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47 items

• Abbott

  Ahmed, Saladin,

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  While investigating police brutality and corruption in 1970s Detroit, journalist Elena Abbott uncovers supernatural forces being controlled by a secret society of the city's elite. In the uncertain social and political climate of 1972 Detroit,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Conjure Women

  a Novel

  Atakora, Afia,

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  Like her mother, Rue is an all-knowing midwife, healer, and conjurer of curses on the plantation of Marse Charles. Moving back and forth in time between the years before and after the Civil War, this novel tells the story of Rue, the families she…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• We Hope for Better Things

  Bartels, Erin, 1980-

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  A journalist discovers more than she expected when she is charged with delivering a box of photos to a relative she didn't know she had.

• The Vanishing Half

  Bennett, Brit,

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  The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Kindred

  Butler, Octavia E.

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  Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. With more than 100,000 copies in print, Kindred is a classic…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Ring Shout, Or, Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times

  Clark, P. Djèlí,

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  A dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror. In 1915, The Birth of a Nation cast a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Washington Black

  a Novel

  Edugyan, Esi,

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  Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born. When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Invisible Man

  Ellison, Ralph

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  In the course of his wanderings from a Southern Negro college to New York's Harlem, an American black man becomes involved in a series of adventures. Introduction explains circumstances under which the book was written. Ellison won the National Book…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• James

  a Novel

  Everett, Percival,

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  A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Paragon Hotel

  Faye, Lyndsay,

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  Fleeing to Oregon from New York City in 1921, Alice James takes refuge in the city's only black hotel and helps new friends search for a missing child, hide from KKK violence, and navigate painful secrets.

• Homegoing

  a Novel

  Gyasi, Yaa,

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  Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Lady of Perdition

  Hambly, Barbara,

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  April, 1840. Benjamin January knows no black person in their right mind would willingly go to the Republic of Texas but when his former pupil Selina Bellinger is kidnapped and enslaved, he has no choice. Once there he is saved from being hanged by…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• They Come in All Colors

  a Novel

  Hansen, Malcolm

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  The Secret Life of Bees meets Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle in this bold debut novel, set between the deep South and New York City during the 1960s and early 70s, following a biracial teenage boy whose new life in a big city is disrupted by…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• This Other Eden

  a Novel

  Harding, Paul, 1967-

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  From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast. In 1792, formerly enslaved…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Healer's Daughter

  Hinger, Charlotte, 1940-

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  Bethany Herbert, daughter of a legendary healer, leaves the South for the new black community of Nicodemus, Kansas. Despite the hardships, the community comes to love the prairie. Bethany's mother, Queen Bess, comes to Nicodemus, as does the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Driving the King

  a Novel

  Howard, Ravi,

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  Told through the experiences of Nat King Cole's driver, Nat Weary, Driving the King is a daring and brilliant new novel from award-winning writer Ravi Howard that explores race and class in 1950s America.

• The Rib King

  a Novel

  Hubbard, Ladee,

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  Exploited by the white family that took him in as a servant fifteen years earlier, groundskeeper August Sitwell becomes tragically enraged by how his employers mindlessly profit from the talents of a hired Black cook.

• The Ways of White Folks

  Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967

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  In these acrid and poignant stories, Hughes depicted black people colliding--sometimes humorously, more often tragically--with whites in the 1920s and '30s.

• Their Eyes Were Watching God

  a Novel

  Hurston, Zora Neale

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  Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

• Golden Poppies

  Ibrahim, Laila,

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  It's 1894. Jordan Wallace and Sadie Wagner appear to have little in common. Jordan, a middle-aged black teacher, lives in segregated Chicago. Two thousand miles away, Sadie, the white wife of an ambitious German businessman, lives in more tolerant…Read moreRead more of this annotation