Black authors are soaring higher than ever this season with creative concepts and new ‘Bookstagram’ friendly formats ready to feed our fast-paced lifestyles.
Merging audio content, striking images, and unique storytelling devices, they are taking readers through the joys and missteps of rural Black fatherhood, inside the public courtrooms and secluded chambers of our troubled judiciary system, to the front pew of the churches upheld by the devotion (and at times degradation) of pious Black women, and introducing them to the spicy secrets of Ghanaian kitchens.
Jasmine Guillory is serving the ultimate bedtime stories with the help of our homegirl Keke Palmer. Nikole Hannah-Jones is working with Jasmine Mans to share a broader origin story and book festivals hosted by Literary Arts and Well Read Black Girl in places like Portland and Queens are giving readers a chance to connect with one another and the pen-pushers who keep them informed and entertained through their work.
This season’s literary offerings also include pensive memoirs that revisit sets of hit 90s sitcoms, the back of rowdy 2000s tour buses, reality show reunion couch seating arrangements, and star rosters of sport dynasties to share the true stories behind the relationship goals and career highlights memes have exalted. Black celebrities are setting the record straight about what they expected from the spotlight and revealing their perspectives on some of the most long standing feuds in pop culture.
Black essayists and cultural critics are using their voices to contribute to landscape shifting anthologies. They are also speaking out about the need for intersection in the approach to the climate crisis, the regional intricacies associated with food desserts, and the stress associated with being trapped in lightless cubicles and living within a system with health guidelines that do not include or prioritize Blackness.
See 19 of the best new winter reads we are curling up with this season below.
01
Will Smith – Will Smith, Mark Manson
The star proves to be just as transparent as his wife in this remarkably detailed memoir.
Penguin Random House
02
Call Us What We Carry Poems – Amanda Gorman
The poet laureate infuses hope into a “shipwrecked,” moment.
Penguin Random House
03
Sankofa – Chibundu Onuzo
A woman’s journey of self-discovery is pushed off course when she finds a letter her mother left behind with clues about her family history.
Catapult
04
Getting Something to Eat in Jackson – Professor Joseph Ewoodzie
This text is a well sourced examination of how race and class intersection with the diet of American Southerners.
05
Right Within How to Heal from Racial Trauma in the Workplace – Minda Harts
Vanessa Nakate stresses the urgent need to decolonize the narrative surrounding climate change through her personal stories.
Seal Press
06
A Bigger Picture: My Fight To Bring A New African Voice To The Climate Crisis
Vanessa Nakate stresses the urgent need to decolonize the narrative surrounding climate change through her personal stories.
HMH Books
07
Filthy Animals – Brandon Taylor
Taylor’s follow up to ‘Real Life’ includes a set of powerful short stories.
Penguin Random House
08
Belly Of The Beast The Politics Of Anti-Fatness As Anti-Blackness – Da’shaun L. Harrison
Harrison takes the platitudes tossed at fat people to task.
Penguin Random House
09
Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed – Saraciea J. Fennell
This anthology features spirited essays from across the Latinx diaspora.
McMillian
10
Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen – Zoe Adjonyoh
Adjonyoh celebrates the march into an African food revolution with easy to follow recipes.
Little, Brown and Company
11
Red Lip Theology For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing To The Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough – Candice Marie Benbow
Benbow speaks for those who jotted down Ciara’s prayer and still have a few questions after Sunday service.
Penguin Random House
12
The Last Enforcer Outrageous Stories From the Life and Times of One of the NBA’s Fiercest Competitors – Charles Oakley
Oakley takes readers through his illustrious NBA career.
Penguin Random House
13
You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays – Zora Neale Hurston, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Genevieve West
This collection spans three decades of the legend’s work.
Harper Collins
14
The Pursuit of Porsha How I Grew Into My Power and Purpose – Porsha Williams, Joi-Marie McKenzie
The former peach holder provides a closer look at her personal and professional lives beyond the Bravoverse.
Worthy Publishing
15
Her Honor My Life on the Bench…What Works, What’s Broken, and How to Change It Author- LaDoris Hazzard Cordell
Hear a critique of our country’s justice system straight from the bench.
Macmillan
16
Letters To The Sons Of Society – Shaka Senghor (1/18)
The best-selling author writes moving letters to his children.
Convergent Publishing
17
What The Fireflies Knew – Kai Harris (2/1)
A pair of Detroit children scramble to pick up the pieces at the home of their estranged grandfather after the death of their father and vanishing of their mother.
Penguin Random House
18
The Deeper The Roots A Memoir of Hope And Home – Michael Tubbs
Tubbs takes readers from his childhood in Stockton California through his political career.
Macmillan
19
Between The Lines Stories From The Underground – Uli Beutter Cohen
This anthology features work from Jamel Shabazz, Jeremy O. Harris, Roxane Gay, and Ashley C. Ford.
Simon & Schuster
TOPICS: black books Books
