100 Amazing Books by Black Americans

To celebrate Black History Month, we decided to look at some of the best books by Black Americans. So, Keep reading to find out which 100 amazing books by Black Americans you should read!

It is impossible to deny the importance of black authors in American literature. Modern classics or ones written decades or centuries ago have shaped the literary world and have influenced thousands of authors and millions of people.

Slacker decided to compile a list of the 100 of the best books by Black Americans and we will be sharing that list here. There are a lot of novels that you have heard of and seen in bookstores. But the list also includes books that may have never made it to you. You can see the full list below1

Amazing Books by Black Americans

• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
• I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan
• It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan
• The Travelers by Regina Porter
• Lot: Stories by Bryan Washington
• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
• Sleeping with Strangers bv Eric Jerome Dickey
• Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat
• Indigo by Beverly Jenkins
• Rebel by Beverly Jenkins
• Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
• With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
• Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
• Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• In West Mills by De’Shawn Charles Winslow
• The Accidental Hunter by Nelson George
• Team Seven by Marcus Burke
• The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson
• All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu
• The Bewildered Bride. By Vanessa Riley
• The Art of Love by Suzette D. Harrison
• Love’s Serenade by Sheryl Lister
• An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
• Once Ghosted, Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole
• See Me by Michele Arris
• Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown
• Saving Savannah by Tonya Bolden
• Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
• Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi
• The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
• The Long Fall by Walter Mosley
• The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert
• Pointe by Brandy Colbert
• When You Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk
• The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
• Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen
• The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon
• The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
• Native Son by Richard Wright
• Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith
• Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa
• The Body’s Question by Tracy K. Smith
• Boy with Thorn by Rickey Laurentiis
• Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night by Morgan Parker
• There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
• I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood by Tiana Clark
• We Hope This Reaches You in Time by Samantha King Holmes, R.H. Sin
• She Just Wants to Forget by R.H. Sin
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Iola Leroy by Frances E.W. Harper
• Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
• The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
• The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• The Street by Ann Petry
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Alex Haley
• Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• The Condemnation of Blackness by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Nobody by Marc Lamont Hill
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? By Beverly Daniel Tatum
• Blackballed by Darryl Pinckney
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs=
• Ain’t I a Woman by Bell Hooks
• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
• Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
• Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
• Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
• Grand Union by Zadie Smith
• Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
• Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole
• Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
• How We Fight for Our Lives
• The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
• The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
• Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
• We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
• The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish
• Becoming by Michelle Obama

These are the 100 amazing books by Black Americans according to Slacker. The list is long and has amazing novels that will take years for readers to get through. What books have you read on this list? Let us know in the comments below!

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