Anti-racist books top Amazon’s best sellers list amid George Floyd protests

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Anti-racist books have risen to the top of Amazon’s best sellers list as protests continue across the US in reaction the death of George Floyd.

As of Thursday afternoon, eight out of the top 10 books on the list addressed the topics of racism, race relations, and racial history.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo was number one across all book categories.

It was followed by Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race.

In third position came the Sesame Street children’s book We’re Different, We’re the Same by Bobbi Kates, which aims to teach young readers about diversity.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi was in fourth position, followed by Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.

Another book by Kendi, the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction winner Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, came seventh.

It was followed by Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

An upcoming picture book, also by Kendi and titled Antiracist Baby, which aims to empower children and parents to combat racism, rounded out the top 10. It will be published on 16 June by Kokila, a Penguin imprint.

The two books in the top 10 that do not focus on race and racism are Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as well as Delia Owens's novel Where the Crawdads Sing.