Ta-Nehisi Coates' writing on American civil liberties exploded into the mainstream last year when "Between the World and Me" became a No. 1 bestseller and National Book Award winner.
In this book, Coates explores what it means to be an African-American man at this time in history, written as part memoir and part journalistic report, all framed as a letter to his young son.
The book is striking for both its commentary on American life as well as its meditation on what it takes to grow from a boy into a man.