Here’s What to Read If… You are Celebrating Black History Month!
Source: Penguin Random House
Here are my favorite books that either are written by Black authors or that celebrate the Black community. February is Black History Month and we should take this as an opportunity to amplify Black voices. I am always listening and learning, so I invite feedback on the book choices and my narrative.
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Genre: Historical Fiction
High Level: The incredible story of highly intelligent Belle de la Costa Greene, JP Morgan’s librarian, who we now know was Black, but passing as White all her life. It is a book club favorite!
Rating: 9/10
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Genre: Historical Fiction
High Level: Black twin girls born in the Deep South in the 1940s. Both light skinned, their lives diverge as one goes on to pass as White, gets married, and has a daughter. The other marries a Black man and has a dark skinned daughter. Their daughters paths eventually cross in California.
Rating: 7/10
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Genre: Historical Fiction
High Level: Based on the historic Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and was revealed as abusive.
Rating: 9/10
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Genre: Fiction
High Level: This novel is about the lives of a middle-class Black couple who live in Atlanta, Georgia. Their lives are torn apart when Roy, the husband, is wrongfully convicted of a rape.
Rating: 8/10
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre: Literary Fiction
High Level: Two Nigerian refugees in love embark on lives far away from home. Ifemelu goes to America while her love Obinze is trapped as an undocumented person in London. It is about loss, home, and homecoming.
Rating: 8/10
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Genre: Historical Fiction
High Level: Cora is a slave on a plantation in the south in the 1800s who tries to escape via the famed Underground Railroad. Whitehead turns the metaphorical railroad into a real railroad bringing enslaved peoples to freedom up north. It is a story of adventure while exploring humanity and historical truths.
Rating: 10/10
