Off the Beaten Shelf

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A Black History Month Reading List

It's February, which means it's Black History Month! And that means I'm sharing my favorite books by Black authors. I hope you'll enjoy these as much as I did. 

Fiction

  • The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (science fiction)
  • No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts (literary fiction)
  • Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue (literary fiction)
  • Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins (short stories)
  • Kindred by Octavia Butler (science fiction)
  • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (young adult)
  • Swing Time by Zadie Smith (literary fiction)
  • Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (young adult; memoir)
  • The Mothers by Brit Bennett (literary fiction and one of my favorite books of all time)
  • Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson (satire; tragicomedy)
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (literary fiction and also one of my favorite books EVER)
  • Jazz by Toni Morrison (literary fiction)
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (literary fiction; classics)
  • Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique (literary fiction; also one of my favorite recent books)
  • Home by Toni Morrison (literary fiction)
  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (literary fiction) 
  • The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley (contemporary fiction)
  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (literary fiction; classics)
  • Zone One by Colson Whitehead (science fiction)
  • A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines (literary fiction)
  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (literary fiction; classics)

Poetry

  • There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
  • Magic City Gospel by Ashley M. Jones
  • Citizen by Claudia Rankine
  • Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire

Nonfiction

  • They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib (essays on music, race, class, and culture)
  • Astrophysics for People In a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (trigger warning: rape, disordered eating)
  • Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward (anthology)
  • I'm Judging You: The Do Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi (humorous essays on life advice, social justice, and self-help)
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  • We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Putting this list together made me realize my poetry section is a little scarce, so please recommend Black poets to me and let me know your favorite Black authors in the comments below. 

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