This is Michael Maxwell with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I am recommending a title from the 2025 Adult Summer Reading list called Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen, an author many of you may know from their work on Emmy and Peabody-award winning shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and HBO’s We’re Here- or, more recently, on Netflix’s The Traitors.
Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert tells you exactly what the story’s about with its title. Harriet Tubman and many other historical figures are all alive again, and, delightfully, readers are not told why this is the case as it appears to be a mystery to everyone. The Harriet Tubman and her posse would like to continue spreading their message of freedom to a new audience, and Harriet has decided recording a hip-hop album is the way she’d like to do it. Music producer Darnell Williams is given the honor of helping her with this project, and it soon becomes clear that they’ve been brought together for reasons beyond just creating the best rap album by anyone born in the 19th Century.
Bob writes this novel with such precision that it executes its high-concept idea flawlessly and in a way that is both page-turning and literary. Bob takes a premise that could’ve been sprawling and unwieldy in the hands of a lesser writer and produces airtight work reminiscent of Percival Everett’s National Book Award-winning 2024 novel James in the way it grapples with unpleasant aspects of American history using powerful wit.
Check out Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen and other books from the 2025 Adult Summer Reading list at the Sioux City Public Library today!
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