In 2026 we are celebrating 100 years of celebrating Black history! As some inspiration for you and your club, I'm running down the books by Black authors that my personal book clubs have read so far, plus the books at the top of our to read list.
Have you read any of these titles? What other books by black authors has your book club read and enjoyed? Are you reading anything for Black History Month this year? What would you recommend to my clubs?
Consider adding one of these titles to your book club's reading list this Black History Month, or any time you're looking for your next great read!
What is Black History Month?
Black History Month originally started as Negro History Week in the United States in 1926. The timing was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and Frederick Douglass (February 14), which were already celebrated by Black communities. It was promoted by historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History). According to Daryl Michael Scott, Woodson "believed that history was made by the people, not simply or primarily by great men." As a result, he hoped to expand the celebration and study beyond the two men, instead focusing on "the countless black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization."
In the 1970s, the week was expanded to a full month of Black History in the United States, and officially recognized by President Gerald Ford in 1976, during the United States Bicentennial. Today it is still celebrated in February in the United States and Canada, and has also been celebrated in Ireland and the United Kingdom in October.
My book club's top want to read books by Black authors
Inharmonious by Tammye Huf
Some of our book club's favorite reads have been historical fiction novels that transport us to another time and place. We love when strong characters and engaging plots help us learn something new along the way. Inharmonious explores the reverberations of a Black character accidentally passing as white in the U.S. military during World War II, a subject I've never read about before (though I have long been a fan of Nella Larsen's classic novel, Passing).
Description: A compelling love story inspired by the author's own family history of the segregated South during and after World War II. Addressing the dangers of passing as white or enlisting as black in a segregated military with grace and showcasing a side of the story that is so rarely told, Inharmonious is the perfect read for fans of Kristin Hannah's The Women and Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half.
Red Clay by Charles B. Fancher
My book club loves an intergenerational family saga, so Red Clay sounds right up our alley. It chronicles the interwoven lives of an enslaved Black family and their white owners as the Civil War ends and Reconstruction begins.
Description: In 1943, when a frail old white woman shows up in Red Clay, Alabama, at the home of a Black former slave—on the morning following his funeral—his family hardly knows what to expect after she utters the words “… a lifetime ago, my family owned yours.” Adelaide Parker has a story to tell—one of ambition, betrayal, violence, and redemption—that shaped both the fate of her family and that of the late Felix H. Parker.
But there are gaps in her knowledge, and she’s come to Red Clay seeking answers from a family with whom she shares a name and a history that neither knows in full. In an epic saga that takes us from Red Clay to Paris, to the Côte d’Azur and New Orleans, human frailties are pushed to their limits as secrets are exposed and the line between good and evil becomes ever more difficult to discern. Red Clay is a tale that deftly lays bare the ugliness of slavery, the uncertainty of the final months of the Civil War, the optimism of Reconstruction, and the pain and frustration of Jim Crow.
With a vivid sense of place and a cast of memorable characters, Charles B. Fancher draws upon his own family history to weave a riveting tale of triumph over adversity, set against a backdrop of societal change and racial animus that reverberates in contemporary America. Through seasons of joy and unspeakable pain, Fancher delivers rich moments as allies become enemies, and enemies—to their great surprise—find new respect for each other.
Sellout by Paul Beatty
Next on the docket for my book club is Paul Beatty's 2015 biting racial satire, The Sellout. This is one of those books that spares nothing and no one, which means that it had plenty of haters in addition to fans. To us, it sounds like a guaranteed rollicking discussion during book club!
Description: Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
Books by Black authors that my book clubs have read
Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
There's so much to unpack in this action-filled dystopian novel that depicts a brutal world in which incarcerated prisoners fight to the death as a form of televised entertainment. The point of view shifts from different prisoner combatants to protesters against the system to prison and corporate employees. A novel that horrifies even as it entertains, Chain Gang All-Stars definitely got my book club talking.
Description: Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. Moving from the Links in the field to the protesters, to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
Jesmyn Ward is an auto-read author for me and for many members of my book club, so we chose Let Us Descend the month it came out, which is unusual for us. Unfortunately, the author's first foray into historical fiction was a like, not a love for us. While still a worthwhile read, this story of the arduous journey south by a slave sold by the white enslaver who fathered her was less compelling than Ward's earlier fiction like Sing, Unburied, Sing or Salvage the Bones. I also highly recommend her devastating and incisive memoir, Men We Reaped, which recounts the deaths of five young Black men in her life over a four-year span between 2000 and 2004.
Description: Let Us Descend describes a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
This debut collection of interconnected short stories reads almost like a novel as it follows the male members of a Jamaican-American family in Miami. Tackling weighty topics such as immigration, racism and identity, toxic masculinity, poverty and the ugly side of capitalism, and the real-life impacts of natural disasters and climate change, the stories are nonetheless heartfelt and at times humorous.
Description: In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what the younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”
Lone Women by Victor LaValle
This horror novel about a black woman in 1915 who flees California for the empty wilds of Montana with a terrible secret locked in a trunk has an incredible premise. You will feel compelled to read on to see if Adelaide can survive and figure out just what the heck is in that trunk. It's even more compelling to learn that LaValle's novel is based on his historical research into homesteading. Unfortunately, the book didn't keep up steam.
Description: Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.
The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.
Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.
Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz
Another standout debut short story collection (that also happens to be set in Florida!). These stories are wide-ranging and differ in tone yet connected in themes of family, motherhood, girlhood and human connection. My book club does not actually read a ton of short stories but likes to mix things up with them as there is often much to talk about (plus when things get busy it allows more members to participate even if they haven't finished the book!).
Description: Milk Blood Heat depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all.
Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another.
A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter--whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family's church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their father's ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
This novel was a quick and fun read, a real page turner. Despite almost reading like a beach read, it had a lot to say about race and privilege. The story revolves around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both. Not my favorite read but if you're looking for a smart but fast-paced and enjoyable novel consider picking this one up. Generated great discussion.
Description: Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
An absolutely devastating read. Whitehead (author of The Underground Railroad) is a master. Quick but impactful.
Description: When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Acevedo was raised in New York City by Dominican immigrant parents and entered her first poetry slam at the age of 14 before ultimately becoming a National Poetry Slam Champion. Her National Book Award-winning novel-in-verse draws heavily from her personal experiences and pulses with the rhythm of spoken word. Protagonist Xiomara's journey of self-discovery through poetry captures the complexity of being a young Afro-Latina in Harlem, navigating family expectations, faith, and first love.
This was a 10 star read for a good chunk of my book club but while I enjoyed the characters and the coming-of-age story I personally found it hard to get into the novel given its book-in-verse style. This is definitely one to consider listening to on audiobook!
Description: Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about.
With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can’t stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
The decision to subtitle this book "An American Memoir" rather than just "A Memoir" is an instructive one, as Laymon tells a uniquely American story. He is a masterful writer and explores the weight of heaviness in multiple senses. This was a 10-star read for me and at least one other member of my book club.
Description: In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse. In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood - and continues through 25 years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Homegoing is probably one of my favorite books of all time. It is incredible that this was a debut novel. Reads somewhat like a collection of short stories in that each chapter follows a different member of a family through generations. So you don't really return to each character beyond their chapter except somewhat in passing as you learn about their descendants.
My book club also read Gyasi's sophomore novel, Transcendent Kingdom, which is an excellent read but (I hate to say it), not quite as transcendent as Homegoing.
Description: Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
One of the joys of book club is discovering new favorite authors. My book club read Americanah, Adichie's third and most well-known novel (it won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2013), and then went on to also read her debut novel Purple Hibiscus. I read Half of a Yellow Sun and last year's long awaited Dream Count, her first novel in over 10 years, on my own, and can heartily recommend all of them. Adichie, who was born in Nigeria, explores themes of love, family and identity in her work.
Description: A modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America—and the search for what it means to call a place home. Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be Black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post–9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
James Baldwin is rightly considered one of America's preeminent writers. This 1974 love story is set in Harlem and was Baldwin's only novel narrated by a woman. It is tender, compelling, enraging in its depiction of systemic racism, and sadly still rings true today. My club also read Giovanni's Room for Pride month one year.
Description: From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions—affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.
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