Because Black History shouldn’t only be relegated to February, the shortest month of the year, Penguin Random House has put out the Black Excellence Booklist. Here is a partial list of suggestions to get you started. If any of you own any of these books and wouldn’t mind passing them around, please put them in the curbside pickup/drop off box at Bet Ha’am.
Making Waves
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris
The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison
Making it Reel (books that made it into films)
I Am Not Your Negro from texts by James Baldwin
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson (Netflix)
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Making Meals
Son of a Southern Chef by Lazarus Lynch
Yes, Chef, a memoir by Marcus Samuelson
Notes from a Young Black Chef, a memoir by Kwame Onwuachi
Sweet Potato Soul by Jenne Claiborne
Soul Food Love by Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams
Making New Stories
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Making Timeless Tales
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes