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Celebrate Black Stories Fiction Selections
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If Beale Street could talk : a novel
by James Baldwin F BAL
When a pregnant Tish's boyfriend Fonny, a sculptor, is wrongfully jailed for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman, their families unite to prove the charge false.
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Kindred
by Octavia E. Butler F BUT
Dana, a black woman, finds herself repeatedly transported to the antebellum South, where she must make sure that Rufus, the plantation owner's son, survives to father Dana's ancestor.
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Invisible man
by Ralph Ellison F ELL
An African-American man's search for success and the American dream leads him out of college to Harlem and a growing sense of personal rejection and social invisibility.
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The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison F MOR
A new edition of the first novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author relates the story of Pecola Breedlove, an eleven-year-old Black girl growing up in an America that values blue-eyed blondes, and the tragedy that results because of her longing to be accepted.
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The color purple
by Alice Walker F WAL
The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into the experiences of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia.
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Black buck
by Mateo Askaripour F ASK
Darren, the only black person in Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman no one recognizes until tragedy strikes at home, prompting him to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force.
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These ghosts are family : a novel
by Maisy Card F CAR
A man on his deathbed reveals that he stole another man’s identity decades earlier, traces the family’s history from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem and reconnects, with the firstborn daughter he never knew.
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What we lose : a novel
by Zinzi Clemmons F CLE
Raised in America, the multiracial daughter of a mother from Johannesburg struggles with her mother's terminal cancer, her own need to find love, and unexpected motherhood.
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What's mine and yours : a novel
by Naima Coster F COS
Integrated into a predominantly white high school, an anxious young Black student and a half-Latina whose mother would have her pass as white join a bridge-building school play that shapes the trajectory of their adult lives.
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Transcendent kingdom
by Yaa Gyasi F GYA
A novel about faith, science, religion, and family that tells the deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief, narrated by a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying the neural circuits of reward seeking behavior in mice.
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The love songs of W.E.B. Du Bois : a novel
by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers National Book Critics Circle - Fiction Award
To come to terms with who she is and what she wants, Ailey, the daughter of an accomplished doctor and a strict schoolteacher, embarks on a journey through her family’s past, helping her embrace her full heritage, which is the story of the Black experience in itself.
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On the corner of Hope and Main
by Beverly Jenkins ROM JEN
When the mayor of historic Henry Adams, Kansas decides it’s time to step down, a former marine and his wife battle each other for the position, putting their teenage son squarely in the middle.
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It's Not All Downhill From Here
by Terry McMillan F MCM
Confident that her best days are still ahead, a successful businesswoman relies on close friends and her resourcefulness when an unexpected loss turns her world upside down.
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Real life
by Brandon Taylor F TAY
Keeping his head down at a lakeside Midwestern university where the culture is in sharp contrast to his Alabama upbringing, an introverted African-American biochem student endures unexpected encounters that bring his orientation and defenses into question.
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Memorial
by Bryan Washington F WAS
Japanese-American chef Mike and Black daycare teacher Benson begin reevaluating their stale relationship after Mike departs for Japan to visit his dying father, and Benson is suddenly stuck with his visiting mother-in-law, who becomes an unconventional roommate.
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Black cake : a novel
by Charmaine Wilkerson F WIL
Two estranged siblings try to reclaim the closeness they once shared while trying to piece together their late mother’s life story and fulfill her last request of sharing a traditional Caribbean black cake “when the time is right.”
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Yonder
by Jabari Asim F ASI
Meeting at Placid Hall, a plantation in an unspecified part of the American South, Cato and Willian, subjected to the whims of their tyrannical and eccentric captor, find their friendship fraying when a visiting pastor fills their heads with ideas about independence and love.
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Conjure Women
by Afia Atakora F ATA
A midwife and conjurer of curses reflects on her life before and after the Civil War, her relationships with the families she serves and the secrets she has learned about a plantation owner’s daughter.
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The Water Dancer
by Ta-Nehisi Coates F COA
A Virginia slave narrowly escapes a drowning death through the intervention of a mysterious force that compels his escape and personal underground war against slavery.
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The rib king : a novel
by Ladee Hubbard F HUB
Exploited by the white family that took him in as a servant 15 years earlier, a Black orphan becomes tragically enraged by how his employers mindlessly profit from the talents of a hired black cook.
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The Prophets
by Robert Jones F JON
Two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation find refuge in each other while transforming a quiet shed into a haven for their fellow slaves, before an enslaved preacher declares their bond sinful.
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The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead F WHI
A follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, follows the harrowing experiences of two African-American teens at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
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While justice sleeps : a novel
by Stacey Abrams F ABR
Plunged into an explosive role she never anticipated, Avery Keene, now the legal guardian of power of attorney for the legendary Justice Howard Wynn, must unravel the clues he left behind in regards to a dangerous conspiracy that has infiltrated the highest power corridors of Washington.
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When no one is watching : a thriller
by Alyssa Cole F COL
Finding unexpected support from a new friend while collecting stories from her rapidly vanishing Brooklyn community, Sydney uncovers sinister truths about a regional gentrification project and why her neighbors are moving away.
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A deadly inside scoop
by Abby Collette M COL
A recent MBA grad’s efforts to relaunch her family’s traditional ice-cream shop are complicated by the untimely murder of a con artist whose notorious rivalry with her family places her father under suspicion.
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The other black girl : a novel
by Zakiya Dalila Harris F HAR
Tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books, 26-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel is hired until after a string uncomfortable events, she is elevated to Office Darling, leaving Nella in the dust.
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All her little secrets : a novel
by Wanda M. Morris M MOR
The lone black female corporate attorney in midtown Manhattan discovers her white boss, and lover, dead with a gunshot wound to his head, and must deal with office suspicions and gossip when she is promoted as his successor.
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The wedding party
by Jasmine Guillory ROM GUI
The rival best friends of bride-to-be Alexa share wedding responsibilities that transform their hostility into attraction, prompting a "friends with benefits" arrangement over an agreement not to fall in love.
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Get a Life, Chloe Brown
by Talia Hibbert ROM HIB
Emerging from a life-threatening illness, a fiercely organized but unfulfilled computer geek recruits a mysterious artist to help her establish meaning in her life, before finding herself engaged in reckless but thrilling activities.
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Wild rain
by Beverly Jenkins ROM JEN
In the wake of the Civil War, Spring Lee, running her own ranch in Paradise, Wyoming, second guesses her resolve to avoid men when a reporter arrives to interview her brother and becomes enamored with her instead.
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Honey Girl
by Morgan Rogers F ROG
After completing her Ph.D. in astronomy, a young, straightlaced, Type A personality black woman goes on a girls' weekend to Vegas to celebrate and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn't even know.
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The fastest way to fall
by Denise Williams ROM WIL
While writing about a hot new body-positive fitness app that includes personal coaching, Britta Colby starts working out in person with Wes Lawson and they soon have a hard time maintaining a professional distance, which could cost them everything.
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Speculative Fiction (Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy)
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The unbroken
by C. L. Clark FAN CLA
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought. Luca needs a turncoat. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne. Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren't for sale.
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Lakewood : a novel
by Megan Giddings F GID
Forced to drop out of school to help support her family, Lena takes a lucrative job as a secret laboratory subject before devastating side effects make her question how much she can sacrifice.
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The conductors
by Nicole Glover FAN GLO
Having used her wits and magic to help dozens of slaves escape, a former Underground Railroad conductor settles down among the Black elite of Philadelphia with her husband, where they investigate cases that white authorities refuse.
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How long 'til black future month?
by N. K Jemisin SCI JEM
N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories. Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story "The City Born Great," a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis's soul.
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Riot baby
by Tochi Onyebuchi SCI ONY
The author of the award-winning Young Adult novel "Beasts Made of Night" tackles youth, race and the carceral state with magical flair, in his Adult science-fiction debut.
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We cast a shadow : a novel
by Maurice Carlos Ruffin F RUF
In a near-future South where an increasing number of people with dark skin endure cosmetic procedures to pass as white, a father embarks on an obsessive quest to protect his son, who bears a dark, spreading birthmark.
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An unkindness of ghosts
by Rivers Solomon SCI SOL
In the lowerdeck of the HSS Matlida, a space vessel run like the antebellum South, Aster, a dark-skinned sharecropper, faces harsh restrictions and punishments from brutal overseers, but the seeds of civil war hold the key to her freedom.
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No gods, no monsters : a novel
by Cadwell Turnbull SCI TUR
When creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, setting off a chain of seemingly unrelated events, people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase and protests erupt globally—until the world finds out what has frightened the monsters out of the dark.
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Brown : poems
by Kevin Young 811.54 YOU (SWAN)
Uses poetry to meditate on how brownness and blackness in the United States tells an ongoing story, drawing on the poet's own childhood, Emmet Till's lynching, and De La Soul.
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Call Us What We Carry : Poems
by Amanda Gorman 811.6 GOR
This poetry collection by the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history harnesses the collective grief of a global pandemic and shines a light on our current moment of reckoning while offering hope and healing.
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How to be drawn
by Terrance Hayes 811.6 HAY
In How to Be Drawn, his daring fifth collection, Terrance Hayes explores how we see and are seen. While many of these poems bear the clearest imprint yet of Hayes’s background as a visual artist, they do not strive to describe art so much as inhabit it.
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Black girl, call home
by Jasmine Mans 811.6 MAN (SWAN)
A literary coming-of-age poetry collection, an ode to the places we call home, and a piercingly intimate deconstruction of daughterhood, Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing. As a competitive spoken-word poet who draws large crowds of people, Jasmine Mans's collection is divided into six sections, each with a corresponding active telephone number where she has recorded excerpts of her poems. You can listen now, just dial! Using poetry to bring change to the world with positive agitation and hoping to prompt dialogue where there is normally fear, poet Jasmine Mans explores the intersection of race, feminism, and queer identity in her latest collection.
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Finna : poems
by Nate Marshall 811.6 MAR (SWAN)
Definition of Finna, created by the author: "fin na /'fine/ contraction: (1) going to ; intending to. rooted in African American Vernacular English. (2) eye dialect spelling of "fixing to." (3) Black possibility ; Black futurity; Blackness as tomorrow." Alyrical and harp celebration, these poems consider the brevity and disposability of Black lives and other oppressed people in our current era of emboldened white supremacy. In three key parts, Finna explores the mythos and erasure of names in the American narrative; asks how gendered language can provoke violence; and finally, through the celebration and examination of the Black vernacular, expands the notions of possibility, giving us a new language of hope.
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