Black History Month is upon us yet again, and as an avid reader, I’m thinking about books by Black authors that I’d love to revisit in celebration. While I love a good book club read, I know there are so many books by Black authors — both past and present — that deserve our collective attention. If you’re in the mood to read touching tales that feature romance, historical events, and family bonds, you’ll love these 30 books by Black authors!
Fiction Books By Black Authors
The Color Purpleby Alice Walker
The Color Purple is a novel with a story that’s full of loss, grief, and finding one’s identity. It centers around Celie, a young Black woman who’s separated from her sister and forced to marry a man twice her age. She silences herself throughout the duration of their marriage, but eventually finds her voice and worth after their arrival of the disruptive, yet well-meaning Shug enters their lives. From there, Celie and others go on a journey that changes the way they see themselves during a time where Black people were still faced with segregation, racism, and sexism.
Black Girls Must Die Exhaustedby Jayne Allen
Tabitha Walker has checked everything off her personal and professional goals list — something she feels proud of. However, she’s forced to reckon with her life after a medical diagnosis threatens her chance to give birth. Enlisting the support of those she loves dearly, Tabitha does everything she can to reverse this. But, her relentless pursuit comes at the price of allowing herself to rest.
Waiting To Exhaleby Terry McMillan
Waiting To Exhale follows four friends as they navigate the ups and downs of their love lives. Savannah, Gloria, Bernadine, and Robin each face unique situations involving men, and this threatens the consistency they crave in life. However, their friendship and revelations about themselves help them come to terms with how they truly want to live.
The Vanishing Halfby Brit Bennett
Although they’re identical, a set of twin sisters are leading different lives. While one sister escaped their southern town to start a new life, one of them stayed behind where she raises her young child. However, the sister who’s living a new life has yet to disclose her past and ethnicity to her husband. Despite the sisters’ separation, the lives of their daughters connect and thus begins the healing of a new generation.
The Sweetness of Waterby Nathan Harris
When brothers Landry and Prentiss make their way back to the plantation they were freed from, they soon come face-to-face with the man who used to be in charge, George Walker. However, George’s mind and emotions are too preoccupied with the death of his son to harbor ill feelings towards them.
Still, an uneasy alliance is formed that’s met with vitriol from those who are unable to let go of how things used to be during slavery. It’s a novel that teeters between redemption and a stubborn desire to keep things the same.
Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigoby Ntozake Shange
This book was gifted to me by my older sister shortly after I graduated high school and always reads like it was her way of helping guide me into womanhood. Aptly named after three sisters, Sassafrass, Cypress. and Indigo introduces readers to the magical ways siblings navigate their lives. Sassafrass uses her words and hands to make sense of the world around her while the middle sister, Indigo, uses her limbs to waft through an everchanging world. The youngest sister, Indigo, proudly embraces her southern roots and uses her gift of sight to see beyond the physical realm.
It’s a beautiful novel that aims to show us how we’re all gifted in some way.
The Women of Brewster Placeby Gloria Naylor
I had the pleasure of viewing the film adaptation of The Women of Brewster Place with my mom when I was younger and the seven women it revolves around still occupy my subconscious. Although they have different backgrounds, the central characters’ lives are intertwined as they inhabit Brewster Place. What’s meant to be a safe haven becomes filled with the struggles of each women as they work to understand love, loss, and identity in this moving novel.
Let The Circle Be Unbrokenby Mildred D. Taylor
Let The Circle Be Unbroken is more for younger children, but it’s message is still powerful enough to tug at the heartstrings of adults. It revolves around the Logan family as they deal with bitterness from those who don’t care to see a black family own their land instead of relying on sharecropping, growing children, and a family member whose mother wants her to live life as a white woman.
Hidden Figuresby Margot Lee Shetterly
Hidden Figures is a true story that details the way Black women helped spearhead some of NASA’s most pivotal moments in history. It was because of their level of genius that men were able to safely go on space expeditions and make it back to Earth in one piece. However, these women still bore the brunt of segregation despite their intelligence and it sometimes threatened to overshadow what they were capable of bringing to the table.
Nevertheless, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden managed to move mountains at work and in space.
Black Cakeby Charmaine Wilkerson
What would you do if you learned about the hidden past of one of your parents? In Black Cake, estranged siblings Byron and Benny take it upon themselves to truly understand who their mother is after she dies. They learn to set aside their differences as they realize why their mother kept secrets and eventually forge an impenetrable bond.
When We Were Birdsby Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Yejide is tasked with the magical gift that the women in her family have, but she’d rather ignore the very thing that caused her dying mother to be distant. In her mind, nothing is worth becoming a negative person. On the other hand, Darwin respects tradition right up until his job requires him to ignore it. He also sheds his identity and begins building a new life for himself. Somewhere along the lines of shedding tradition is when these two souls meet and it’s clear that the dead knows something they don’t.
The Late Americansby Brandon Taylor
Iowa City is home to those who love and agitate each other in The Late Americans. Seamus, Ivan, Fatima, and Noah are at different stages of life, but they’re all surrounded by the same environment that threatens to rock their worlds. They decide to get away from it all by taking a trip that leaves them changed in one way or another. Somehow love, hurts, and lust manage to find them even as they’re looking for something different.
Memphisby Tara M. Stringfellow
Violence found ways to harm Joan’s family from her father’s unstable temperament to her grandfather’s unfair murder. To escape its stifling nature, Joan becomes a talented artist who comes to term with the ways certain things are ingrained in her. Memphis does an excellent job of showing that younger generations often carry the hopes and dreams of those who have come before us while facing whatever our time period has for us.
Perishby Latoya Watkins
Helen Jean is haunted by hearing the words “Bear it or perish yourself,” during one life-altering night and, once again, we’re shown how much the younger generation is affected by what happened to the their ancestors. From Julie B. to Jan, everyone is afflicted with something from the past, things reach a head when hidden secrets threaten to bubble to the surface.
The Office of Historical Correctionsby Danielle Evans
The Office of Historical Corrections is smartly written by Danielle Evans and explores how people interact with each other. With Black and multiracial characters at the heart of the book, Evans dives into topics about love, grief, and history in a way that’ll make readers think.
What The Fireflies Knewby Kai Harris
What The Fireflies Knew is about young KB’s journey as a young Black girl in Detroit. Shaken by the finality of her dad’s drug addiction, KB and her sister Nia find themselves living with their grandfather in Michigan. Everyone around KB is hiding something from her and she navigates all of this with the shaky unease of someone who’s still trying to figure things out.
Homebodiesby Tembe Denton-Hurst
Mickey Hayward is a writer with huge ambitions that lie beyond beauty and trendy news, but she can’t seem to reach a point where she can write things she actually cares about. Yet, she endures with the support of her partner and everything is normal until she’s promptly faced with being laid off. This inspires her to write about being a Black woman with a career in media that falls flat.
Landing back in Maryland, Mickey learns to come to terms with choices she’s made so she can decide how she really wants to live her life.
The Bluest Eyeby Toni Morrison
When a young Black girl’s desire to have certain Eurocentric features causes her to ignore her own, she spirals into a longing that threatens her self worth. Not only, but she finds more than she bargains in the midst of wanting to be beautiful in a way she feels she’s not.
Seven Days In Juneby Tia Williams
Mom-coms exist and Seven Days In June is proof of that. It’s about single mom Eva Mercy and all the ways her life changes when she encounters Shane Hall. They’re both successful writers whose paths cross at a literary event and they realize the passion of their youth hasn’t waned. Beyond that, their successful books have been love letters to each other all along.
The Other Black Girlby Zakiya Dalila Harris
Editorial Assistant Nella Rogers is biding her time at Wagner Books where she’s the only Black girl on staff. Surrounded by microaggressions and what feels like a stalled career, she trudges through her days until another Black girl is hired. She and Hazel quickly form an alliance, and things finally feel great. But, that changes when Hazel becomes the golden girl who can do no wrong and Nella is left behind.
If that wasn’t bad enough, someone begins leaving threatening notes on Nella’s desk and her mind becomes filled with paranoia. It’s clear that something sinister is lurking beneath the shiny exterior of Wagner Books and it’s up to her to find out what it is.
Self Help Books By Black Authors
Feeding The Soulby Tabitha Brown
Tabitha Brown takes readers on a journey to learn more about her past before she became social media’s ‘Auntie.’ From her days growing up in South Carolina to the viral video that changed her life decades after realizing what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, Feeding The Soul is a warm book that does what its title says.
Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing In Communityby Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, Ph.D
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, Ph.D details the healing nature of having a community of friends who feel like sisters. Despite the idea that women are catty and unable to be trusted, Bradford explains how transformative a sisterhood can be. She talks about how our ideas about other Black women may shape our interactions with them and explains how we can do better collectively.
Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationshipsby Nedra Glover Tawwab
This book has been helping me to set boundaries with my own family and it’s something I highly recommend anyone read. Sometimes we find it hard to tell our family members no because we’re not raised to think we have to protect our time, mental health, and energy from loved ones. But, it’s often necessary in order to have a fulfilled life and Drama Free outlines how we can start.
Memoirs By Black Authors
Just As I Amby Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson is a household name whose piercing work as an actress made her a quiet force to be reckoned with. In her memoir, she introduces us to her childhood and how she became the actress the world respected.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Singsby Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou’s captivating memoir details her life as a young girl raised by her grandmother and uncle in Stamps, Arkansas. It’s there she spends time with her older brother Bailey, and the two face the painful realization of their parents’ separation and being treated less than by those in a worse financial situation than them. Once Maya Angelou and Bailey find themselves living with their mom, the former faces a sexual assault that haunts her long after it happens. However, she eventually finds strength in being who she is and goes on to become the famed author, poet, and activist we know and love today.
The Mother of Black Hollywoodby Jenifer Lewis
Jenifer Lewis is another household name who’s career spans decades. Nicknamed ‘The Mother of Black Hollywood’ due to playing an electric maternal figure in movies and TV series, Jenifer shares her life’s lessons with readers in this heartwarming novel. She also details her struggle with mental health and it’s something that helped me start getting serious about my own healing journey.
Becomingby Michelle Obama
Before she was known as Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle was a young girl who lived happily with her parents and brother in a small apartment. She then went on to become a successful lawyer who carved a name for herself at the law firm she used to work at. In Becoming, she shares the moments she realized she was meant to do something great and how Barack’s presidency affected their family among other things.
Collective Books By Black Authors
Black Women Writers at WorkEdited by Claudia Tate with a Forward by Tillie Olsen
Black Women Writers at Work is full of conversations with some of the most brilliant Black authors of our time. From Alice Walker to Nikki Giovanni, these interviews are a deep dive into how one’s life can influence their meaningful work.
Which books by Black authors will you read during Black History Month?
Lead images via Amazon
