2024 Adult Black History Month (DEI) Booklist

February display

Showing 1 - 20 of 53  There are a total of 94 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "All the sinners bleed"
Star rating for All the sinners bleed
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and cornbread, fist fights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires him to run for sheriff. He wins, and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county. Then a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus's deputies. Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever...
Book cover for "The awkward black man"
Star rating for The awkward black man
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories--heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals. In "The Good News Is," a man's insecurity about his weight gives way to a serious illness and the intense loneliness that...
Book cover for "Becoming"
Star rating for Becoming
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
In her memoir Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. She describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms....
Book cover for "Beloved"
Star rating for Beloved
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
Toni Morrison's fifth novel, which earned her the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The novel traces the journey of Sethe from slavery to freedom during and immediately following the Civil War. Woven into this narrative are the horrible truths of Sethe's past: the cruelties she endured as a slave, and the hardships she suffered in her journey north to freedom
Book cover for "Black Buck"
Star rating for Black Buck
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"A young black man accidentally impresses a CEO while serving his Starbucks order, catapulting him into the opportunity of a lifetime--a shot at stardom as the lone black salesman at an eccentric, mysterious, and wildly successful startup where, he will soon learn, nothing is as it seems"--
Book cover for "Black leopard, red wolf"
Star rating for Black leopard, red wolf
Average Rating:
2.4 stars
Description:
"Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy. The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows...
Book cover for "Caul baby"
Star rating for Caul baby
Description:
An ambitious college student gives birth to a baby girl destined to be raised by an important Harlem family, who believe the infant will restore their prosperity.
Book cover for "The city we became"
Star rating for The city we became
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"Five New Yorkers must come together in order to save their city from destruction. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She's got six. When a young man crosses the bridge into New York City, something changes. He doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can feel the pulse of the city, can see its history, can access its magic. And he's...
Book cover for "The Compton cowboys"
Star rating for The Compton cowboys
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
In Compton, California, ten black riders on horseback cut an unusual profile, their cowboy hats tilted against the hot Los Angeles sun. They are the Compton Cowboys, their small ranch one of the very last in a formerly semirural area of the city that has been home to African-American horse riders for decades. To most people, Compton is known only as the home of rap greats NWA and Kendrick Lamar, hyped in the media for its seemingly intractable gang...
Book cover for "The conjure-man dies"
Star rating for The conjure-man dies
Description:
An African king with a degree from Harvard who set himself up as a "conjure-man", a fortune teller, is murdered in 1930s Harlem. This is the first known mystery novel written by an African American. Also includes the short story "John Archer's Nose."
Book cover for "The cooking gene"
Star rating for The cooking gene
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"First Amistad hardcover published 2017" "A memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces the paths of the author's ancestors (black and white) through the crucible of slavery to show its effects on our food today"--
Book cover for "Crook manifesto"
Star rating for Crook manifesto
Description:
It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence, Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him until he needs...
Book cover for "The dead are arising"
Star rating for The dead are arising
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
An epic biography of Malcolm X finally emerges, drawing on hundreds of hours of the author's interviews, rewriting much of the known narrative. Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X-all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI...
Book cover for "Did you hear about Kitty Karr?"
Star rating for Did you hear about Kitty Karr?
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"When white silver screen icon Kitty Karr Tate dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the three Black St. John sisters, it prompts questions. A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty's affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty's journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could-and between a cheating fiancé and fallout from a controversial...
Book cover for "Dreams from my father"
Star rating for Dreams from my father
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS
In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama “guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race” (The Washington Post Book World).

 
“Quite extraordinary.”—Toni Morrison 
 
In...
Book cover for "Drunk on love"
Star rating for Drunk on love
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke: sexy, charming, and best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a stranger. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and Margot is delighted that she lucked into the perfect one-night stand she'll never have to see again. That is, until the winery's newest hire, Luke, walks in the next morning. Margot is determined to keep things purely professional,...
Book cover for "Everywhere you don't belong"
Star rating for Everywhere you don't belong
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Raised by a civil-rights activist grandmother on the South Side of Chicago, Claude McKay Love searches for a sense of belonging before a riot compels his departure for college, where he discovers he cannot escape his past.
Book cover for "Extraordinary, ordinary people"
Star rating for Extraordinary, ordinary people
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:

This is the story of Condoleezza Rice that has never been told, not that of an ultra-accomplished world leader, but of a little girl—and a young woman—trying to find her place in a sometimes hostile world, of two exceptional parents, and an extended family and community that made all the difference.

Condoleezza Rice has excelled as a diplomat, political scientist, and concert pianist. Her achievements run the gamut from helping

...
Book cover for "Frederick Douglass"
Star rating for Frederick Douglass
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era. As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major...
Book cover for "Friday black"
Star rating for Friday black
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"An unbelievable debut, one that announces a new and necessary American voice."—New York Times Book Review

The acclaimed debut collection from the author of Chain Gang All Stars; a piercingly raw and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it's like to be young and Black in America.

From the start of this extraordinary debut, Nana Kwame

...