It’s been about a month since season 1 of Luke Cage was released on Netflix. So, obviously, everyone has finished it by now, right? Yes? No? Either way this post is spoiler free, unless you consider literature references spoilers.
Luke Cage makes a ton of literary references. It names titles and authors that have made their mark on African American culture, as well as simply nodding to some bestsellers and other well known works. Luke Cage is a well-read man, as are the villains in the show. It’s wonderful to see so many books and authors acknowledged on television for the effect they had on people and culture.
A Luke Cage Syllabus was created by Tara Betts over on BlackNerdProblems.com. If you get the chance to look at it, I highly recommend it. It’s well done and the length of the list is impressive. It also includes notes on when the book was referenced in the show and recommendations for further reading.
Here are a few of the titles from the #LukeCageSyllabus #Season1 that we have at the Durham Tech Library. This isn’t a comprehensive list of the books and authors we have from the list, and if you’d like to read something we don’t have we can get it for you through Interlibrary Loan.
Acres of Skin by Allen M. Hornblum
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Heat’s On by Chester Himes
