Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Books in Order
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has written 18 books, published between 1983 and 2025. The first book is Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1983) and the newest is We All Want to Change the World: My Journey Through Social Justice Movements from the 1960s to Today (2025). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 18
- Published
- 1983–2025
- Pages on record
- 4,072 in 15 of 18 books
- Reading time
- 68–102 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 4,072 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 15 of 18 titles with a page count on record.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. in 1947, played 20 seasons as a center in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers and won a record six Most Valuable Player awards. The writing runs to 18 catalogued books, from Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1983) to We All Want to Change the World (2025). History and biography fill most of them: Black Profiles in Courage (1996), Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion (2004), On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance (2007) and What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors (2012). Mycroft Holmes (2015) opens a fiction series with Sherlock Holmes among its subject headings, and the Streetball Crew books, among them Sasquatch in the Paint (2013) and Stealing the Game (2015), are fiction as well.
How many Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books are there?
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has 18 books, released between 1983 and 2025. They include 2 series and 13 titles listed outside any series.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 18 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 1Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar1983 · 324 pages · confirmed 2/419833242/4
- 2Black Profiles in Courage1996 · 261 pages · confirmed 2/419962612/4
- 3A Season on the Reservation: My Soujourn With the White Mountain Apaches2000 · 209 pages · confirmed 2/420002092/4
- 4Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story of the 761St Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes2004 · 302 pages · confirmed 2/420043022/4
- 5On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance2007 · 288 pages · confirmed 2/420072882/4
- 6What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors2012 · 96 pages · confirmed 2/42012962/4
- 720132652/4
- 820153362/4
- 920153042/4
- 10Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White2016 · 245 pages · confirmed 2/420162452/4
- 11Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court2017 · 290 pages · confirmed 2/420172902/4
- 12Kareem2017 · confirmed 2/42017–2/4
- 13Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court2017 · 304 pages · confirmed 2/420173042/4
- 1420184162/4
- 152019–2/4
- 16Black Cop's Kid: An Essay2021 · confirmed 2/42021–2/4
- 17Champion2025 · 128 pages · confirmed 2/420251282/4
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.
Mycroft in order
3 booksStreetball Crew in order
2 booksStandalone books
13 books13 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar titles here are not listed as part of any series.
Do you have to read Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books in order?
You only need to read Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books in order within each series: the books listed here span 2 separate series, and each series has its own publication order.
Where to start with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Start with Giant Steps: The Autobiography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1983), the earliest published title.
What is the newest Kareem Abdul-Jabbar book?
We All Want to Change the World: My Journey Through Social Justice Movements from the 1960s to Today (2025) is the newest Kareem Abdul-Jabbar book released so far.
Is there a new Kareem Abdul-Jabbar book coming?
No next Kareem Abdul-Jabbar book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at a glance
- Still publishing
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar published a book as recently as 2025.
- Release pace
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books have appeared about one every 3 years on average.
- Length
- 4,072 pages across the 15 of 18 books with a recorded length, a median of 290 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books, 10 of 18, were published in the 2010s.
What the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books are about
14 of the 18 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: african americans is tagged on 4 of 14. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- African Americans 4 of 14 books
- Basketball 4 of 14 books
- Biography 3 of 14 books
- Abdul-jabbar, kareem, 1947- 2 of 14 books
- African American basketball players 2 of 14 books
- African americans, biography 2 of 14 books
- American literature 2 of 14 books
- Basketball players 2 of 14 books
- History 2 of 14 books
- Holmes, sherlock (fictitious character) 2 of 14 books
- Middle schools 2 of 14 books
- Mystery & detective 2 of 14 books