Books by Black Authors

Literary Fiction

• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

• Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn

• Telephone by Percival Everett

• Swing Time by Zadie Smith

• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

• Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

• Freshwater by Akwaeke Amezi

• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

• Loving Day by Mat Johnson

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

Short Stories

• Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara

• Lot by Bryan Washington

• Whatever Happened to Interracial Love by Kathleen Collins

• The Loss of All Things by Amina Gautier

• Heads of Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

• What Is Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi

• What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

POetry

• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

• There are More Beautiful Things than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker

• Homie by Danez Smith

• The Tradition by Jericho Brown

• I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood by Tiana Clark

• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes

• Wade in the Water by Tracy K Smith

• Bestiary by Donika Kelly

• Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair

• A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib

• Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems by Lucille Clifton

• The Rest of Love by Carl Phillips

• Citizen by Claudia Rankine

• Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni

• HoodWitch by Faylita Hicks

SCience Fiction/Fantasy/Speculative Fiction

• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

• Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

• The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

• Mindscape by Andrea Hairston

• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

• Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

• A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney

• Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Mystery/Thriller

• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

• Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

• Nairobi Heat by Mükoma wa Ngũgĩ

• American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

• Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley

• A Negro and an Ofay by Danny Gardner

• Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett

• They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall

Romance

• The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

• An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole

• 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter

• Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan

• Intercepted by Alexa Martin

• Destiny’s Embrace by Beverly Jenkins

Graphic Novels

• Nat Turner by Kyle Baker

• Kindred by Octavia Butler, John Jennings, Damian Duffy, and Nnedi Okorafor

• Suri by Nnedi Okorafor and Leonardo Romero

• Black Panther: World of Wakanda by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxane Gay, Yona Harvey, Alitha Martinez, and Afua Richardson

• Incognegro by Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece

• Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds and Kadir Nelson

• Niobe by Sebastian A. Jones, Amandla Stenberg, and Ashley A. Woods

• (H)afrocentric Comics by Juliana “Jewels” Smith, Mike Hampton, Ronald Nelson, and Kiese Laymon

• Run by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, and Afua Richardson

• Jennifer’s Journal by Jennifer Crute

YA

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

• The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

• Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett

• By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

• Black Enough: Stories of Being Young and Black in America edited by Ibi Zoboi

• The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

• American Street by Ibi Zoboi

• Color Me In by Natasha Díaz

Children’s

• Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison

• Hair Love by Mathew A. Cherry, illustrated by Vashti Harrison

• Coretta Scott by Ntozake Shange, illustrated by Kadir Nelson

• The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael

  Rafael López

• Lullaby (For a Black Mother) by Langstone Gughes, illustrated by Sean Qualls

• Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Floyd Cooper

• Freedom in Congo Square by R. Gregory Christie

• Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills by Renée Watson, illustrated by Christian Robinson

• Brown Boy Joy by Sr. Thomishia Booker

• Imani’s Moon by Janay Brown-Wood, illustrated by Hazel Mitchell

• The Legendary Miss Lena Horne by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon 

• Miami Jackson Gets It Straight by Patricial and Frederick McKissack, illustrated by Chicheal Chesworth

• Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X by Ilyasah Shabazz, illustrated by AG Ford

• My Hair is a Garden by Cozbi A. Cabrera

• Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate

• Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis by Jabari Asim, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

• Rosa by Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Bryan Collier

• Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, illustrated by Floyd Cooper

• Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney

• Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney

• Something Happened in Our Town by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin

• Firebird by Misty Copeland, illustrated by Christopher Myers

• The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson 

• Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o, illustrated by Vashti Harrison

• Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged! by Jody Nyasha Warner and Richard Rudnicki

• Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Ekua Holmes

Nonfiction

• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

• Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining Relationships of African Americans in the Great Outdoors by Carolyn Finney

• The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

• All about Love by Bell Hooks

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

• A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis

• Banking on Freedom: Black Women in US Finance before the New Deal by Shennette Garrett-Scott

• Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory by Patricia Hill Collins

• Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

• The Meaning of Freedom by Angela Davis

• The Annotated African American Folktales by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Maria Tatar

• Talking Back, Talking Black: Truths and America’s Lingua Franca by John McWhorter

Memoir

• Hunger: A Memoir of My Body by Roxane Gay

• How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones

• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

• Becoming by Michelle Obama

• Negroland by Margo Jefferson

• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

• The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

• Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

• Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon

• I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

• The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

• Brother West: Living and Loving out Loud by Cornel West

• My Soul Looks Back by Jessica Harris

• Assata by Assata Shakur

• I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin

• Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes

• The Autobiography of Gucci Mane by Gucci Mane

• We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

• Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi

Biography

• This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer and the Struggle for Black Equity in the Twentieth Century by Kay Mills

• Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby

• Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings

• On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker by A’Lelia Bundles

• Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy by Annette Gordon-Reed

• For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer by Chana Lee

Essays

• Wow, No Thank You by Samatha Irby

• Womanish by Kim McLarin

• I Can’t Date Jesus by Michael Arceneaux

• You Can’t Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson

• Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

• Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers her Superpower by Brittney Cooper

• We Should All Be Feminists by Ngozi Adichie

• Brown White Black by Nishta J. Mehra

• Black Is the Body by Emily Bernard

• Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy

• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

• Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Cookbooks and Food Writing

• The Up South Cookbook by Nicole A. Tayor

• Yes Chef by Mercus Samuelsson and Veronica Chambers

• Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin

• Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain

• The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

• Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry

• Farming while Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land by Lean Penniman

• Sweet Home Café Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking by NMAAHC, Jessica B. Harris, and Albert Lukas

• High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris

• Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen by Zoe Adjonyoh

• New Orleans Cookbook by Lena Richard

• Black Girl Baking: Wholesome Recipes Inspired by Soulful Upbringing by Jerrelle Guy

• Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes frorm an Ancient City by Katie Parla and Kristina Gill

• Brown Sugar Kitchen: New-Style, Down-Home Recipes from Sweet West Oakland by Tanya Holland, Jan Newberry, and Jody Horton

• New World Sourdough: Artisan Techniques for Creative Homemade Fermented Breads by Bryan Ford