Thank you ALL for your amazing recommendations of books by African American authors. I have a lot of reading to do, and I’m really looking forward to it.
Several people have asked to see the list that I’ve put together from your suggestions, so I’m posting it here. I will update it as I receive and find other books to add, so bookmark this page and keep coming back to it for further reading recs. And please, comment below to add to this list. I’m eager to get and share as many titles and authors as I can.
Your Suggestions
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Cane by Jean Toomer
Kindred or anything else by Octavia Butler
Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
The Bridge Called Me Back edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua
Beautiful Also Are the Souls of my Black Sisters by Jeanne L. Noble
Sister Outsider and anything else by Audre Lorde
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Breath, Eyes, Memory or anything else by Edwidge Danticat
Sula or anything else by Toni Morrison
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
28 Days by Charles R. Smith and Shane W. Evans
Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jamey Christoph
Into the Fire: African Americans since 1970 by Robin D. G. Kelley and all the other titles in the Young Oxford History of African Americans
The Norfolk 17 by Andrew Heidelberg
The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Alex Haley
How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others In America and anything else by Kiese Layman
The Known World and anything else by Edward P. Jones
The Coming Free by David Rubel
Meredian or anything else by Alice Walker
The Man Who Cried I Am or anything else by John A. Williams
Gifted Hands by Ben Carson
Partners of the Heart by Vivien Thomas
Giovanni’s Room and anything else by James Baldwin
salt or anything else by Nayyirah Waheed
All About Love or anything else by bell hooks
The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Gem of the Ocean and the other plays in The Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson
The Ways of White Folks: Stories or anything else by Langston Hughes
Erasure by Percival Everett
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans
The Living Blood and anything else by Tananarive Due
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith
Elsewhere, California by Dana Johnson
Remedy for a Broken Angel by Toni Ann Johnson
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z. Z. Packer
River, Cross My Heart and anything else by Breena Clarke
The Days of Good Looks and anything else by Cheryl Clark
A Lesson Before Dying and anything else by Earnest Gaines
Hurdy Gurdy by Tim Seibles
Salvage the Bones or anything else by Jesmyn Ward
Loving Day or anything else by Mat Johnson
Big Machine by Victor LaValle
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
Americanah by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie
Song Yet Sung by James McBride
Futureland by Walter Mosley
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
When I Was The Greatest by Jason Reynolds
Love Is The Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
Proud Shoes by Pauli Murray
Having Our Say by Sarah L. and A. Elizabeth Delaney
Head Off and Split by Nikky Finney
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Norton Anthology of African American Literature edited by Henry Louis Gates
Complete Writings of Phyllis Wheatley
Directed by Desire by June Jordan
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Visitation of Spirits by Randall Keenan
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Passing by Nella Larson
Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Case for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Frances Berry
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fire Shut Up in my Bones by Charles Blow
Book of Hours by Kevin Young
Mercurochrome by Wanda Coleman
I’m getting more recommendations all the time, so I’ll be updating each day. I really do hope you’ll read some of these and let me know what you think. And if you’re interested in what I learn from each of these books (or just want to keep me accountable to read them all), feel free to follow me on Goodreads, or send me a request there, and I’ll accept it asap.
Thank you all again for the great recommendations. My prayer is that my heart will be changed, my words made more honest, and my actions more vigorous as I learn and, I expect, weep.
Note – the links above are affiliate links for Amazon. PLEASE buy your books where you wish, especially if you can get them locally or from an independent bookstore. I include these links simply because I believe in supporting writers in as many ways as I can, and these links make it easier for y’all to get copies of these titles if you want them.