African-American Interest Books – Free & Bargain Priced!
When The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983, its author Alice Walker became the first woman of color to win the prize. She also went on to win the National Book Award for Fiction in the same year. Mel Watkins of the New York Times Book Review described the novel as a “striking and consummately well-written novel,” praising its powerful emotional impact and epistolary structure.
Beginning in the 1970s, African American interest books reached the mainstream as literature by Black writers continually achieved best-selling and award-winning status – this was also the period when the work of African-American writers became recognised as a distinct and legitimate genre of American literature.
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What is African-American Literature?
African-American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a great period of flowering in literature and the arts, influenced both by writers who came North in the Great Migration and those who were immigrants from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands. African-American writers have been recognized by the highest awards, including the Nobel Prize given to Toni Morrison in 1993. Among the themes and issues explored in this literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and social equality. African-American writing has tended to incorporate oral forms, such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap.
The period of the 1970s saw many African-American books on bestseller lists. One of the first to do so was Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley. A fictionalized account of Haley’s family history which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and became a popular tv miniseries.
Other important writers include Gayl Jones, Rasheed Clark, Ishmael Reed, Jamaica Kincaid, Randall Kenan, and John Edgar Wideman. Poet Maya Angelou read a poem at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, Rita Dove won a Pulitzer Prize and served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, and Cyrus Cassells’s Soul Make a Path through Shouting was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. Natasha Trethewey won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with her book Native Guard. In 2004 Edward P. Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his book The Known World.
Young African-American novelists include David Anthony Durham, Karen E. Quinones Miller, Tayari Jones, Kalisha Buckhanon, Mat Johnson, ZZ Packer and Colson Whitehead, among many others.
An African-American pioneer in genre fiction is Chester Himes, who in the 1950s and ’60s wrote a series of pulp fiction detective novels featuring “Coffin” Ed Johnson and “Gravedigger” Jones, two New York City police detectives. Himes paved the way for the later crime novels of Walter Mosley and Hugh Holton. African Americans are also represented in the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror, with Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Robert Fleming, Brandon Massey, Charles R. Saunders, John Ridley, John M. Faucette, Sheree Thomas and Nalo Hopkinson just at the beginning of a very long list.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award African American Interest Book – The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Highly reviewed African American interest books – Deliverance Mary Fields by Miantae Metcalf McConnell
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Passing
Nella Larsen's powerful, thrilling, and tragic tale about the fluidity of racial identity that continues to resonate today. A New York Times Editors’ Choice Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white...
read more
In Pursuit of You
As the owner of WTZB broadcast station, Avery Michele was determined to make her grandfather’s legacy thrive, even if her duties included being in front of the camera for Chicago’s hottest events. However, Avery didn’t foresee catching the eye of one determined...
read more
Sensuous Knowledge
The creator of the internationally popular, multiple award-winning blog MsAfropolitan applies an Africa-centered feminist sensibility to issues of racism and sexism, challenging our illusions about oppression and liberation and daring women to embrace their...
read more
A Good Girl & A Down South Millionaire
From emerging author, Michelle Elaine comes a new intense yet riveting, urban fiction romance that'll leave you astounded.The finale releases on August 27th.Calling Jada Reid’s love life a mess is an understatement. She broke up with the only man she ever loved, a...
read more
Anything Goes
From the moment Alauni saw Law Montgomery, she knew that she wanted him. But he was the one thing that she didn’t mess around with…he was a cop. Law doesn’t care about Alauni’s attempts to stay away from him. He knows what he wants, and given the way that her body...
read more
A Tangled Mercy
A haunting and redemptive novel inspired by the heartbreaking true events that occurred at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, A Tangled Mercy examines the horrifying depths of human brutality and our enduring hope for forgiveness.After the sudden death of her...
read more
Skeletons
What happens when Skeletons that were once carefully hidden in closets behind Gucci handbags, Prada shoe boxes and Valentino scarves start to show their faces in the lives of three close friends? Jovanna, Santana and Asteria quickly learn that what is done in the dark...
read more
Jubilee
The bestselling classic about a mixed-race child in the Civil War-era South that "chronicles the triumph of a free spirit over many kinds of bondage" (TheNew York Times Book Review). Jubilee tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his...
read more
Drinking from a Bitter Cup
"1978. The year I turned ten and the year my mama killed herself. She was thirty-five, and dying is the last thing that should have been on her mind." After the death of her mother, Sylvia Butler's father, a man she knows only from an old photo, takes her from...
read more
Executive Decision
A recently divorced single mom not looking for love, a millionaire boss not looking for anything but her... A single mistake sent Tasha's life into a downward spiral, but now she has a second chance. Determined to get her life back on track, she isn't letting anything...
read more
Elsewhere, California: A Novel
"Avery's evolution -- a black woman trying to claim her place -- is as heartbreaking as it is humorous, powerful as it is poignant." -- Los Angeles Times As a young girl, Avery escaped the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West...
read more
Stolen Soulmate (Crowne Point)
"My top read in the last year. This book is why I fell in love with reading." USA Today Bestselling Author Meagan Brandy There's a rule in Crowne Hall: never look a Crowne in the eyes. It protects us more than them. I broke it once, the night Grayson Crowne mistook me...
read more
Halsey Street
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.A modern-day story of family, loss, and renewal, Halsey Street captures the deeply human need to belong—not only to a place but to one another.Penelope Grand has scrapped her failed career as an artist in Pittsburgh and moved...
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The Book in Room 316
#1 nationally bestselling and award-winning author ReShonda Tate Billingsley delivers another moving, evocative, and timely novel about how a small seed of hope can change the course of one’s life.Savannah Graham thought she had the perfect marriage…until grief drove...
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All I Wanted Was A Dope Boy
From Yasauni — Cole Hart Signature's newest author — comes an astonishing urban romance, All I Wanted Was A Dope Boy, about a woman who doesn't want love but needs love.All I Wanted Was A Dope Boy 2: The Finale is available now!Teniel Lester is the definition of...
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Bachelor Untamed
One mind-blowing kiss. That was all Ellie Weston shared with her neighbor and crush one summer, before he angrily discovered she'd approached him on a dare. Ten years later, Ellie is back at her great-aunt's lake house, and so is Uriel Lassiter—still wildly sexy,...
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In Pursuit of You
As the owner of WTZB broadcast station, Avery Michele was determined to make her grandfather’s legacy thrive, even if her duties included being in front of the camera for Chicago’s hottest events. However, Avery didn’t foresee catching the eye of one determined...
read more
The Dilemma of a Savage Love
Keyshia Scott is a country girl at heart. She moved from a small town called Bainbridge, Georgia, to the big city of Jacksonville, Florida to make a better life for herself. She has always been a good girl, but her life takes a turn for the worst after falling in love...
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Hollywood Black
The films, the stars, the filmmakers-all get their due in Hollywood Black, a sweeping overview of blacks in film from the silent era through Black Panther, with striking photos and an engrossing history by award-winning author Donald Bogle.The story opens in the...
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Devil In Her Bed
I lived and breathed ‘Happily Ever After,’ then it all came crashing down . . .The day the love of my life went missing—presumed dead—my heart stopped beating too. Then Lincoln Zager comes along, and he’s relentlessly determined to protect and revive me. He slowly...
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Lake Morality (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 8)
People get up to all kinds of mischief out at Lake Morality. When Kristen Morgan abandoned her baby girl in a locked car, Lt. Maggie Redmond was angry. Though the baby was uninjured, things could have been much worse. When the mother's body is found two days later, in...
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The Sniper’s Wife
The harrowing call comes from the NYPD. Willy's ex-wife, Mary, has been found dead in her Lower East Side apartment and Willy is asked to identify the body. Torn from his beloved Vermont, Willy returns to the city of his hard-drinking youth with misgivings that deepen...
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The Deep
ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the...
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Dear Santa
Ramone King wanted to end the year strong and start 2020 going even harder. At the top of his game and truly in his prime, he knew that distractions right now wasn’t good but what do you do when you’re in love? She was his therapy. His muse. His fifth quarter after he...
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Run From Me
Ahlayna had one plan for spring break, and that was to read. But when her best friend, Tatiana Wolfe, offers an alternative to her plans, Ahlayna knows that she’s entered a realm laced with danger. From the moment she entered Ty’s space she knew that she had to run....
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Broken Little Rich Girls
Broken as in beaten, defeated, subdued, dispirited...Rich as in affluent, well to do, prosperous…So, although they’d been beaten down by life the one thing they didn’t worry about was money.Four friends find themselves at a crossroad in life. For years they’ve hidden...
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The Wedding Party
As seen on The Today Show! The new exhilarating New York Times bestselling romance from the author of The Proposal, a Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick! Maddie and Theo have two things in common: 1. Alexa is their best friend 2. They hate each other...
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White Like Her
White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing is the story of Gail Lukasik’s mother’s “passing,” Gail’s struggle with the shame of her mother’s choice, and her subsequent journey of self-discovery and redemption. In the historical context of the Jim...
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The Color Purple
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this novel about a resilient and courageous woman has become a Broadway show and a cultural phenomenon. A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society...
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Unapologetically Me
For as far back as she can remember, Fatima Ward has been told that she would be a doctor. She has never challenged that path and secretly fulfills her love of telling stories online. While working on a fanfiction story using real-life rapper Jericho, she finds...
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Before the Dawn
Leah Barnett can't believe how far fate has carried her: from Boston to the towering Colorado Rockies...and into the life of an angry, ruggedly sexy man. Ryder Damien is not about to welcome this beauty with open arms, however, especially since Leah was the one who...
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The Mothers
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Bittersweet, sexy, morally fraught.” –The New York Times Book Review"Luminous… engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss." –People, Pick of the Week "Fantastic… a book that feels alive on the page." –The Washington PostThe beloved New...
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The Dry Grass of August
In this beautifully written debut, Anna Jean Mayhew offers a riveting depiction of Southern life in the throes of segregation, what it will mean for a young girl on her way to adulthood—and for the woman who means the world to her . . . On a scorching day in August...
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The Family that Lies
Born 18 months apart, Merci and Grayce Alexander were as close as sisters could get. With a father who thought the world of them, life was good. Until one day everything changed.While Grayce got love and attention, Merci got all the hell, forcing her to leave home....
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I’d Rather Be With You
In this sizzling novel from New York Times bestselling author Mary B. Morrison, two friends make a provocative bet that forever changes their lives… Nursing wealthy businessman Chicago DuBois back to health is the least Loretta Lovelace figures she can do. After all,...
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My Baby Mama Is A Loser
MY BABY MAMA IS A LOSER is another ratchet banger from Amazon bestselling author QUAN MILLZ. Meet DeAndre "Dre" Williams, a determined, single father who finds himself caught up in drama with his no good baby mama, LaTrisha aka Trish. When things go south and Dre is...
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African-American Interest Books…
Love in Catalina Cove
In her brand-new series, Brenda Jackson welcomes you to Catalina Cove, where even the biggest heartbreaks can be healed…In the wake of a devastating teen pregnancy that left her childless and heartbroken, Vashti Alcindor left Catalina Cove, Louisiana, with no plans to...
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Fear
22-year-old Luxury Whitson is a romantic at heart. Yet this florist only grasp at love is listening to a customer's sentimental story while he purchases a beautiful bouquet of roses for a significant other. When Lux crosses paths with Victor, his presence commands her...
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Loving Sydnee Jones
It all started with one record...He’s been hooked on her since he caught her singing in her garage. She felt their souls intertwine the moment they touched. But their love goes deeper than a chance encounter. Just how far will one of them have to go to prove it?
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Queen Sugar
The inspiration for the acclaimed OWN TV series produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay"Queen Sugar is a page-turning, heart-breaking novel of the new south, where the past is never truly past, but the future is a hot, bright promise. This is a story of family and...
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A Matter of Time
Re-release(BWWM Romantic Suspense)Nineteen years earlier, Austin, Texas reporter Maria Posey’s best friend vanished without a trace. Struggling to move past what happened, Maria has been haunted by the incident ever since. When her best friend’s mother dies, Maria...
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Mustard Seed
The bestselling author of Yellow Crocus returns with a haunting and tender story of three women returning to the plantation they once called home.Oberlin, Ohio, 1868. Lisbeth Johnson was born into privilege in the antebellum South. Jordan Freedman was born a slave to...
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Between Black and White
In 1966 in Pulaski, Tennessee, Bocephus Haynes watched in horror as his father was brutally murdered by ten local members of the Ku Klux Klan. As an African American lawyer practicing in the birthplace of the Klan years later, Bo has spent his life pursuing justice in...
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In Love’s Name
Oftentimes anything can go when Love's name is involved. For Leighanna and Janero what should've remained as a feud between neighbors quickly spirals into a mutual attraction they both find hard to deny, and when Leighanna finds herself needing a place to stay for...
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Torn Between the Two
Zaria Watson has no one to depend on but her brother, Jason. Once he goes to prison, she's left, lost and alone. Due to her mother's lack of love and selfish ways, Zaria falls in the arms of someone that means her no good. Not a stranger to mistreatment, Zaria...
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Love & Tragedy
Celeste MorganGrowing up, my older brother was best friends with the Michaels brothers. The youngest of the two instantly stole my heart. Since then, Greyson has tried avoiding the inevitable. On the other hand, I've been sending signals that seem to go unnoticed. But...
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Going to Meet the Man
"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep...
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Every Tongue Got to Confess
A recently discovered collection of folktales celebrating African American oral tradition, community, and faith...”splendidly vivid and true.”—New York Times Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston...
read more
Passing
Nella Larsen's powerful, thrilling, and tragic tale about the fluidity of racial identity that continues to resonate today. A New York Times Editors’ Choice Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white...
read more
In Pursuit of You
As the owner of WTZB broadcast station, Avery Michele was determined to make her grandfather’s legacy thrive, even if her duties included being in front of the camera for Chicago’s hottest events. However, Avery didn’t foresee catching the eye of one determined...
read more
Sensuous Knowledge
The creator of the internationally popular, multiple award-winning blog MsAfropolitan applies an Africa-centered feminist sensibility to issues of racism and sexism, challenging our illusions about oppression and liberation and daring women to embrace their...
read more
A Good Girl & A Down South Millionaire
From emerging author, Michelle Elaine comes a new intense yet riveting, urban fiction romance that'll leave you astounded.The finale releases on August 27th.Calling Jada Reid’s love life a mess is an understatement. She broke up with the only man she ever loved, a...
read more
Anything Goes
From the moment Alauni saw Law Montgomery, she knew that she wanted him. But he was the one thing that she didn’t mess around with…he was a cop. Law doesn’t care about Alauni’s attempts to stay away from him. He knows what he wants, and given the way that her body...
read more
A Tangled Mercy
A haunting and redemptive novel inspired by the heartbreaking true events that occurred at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, A Tangled Mercy examines the horrifying depths of human brutality and our enduring hope for forgiveness.After the sudden death of her...
read more
Skeletons
What happens when Skeletons that were once carefully hidden in closets behind Gucci handbags, Prada shoe boxes and Valentino scarves start to show their faces in the lives of three close friends? Jovanna, Santana and Asteria quickly learn that what is done in the dark...
read more
Jubilee
The bestselling classic about a mixed-race child in the Civil War-era South that "chronicles the triumph of a free spirit over many kinds of bondage" (TheNew York Times Book Review). Jubilee tells the true story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his...
read more
Drinking from a Bitter Cup
"1978. The year I turned ten and the year my mama killed herself. She was thirty-five, and dying is the last thing that should have been on her mind." After the death of her mother, Sylvia Butler's father, a man she knows only from an old photo, takes her from...
read more
Executive Decision
A recently divorced single mom not looking for love, a millionaire boss not looking for anything but her... A single mistake sent Tasha's life into a downward spiral, but now she has a second chance. Determined to get her life back on track, she isn't letting anything...
read more
Elsewhere, California: A Novel
"Avery's evolution -- a black woman trying to claim her place -- is as heartbreaking as it is humorous, powerful as it is poignant." -- Los Angeles Times As a young girl, Avery escaped the violent streets of Los Angeles to a more gentrified existence in suburban West...
read more
Stolen Soulmate (Crowne Point)
"My top read in the last year. This book is why I fell in love with reading." USA Today Bestselling Author Meagan Brandy There's a rule in Crowne Hall: never look a Crowne in the eyes. It protects us more than them. I broke it once, the night Grayson Crowne mistook me...
read more