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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Company Reads

Unique perspectives help expand minds and spur conversations.

From an unjust legal system to the nation’s complex racial history, these programs tackle challenging issues and prompt important conversations. Find out how a Company Reads program can complement your organization’s values and spark valuable insights from your team.

Building an Antiracist World

National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Dr. Ibram X. Kendi powerfully explores the racist ideas underpinning America and offers a compelling pathway toward a more just society.
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“Ibram Kendi uses his own life journey to show us why becoming an antiracist is as essential as it is difficult. This book is honest, brave, and most of all liberating.”
James Forman, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Locking Up Our Own
“Kendi is ready to spread his message, his stories serving as a springboard for potent explorations of race, gender, colorism, and more.”
Library Journal
“Ibram Kendi is today’s visionary in the enduring struggle for racial justice….[offering] us a necessary and critical way forward.”
Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility
“Ibram Kendi’s work is vital in today’s sociopolitical climate. As a society, we need to start treating antiracism as action, not emotion—and Kendi is helping us do that.”
Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race
“[Kendi] gives us a clear and compelling way to approach... 'the basic struggle we're all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.'”
Ericka Taylor, DC Working Families Organizing Director

Overcoming Unconscious Bias

Award-winning social psychologist Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt reveals how racial bias shapes our world, and how we can uncover and address our hidden prejudices.
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“[Dr. Eberhardt] makes a significant contribution to our thinking about the role of bias in both our institutions and our perceptions.”
Deb Bubb, Vice President, Human Resources, IBM Chief Leadership and Learning Officer
“There was not a field of social psychology and criminal justice, and then there was Jennifer Eberhardt.”
Phillip Goff, Co-founder and President, Center for Policing Equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice
“…We could not ask for a better guide to understand this reality than Jennifer Eberhardt.”
Kamala D. Harris, United States Senator from California
“This is not someone who is just doing work in the ivory tower of a university. This is someone who is really out in the trenches working with police departments.”
Chris Magnus, Chief of Police, Tucson, Arizona
“Jennifer Eberhardt…offers a powerful exploration of how racial bias seeps into our classrooms, college campuses, police departments, and businesses.”
Bruce Western, author of Punishment and Inequality in America

Unraveling Identity and Ambition

Brit Bennett discusses her vibrant, New York Times-bestselling books, The Mothers and The Vanishing Half, and offers valuable thoughts on the intertwining ideas of community, identity, race, and systemic injustice.
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Boy Erased

Acclaimed memoirist Garrard Conley explores self-expression, identity, radical compassion, and LGBTQAI+ issues.
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The Past as a Lens for the Present

Colson Whitehead explores America’s fraught racial history through his acclaimed novel The Underground Railroad.
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“[Colson Whitehead is] a rare and talented speaker who deeply engages his audience, dares them to face harsh realities, and then turns on a dime charming them.”
Friends of the Hennepin County Library
“I was especially impressed with how well he engaged a multi-generational audience....Colson’s generosity was quite remarkable for one of his stature.”
Hamilton College
“Colson delivered a masterful performance...so funny and insightful that he may have convinced a few staid businessmen to give up their careers to join him as a writing disciple.”
New Orleans Public Library
“After turning the final page, I knew immediately I'd read something that would never leave me…I couldn’t wait to sit down with the author.”
Oprah Winfrey
“Given the disturbing, often grim content of his book, I think it was a welcome surprise to people that he used humor to lead into the evening.”
Butler University

Embracing Neurodiversity

Steve Silberman upends conventional thinking about autism, and puts forward a broader model for acceptance and understanding.
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Voices from an Unseen America

Cristina Henríquez’s novels use powerful stories from immigrants to examine concepts of identity and belonging.
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“Henríquez offers up stories we need to hear and lets us sit with her characters in communion and even friendship.”
The Christian Science Monitor
“Cristina’s visit was a smash hit. The book was warmly received; she made everyone comfortable and was exceedingly charming and warm.”
Gettysburg College
“[Henríquez’s] stories illuminate the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration.”
The New York Times Book Review
“She had the audience of students, faculty, and community members rapt and after, she led one of the best Q & A sessions I’ve ever attended.”
Roxane Gay, Associate Professor, Purdue University
“[Cristina Henríquez] was funny, engaging, smart, inclusive—the kind of author that can speak articulately about her own work while actually answering the questions.”
Texas Book Festival

Leading the Change

As CEO and co-founder of Jopwell, the leading career advancement platform for professionals of color, Porter Braswell advises America’s top companies on how to achieve a more representative workplace.
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Ideas
Explore more themes to get your company thinking, talking & doing.

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Balance

Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel

Reimagining the Office

Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel on the role of the office in the future of work.

Eve Rodsky

Fair Play

Eve Rodsky shares how strategies for domestic balance can translate into a more equitable, welcoming, workplace environment.

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Interested in learning more about bringing a diversity, equity, and inclusion Company Read to your organization?

Contact us for information about how the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau can work with you to design a program that supports your team’s mission.

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