen Mack Jones
Okey Ndibe
Wes Moore
Sampson Davis
2015
Misty Copeland

Middle Eastern:
2017
Rabia Chaudry
2016
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Mindy Kaling
Paul Kalanithi
2015
Atul Gawande
Sahar Delijani

Latinx:
2017
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
2016
Cristina Henriquez

Native American:
2016
Margaret Verble
2015
Sherman Alexie

East Asian:
2015
Marie Kondo
Celeste Ng
Kazuo Ishiguro