Books by Black Authors, You Should Add to Your Shelves.
Books have always been an anchor for me. Reading, I could picture a future where I was as happy and whole as I am, in so many ways, today.
There are so many authors who created worlds that allowed me to dream bigger and want more for myself as a young latina girl.
I want to talk about the black writers who, with their talent, created a space in the publishing world for themselves. The writers who created characters that experience the full spectrum of emotion; characters who are messy, exciting, vulnerable, and who don’t have to try to tuck parts of themselves away to be all of those things. In this list of books I hope you'll read, I have chosen authors whose work illustrates that people of color are not a monolith. We do not all love the same things, hate the same things, or write in the same genres. Each of these books showcases and examines the ways in which our history as a people is rich, fun, complicated, and worthy of the stories we are willing and eager to tell.
Enjoy everyone!
Remember that the beauty of lists like these, is that they allow you to expand your experience of black Americans through literature and non-fiction. Pick up a copy and read!
The Wedding Party, out on July 16th, follows The Wedding Date (Jan 2018) and The Proposal (Oct 2018), which were two of my favorite books of the last year. They are fun, sexy, and wonderfully written fiction to disappear into for a weekend. This one finds protagonists Theo and Maddie helping to plan their best friend’s wedding. They decide to sneak around until the wedding is over but their hearts have other plans. You can read The Wedding Party as a standalone if you want, but you’d be missing out a whole swoon-y world that Guillory has created. (Amazon)
The Come Up comes on the heels of the success of Angie Thomas' novel, The Hate You Give (which is now also a movie starring Amandla Stenberg) about a young girl who witnesses the killing of her unarmed childhood best friend at the hands of police. Out as of February 5th, The Come Up follows Bri, a 16-year-old aspiring rapper with big shoes to fill. Her father, an underground hip-hop legend, died just before he was about to take off in his career. Based on the critical acclaim around The Hate You Give, the bar for this book has been set pretty high. Who wouldn't be excited for a new story about a young black girl trying to figure out life and become someone she can be proud of? (Amazon)
Publisher’s Weekly calls Nafissa Thompson-Spires “a stunning new talent in literary fiction.” In this collection, she grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes “stuffed with invention.” When the book was first released in 2018, it hit over a dozen best seller lists including NPR and Vanity Fair. Thompson Spires' beautiful and gut-punching lines have the power to incite cultural conversations about troubling times, while leaving a reader hopeful. (Amazon)
Dr. Cottom’s eight essay collection covers beauty, money, and so much more. An assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth university, she's an intellectual powerhouse who has been championed by the likes of Oprah, Trevor Noah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Roxane Gay. The latter said this about Thick: “To say this collection is transgressive, provocative, and brilliant is simply to tell you the truth.” After the success of Lower-Ed, Dr. Cottom's book about the troubling reality of for-profit college, this work felt to me like necessary reading. (Amazon)
Be You, Be Totally Bookish.
Great article...full of awesome raeding recommendations!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic list of books. "On the Come Up" is definitely on my list.
ReplyDelete