12 Books Written By Black Women To Read In 2018
One of the best things I did for myself during my pregnancy and maternity leave was reigniting my love for reading. I spent the time alternating between my Kindle, Audible, and Netflix. I mostly read historical romance novels and young adult science fiction. I deliberately took a break from more academic reading because sometimes it stresses me out or makes me feel bad for not writing more.
I slept and worked during the flight on my way to #TheNewKia event. I’m going to relax and read a Beverly Jenkins novel on the way back. If you’re into historical fiction and romance, you should definitely check her work out. What’s the last book you read? #historicalfiction #blackwriters #travel
In 2018, I’m continuing my reading by challenging myself to read 52 books this year. I’m delving back into more academic reading but continuing my “fun” reading as well. For Women’s History Month, I wanted to share 12 books written by Black women that are on my list for 2018. Many of these are newer books that were recently published or will come out later in the year.
Presented in alphabetical order by title…
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An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
I haven’t read An American Marriage yet but it’s on my list for our summer road trip. I’ve heard great things from everyone who has read it and is described as a stirring love story that provides an intimate look “into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward–with hope and pain–into the future. It follows the lives of newlyweds torn apart by an unjust prison sentence.
Amazon Summary: Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
P.S.If you’re an Oprah fan, this book is part of her 2018 Book Club.
An Extraordinary Union (The Loyal League #1) by Alyssa Cole
Amazon Summary: Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South—to spy for the Union Army.
Malcolm McCall is a detective for Pinkerton’s Secret Service. Subterfuge is his calling, but he’s facing his deadliest mission yet—risking his life to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.
Two undercover agents who share a common cause—and an undeniable attraction—Malcolm and Elle join forces when they discover a plot that could turn the tide of the war in the Confederacy’s favor.
Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
If you’ve been following Mamademics since the early years, you know that I LOVE the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston is one of my favorite authors from that time period so I am incredibly excited about Barracoon. It won’t be released until the spring but I’m pretty sure I’ll put down every other book to get started.
Amazon Summary: In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittany Cooper
When I first saw the summary for Eloquent Rage, I knew it was going to be on my reading list for 2018. I’ve felt and expressed my anger a lot in the past but definitely a lot more since the 2016 election. If there is one thing I’m sick of people saying to me, it’s that I need to stop being so angry. Apparently, if I’m just nice racist white people will change their minds. *insert the blankest stare ever*
Amazon Summary: So what if it’s true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.
Far too often, Black women’s anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. But Cooper shows us that there is more to the story than that. Black women’s eloquent rage is what makes Serena Williams such a powerful tennis player. It’s what makes Beyoncé’s girl power anthems resonate so hard. It’s what makes Michelle Obama an icon.
Eloquent rage keeps us all honest and accountable. It reminds women that they don’t have to settle for less. When Cooper learned of her grandmother’s eloquent rage about love, sex, and marriage in an epic and hilarious front-porch confrontation, her life was changed. And it took another intervention, this time staged by one of her homegirls, to turn Brittney into the fierce feminist she is today. In Brittney Cooper’s world, neither mean girls nor fuckboys ever win. But homegirls emerge as heroes. This book argues that ultimately feminism, friendship, and faith in one’s own superpowers are all we really need to turn things right side up again.
So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Olou
Amazon Summary: In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the “N” word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don’t dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans.
Tempest by Beverly Jenkins
Amazon Summary: From USA Today Bestselling Author Beverly Jenkins comes a new novel in a mesmerizing series set in the Old West, where an arranged marriage becomes a grand passion . . .
What kind of mail-order bride greets her intended with a bullet instead of a kiss? One like Regan Carmichael—an independent spirit equally at home in denims and dresses. Shooting Dr. Colton Lee in the shoulder is an honest error, but soon Regan wonders if her entire plan to marry a man she’s never met is a mistake. Colton, who buried his heart along with his first wife, insists he only wants someone to care for his daughter. Yet Regan is drawn to the unmistakable desire in his gaze.
Regan’s far from the docile bride Colton was expecting. Still, few women would brave the wilds of Wyoming Territory for an uncertain future with a widower and his child. The thought of having a bold, forthright woman like Regan in his life—and in his arms—begins to inspire a new dream. And despite his family’s disapproval and an unseen enemy, he’ll risk all to make this match a real union of body and soul.
The Fifth Season by NK Jemision
If you didn’t know, I’m a huge fan of sci-fi/fantasy fiction and I’m always searching for books featuring people who look like me. My bestie recommended The Fifth Season and while I haven’t finished it, I’ve heard nothing but great things from others. This book is the first in Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy.
Amazon Summary: This is the way the world ends…for the last time.
A season of endings has begun.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.
It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.
It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir by Jenifer Lewis
The Mother of Black Hollywood has gotten rave reviews and is currently in my Audible library just waiting for me to take the time to listen. I’ve heard that Lewis is open and honest about her life while being her hilarious self and that is definitely the type of memoir I love.
Amazon Summary: From her more than three hundred appearances for film and television, stage and cabaret, performing comedy or drama, as an unforgettable lead or a scene stealing supporting character, Jenifer Lewis has established herself as one of the most respected, admired, talented, and versatile entertainers working today.
This “Mega Diva” and costar of the hit sitcom black-ish bares her soul in this touching and poignant—and at times side-splittingly hilarious—memoir of a Midwestern girl with a dream, whose journey took her from poverty to the big screen, and along the way earned her many accolades.
With candor and warmth, Jenifer Lewis reveals the heart of a woman who lives life to the fullest. This multitalented “force of nature” landed her first Broadway role within eleven days of her graduation from college and later earned the title “Reigning Queen of High-Camp Cabaret.”
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins
I was first introduced to Morgan’s writing when she emailed me to see if I was available to discuss my master’s thesis on Jessie Fauset for a piece she was writing in The New Yorker. It’s rare that anyone focuses on Jessie Fauset so I was immediately drawn to her. After our phone conversation, I may or may not have e-stalked her a little to find out more about her writing. I followed her on Twitter and pre-ordered her book as soon as she said the link was live. I’m a little bummed that I wasn’t able to meet her when she came to my local bookstore but postpartum life has been rough for me. This book is on my reading list for April and I’m totally looking forward to reading the work of another Black woman tackling what it means to be both Black and a woman, instead of one or the other.
Amazon Summary: Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for all Americans.
Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our country’s larger discussion about inequality. In This Will Be My Undoing, Jerkins becomes both narrator and subject to expose the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large.
Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist by Franchesca Ramsey
Amazon Summary: Franchesca Ramsey didn’t set out to be an activist. Or a comedian. Or a commentator on identity, race, and culture, really. But then her YouTube video “What White Girls Say…to Black Girls” went viral. Twelve million views viral. Faced with an avalanche of media requests, fan letters, and hate mail, she had two choices: Jump in and make her voice heard or step back and let others frame the conversation. After a crash course in social justice and more than a few foot-in-mouth moments, she realized she had a unique talent and passion for breaking down injustice in America in ways that could make people listen and engage.
In her first book, Ramsey uses her own experiences as an accidental activist to explore the many ways we communicate with each other–from the highs of bridging gaps and making connections to the many pitfalls that accompany talking about race, power, sexuality, and gender in an unpredictable public space…the internet.
When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
Amazon Summary: Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, Patrisse’s outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.
Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
I’m currently reading this book and it is AMAZING!!! I literally have found my newest obsession and cannot wait for the sequel. Oh and the movie… yup it’s been optioned for a movie already.
Amazon Summary: Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.
But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.
Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.
What’s on your reading list for 2018? Do you know any other titles by Black women that I need to add to my list? Please share them.
