Black History Month Reading List

[Clovitide]

This year, I'm trying to read a 100 books. Since it's Black History month, I've decided to bump up my Black authors earlier on my TBR list.

So far, I have:

LegendBorn by Tracy Deonn
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin
The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope

Let me know which books you're looking to read. Might add a few to my list.

 

[Unimportant]

Ooooh, the Broken Earth trilogy is terrific.

I've added The Hound of Justice to my list, which happily is authored by one of our very own forum members!

 

[Woollybear]

Oh, try AW's author eqb who yesterday reported:

I am pleased to report that Amazon chose my novel The Hound of Justice for its Black History Month Kindle promotion:

https://www.amazon.com/Hound-Justice-Novel-Watson-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B07FCJCRYB

 

[Woollybear]

Ooooh, the Broken Earth trilogy is terrific.

I've added The Hound of Justice to my list, which happily is authored by one of our very own forum members!

I knew I wouldn't be fast enough.

Ah well, two votes then.

 

[Clovitide]

Just to broaden the list of a couple more books by Black authors I've read this year, in case anyone wants to add to their TBR

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow - YA Sci-Fi Romance
There's No Way I'd Die First by Lisa Springer - YA Slasher
You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron - YA Horror
That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming - Adult Humorous Fantasy Romance

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

It's not fiction, but I recently lucked into a copy of The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Women, by Catherine E. McKinley (Bloomsbury Publishing, New York 2021).

Books about African fashion and clothing history are so thin on the ground, this is a cool find. The author is a Black Jewish historian and curator with a large collection of black and white photographic portraits of African women from 1870 on. She identifies as many of them as she can, with dates, countries, subjects or studios when known, and gives a lot of cultural context for them.

 

[Meg]

I'm reading James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim's point of view. There is much in it that is extraordinary. Definitely recommend. But one thing is deeply bothering me.

Spoiler

A major theme is the code-switching that Black people have always done around white people. Everett highlights this with a device that is clearly not meant literally—away from white people, the Black characters speak eruditely, and he conveys this using white "standard" English.

The psycholinguist in me is thinking "what the holy hell"? Everett is an English professor, and so I'm wondering, has he drunk the koolaid about "correct" English? Or does he know all about the grammatical richness of Black English, and he's playing some sort of layered satirical game that is too subtle for me? (Like Ford Prefect, I come from a planet where they don't have sarcasm.) Is he laughing up his sleeve at white readers because this is the only way they will get his point and they are so very proud of themselves for getting it?

Almost all the reviews I've found are by white people, who are falling over themselves to sound like literary geniuses and also Allies™. I really want a review by a Black reviewer that addresses this issue.

 

[Chris P]

I'm reading James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim's point of view. There is much in it that is extraordinary. Definitely recommend. But one thing is deeply bothering me.

Spoiler

A major theme is the code-switching that Black people have always done around white people. Everett highlights this with a device that is clearly not meant literally—away from white people, the Black characters speak eruditely, and he conveys this using white "standard" English.

The psycholinguist in me is thinking "what the holy hell"? Everett is an English professor, and so I'm wondering, has he drunk the koolaid about "correct" English? Or does he know all about the grammatical richness of Black English, and he's playing some sort of layered satirical game that is too subtle for me? (Like Ford Prefect, I come from a planet where they don't have sarcasm.) Is he laughing up his sleeve at white readers because this is the only way they will get his point and they are so very proud of themselves for getting it?

Almost all the reviews I've found are by white people, who are falling over themselves to sound like literary geniuses and also Allies™. I really want a review by a Black reviewer that addresses this issue.

My big issue with James are the liberties he took with the timeline and how the last three-quarters of the book diverged from the Huck narrative. Regarding your

Spoiler: Spoiler

I liked the code switching in a dark-comic way (even though I know it is absolutely what happens) but I agree the proper English was overdone. Even by learning "proper" English from their enslavers, the enslavers didn't talk that way so there is no reason these characters would have learned it. I would have preferred they had a vernacular more unique the them.

 

[Chris P]

For Black novels:

Pretty much anything by Jesmyn Ward. Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones were top notch.

Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones.

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin.

Native Son by Richard Wright.

Non-Fic:

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Souls of Black Folk by WEB DuBois

1619 Project

Narrative of the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup.

 

[Meg]

My big issue with James are the liberties he took with the timeline and how the last three-quarters of the book diverged from the Huck narrative.

Retellings diverging from the original don't bother me, as long as the author makes good choices and has something interesting to say. (Bad retellings that just get it all wrong do bug me, though.)

Spoiler: Spoiler

Even by learning "proper" English from their enslavers, the enslavers didn't talk that way so there is no reason these characters would have learned it.

Well, like I said, I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be realistic. I think it's more of a literary device on the part of the author. I'm just really baffled about what he is trying to accomplish with it, though.

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

I'm reading James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim's point of view. There is much in it that is extraordinary. Definitely recommend. But one thing is deeply bothering me.

Spoiler

A major theme is the code-switching that Black people have always done around white people. Everett highlights this with a device Big Jithat is clearly not meant literally—away from white people, the Black characters speak eruditely, and he conveys this using white "standard" English.

The psycholinguist in me is thinking "what the holy hell"? Everett is an English professor, and so I'm wondering, has he drunk the koolaid about "correct" English? Or does he know all about the grammatical richness of Black English, and he's playing some sort of layered satirical game that is too subtle for me? (Like Ford Prefect, I come from a planet where they don't have sarcasm.) Is he laughing up his sleeve at white readers because this is the only way they will get his point and they are so very proud of themselves for getting it?

Almost all the reviews I've found are by white people, who are falling over themselves to sound like literary geniuses and also Allies™. I really want a review by a Black reviewer that addresses this issue.

I would be curious to hear how this compares to the graphic novel Big Jim and the White Boy, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson, which does the same thing, retelling Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the escaping slave. (In fact, the first time I saw a review for Everett's book for a moment I mistook it for Walker and Anderson's graphic novel.)

I too have seen mostly white reviewers gushing about Everett's book. I hate to say I don't trust their judgement, but I don't.

 

[martined]

Its not BHM anymore, but I recently read "Friday Black" by Nana Kwame Adjeizl-Brenyah it lowkey changed my whole brain at least for a week. Great collection of short stories. Through The Flash is the one that got me to buy the book though, I really recommend it.