Eddo-Lodge title tops Academic Book Week poll

Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race (Bloomsbury) has topped a people's poll of the books by women that have changed the world, conducted for Academic Book Week, which runs this week (23rd-28th April).

Eddo-Lodge's 2017 hit, her debut non-fiction book, got 12% of the public vote, on a top 10 shortlist that also included classics such as Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, as well as more recent hits such as Mary Beard's Women and Power (Profile).

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race came out on top with 12% of the public vote.       

Alan Staton, head of marketing and communications at the Booksellers Association, which has co-ordinated Academic Book Week this year, commented: “The winning book couldn’t be more timely. Issues of race and class, which too many of our political leaders and commentators are wilfully or unconsciously simply not attuned to, have made their way to the top of the news agenda – often through tragic and shameful circumstances. The strength of the public reception to Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – the type of book that ignites campus debate – and the fact that it has topped this Academic Book Week poll, offers encouragement that there are large numbers of readers willing to intelligently engage with these issues.”

Journalist Eddo-Lodge commented: “What an honour! My book, less than a year old, is a baby compared to the titans and bonafide classics on this shortlist. In fact I think we need a few more years to really determine if it's really changed the world. However, I will respect this public vote. Thank you to all who voted for Why I'm.... I hope it instigates world changing passion in my readers.”