BHM: Favorite Books By Black Authors

Happy Black History Month! Celebrating Black authors during Black History Month is important because it helps recognize the immense contributions that writers of color have made to literature and society. It is also a way to recognize and honor the stories of African Americans and other people of color that have been historically overlooked and underrepresented in the literary canon. By celebrating Black authors, we are shedding light on the unique perspectives and life experiences of Black people and showing how their stories can be inspirational, educational, and empowering. Black authors are essential to the literary world, and they help create a more diverse and inclusive narrative. For Black History Month, consider reading some of my favorite books by these amazing black authors that are listed below.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neal Hurston

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

Flyy Girl

Omar Tyree

The bestselling urban classic novel about a young woman coming of age in the late 1980s. Tracy Ellison, a young knockout with tall hair and attitude, is living life as fast as she can. Motivated by the material world, she and her friends love and leave the young men who will do anything to get next to them. It's only when the world of gratuitous sex threatens heartbreak that Tracy begins to examine her life, her goals, and her sexuality.

The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove, a black girl in America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful so that people will look at her so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy fulfillment.

The Coldest Winter Ever

Sister Souljah

Renowned hip-hop artist, political activist, and bestselling author of Life After Death brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable first novel. I came busting into the world during one of New York's worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn't want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top.

Addicted

Zane

The New York Times bestseller. For successful businesswoman Zoe Reynard, finding the pleasure she wants, the way she wants it is not worth the risk of losing everything she has. But Zoe feels helpless in the grip of an overpowering addiction to sex. After finding a compassionate therapist to help her, Zoe finally summons the courage to tell her torrid story, a tale of guilt and desire as shocking as it is compelling. From the sensitive artist with whom she spends stolen hours on rumpled sheets, to the rough and violent man who leads her toward destruction, Zoe is desperately searching for fulfillment—and, perhaps, something darker and deeper.

The Cartel Series

Ashley & Jaquavis

The port of Miami brings in millions of dollars' worth of cocaine every year, and the Cartel controls eighty percent of it. The Diamond family is a force to be reckoned with, but all hell breaks loose when they lose their leader. The most ruthless gangster Miami has ever seen, Carter Diamond leaves behind a wife, twin sons, a daughter, and a secret illegitimate son, Carter Jones. When young Carter learns of his father's death, he comes to town and is introduced to the legacy of the Cartel.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

Honey & Spice

Bolu Babalola

Named Best Book of the year!

Internationally bestselling author Bolu Babalola’s dazzling debut novel, full of passion, humor, and heart, centers on a young Black British woman who has no interest in love and unexpectedly finds herself caught up in a fake relationship with the man she warned her girls about. A gloriously funny and sparkling debut novel, Honey and Spice is full of delicious tension and romantic intrigue that will make you weak at the knees.