Must Reads by Black Authors

70 must reads by black authors

I haven’t read most of these books from the above linked article, but I have gotten through quite a few. The ones that I have read have been wonderful. I hope to get through some of the rest at some point soon.

Fiction

1. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

2. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

3. Beloved by Toni Morrison

4. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

5. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

6. Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

7. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

8. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

9. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

10. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

11. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

12. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

13. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

14. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

15. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

16. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

17. Swing Time by Zadie Smith

18. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

19. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

20. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

21. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

22. Real Life by Brandon Taylor

23. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

24. Lot by Bryan Washington

25. Erasure by Percival Everett

26. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

27. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

28. The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

29. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

30. Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

31. It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan

32. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

33. Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories

34. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

35. Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

36. Deacon King Kong by James McBride

37. Nudibranch by Irenosen Okojie

38. Hold by Michael Donkor

39. Bone Readers by Jacob Ross

40. Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton

41. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

42. Small Island by Andrea Levy

43. Loving Day by Mat Johnson

44. We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

45. That Reminds Me by Derek Owusu

46. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

YA

47. The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

48. Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence

49. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

50. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

51. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

52. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

53. The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney by Okechukwu Nzelu

54. Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Poetry

55. Citizen by Claudia Rankine

56. Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi

57. A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson

58. The Collected Poems by Langston Hughes

59. Surge by Jay Bernard

60. The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus

61. The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay

Nonfiction

62. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

63. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

64. Becoming by Michelle Obama

65. Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

66. How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

67. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

68. Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim

69. Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith

70. Hunger by Roxane Gay