Six critical reads for Black History Month

Sona Charaipotra is a New York City-based writer and editor with more than a decade’s worth of experience in print and online media. For B & N Reads she tagged "six timeless and timely must-reads" for Black History Month, including:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

In her astoundingly sharp and moving debut memoir, nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, literary hero Angelou reveals the everyday beauty and brutality of growing up black in the old school South of the 1930s and ’40s—the aggressions and transgressions that shattered her young spirit, and the shelters of faith and community and literature that helped put her back together, bit by bit. Angelou’s rhythmic, nuanced storytelling feels like a throwback, but it’s still relevant today. A seminal work of American literature.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue