Celebrate diverse voices through the magic of storytelling. Here are a few suggestions to get started!


Nonfiction

Cover ArtThe New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander; Karen Chilton (Narrated by)

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9781464046162
Publication Date: 2012-07-01
Civil rights advocate and accomplished lawyer Michelle Alexander broaches a topic worthy of national conversation. Alexander argues that criminals convicted by our justice system face the same obstacles- legal discrimination and disenfranchisement- African Americans faced during the Jim Crow era.
 

Cover ArtBecoming by Obama, Michelle

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780525633709
Publication Date: 2018-11-12
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United StatesIn a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.

 

Cover ArtHow to Be an Antiracist by Kendi, Ibram X.

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9781984832221
Publication Date: 2019-08-12
Ibram X. Kendi's concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America—but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.In this audiobook, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.
 

Cover ArtI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, Maya ; Winfrey, Oprah (FRW)

Type: eBook
ISBN: 9781588369253
Publication Date: April 20, 2009
Maya Angelou's debut memoir captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right.
 
 

Cover ArtWell-read Black Girl by Edim, Glory

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780525639565
Publication Date: 2018-10-29
An inspiring collection of essays by black women writers, curated by the founder of the popular book club Well-Read Black Girl, on the importance of recognizing ourselves in literature. Remember that moment when you first encountered a character who seemed to be written just for you? That feeling of belonging remains with readers the rest of their lives-but not everyone regularly sees themselves on the pages of a book. In this timely anthology, Glory Edim brings together original essays by some of our best black women writers to shine a light on how important it is that we all-regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability-have the opportunity to find ourselves in literature.
 

Fiction

Short Stories

Cover ArtLot by Bryan Washington

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9781984839664
Publication Date: 2019-03-18
In the city of Houston — a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America — the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, weathering his brother's blows, resenting his older sister's absence — and discovering he likes boys. Around him, others live and thrive and die in Houston's myriad neighborhoods: a young woman whose affair detonates across an apartment complex, a ragtag baseball team, a group of young hustlers, hurricane survivors, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, a reluctant chupacabra. Bryan Washington's brilliant, viscerally drawn world vibrates with energy, wit, and the infinite longing of people searching for home. With soulful insight into what makes a community, a family, and a life, Lot explores trust and love in all its unsparing and unsteady forms.
 

Cover ArtEverything Inside by Edwidge Danticat; Robin Miles (Narrated by)

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9781501987083
Publication Date: 2019-08-27
Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and intimate, as it explores the forces that pull us together, or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant. In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.

 

General Fiction

Cover ArtAmericanah by Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780593910450
Publication Date: 2024-02-19
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be Black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post–9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
 
Science Fiction

Cover ArtParable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler; Lynne Thigpen (Narrated by)

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9781980013952
Publication Date: 2019-01-15
God is change. That is the central truth of the Earthseed movement, whose unlikely prophet is 18-year-old Lauren Olamina. The young woman's diary entries tell the story of her life amid a violent 21st-century hell of walled neighborhoods and drug-crazed pyromaniacs-and reveal her evolving Earthseed philosophy. Against a backdrop of horror emerges a message of hope: if we are willing to embrace divine change, we will survive to fulfill our destiny among the stars.
 
Fantasy

Cover ArtWitches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart; Nicola Lambo (Read by); Tamika Keaton-Donegal (Read by)

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780063063426
Publication Date: 2021-04-20
This Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut about two enemy witches who must enter into a deadly alliance to take down a common enemy has the twisted cat-and-mouse of Killing Eve with the richly imagined fantasy world of Furyborn and Ember in the Ashes. Divided by their order. United by their vengeance. Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom--and vengeance. Jazmyne is the Queen's daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother's power. Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain--except the lengths they will go to win this game.
 

Cover ArtBeasts of Ruin by Gray, Ayana

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780593414781
Publication Date: 2022-07-25
After having promised to use her new powers to serve Fedu, the cunning god of death, and assist in his plans to remake the world, Koffi finds herself a prisoner in Thornkeep—a luxurious mansion with well-manicured gardens. But Fedu’s beautiful realm is a lie. Koffi and many other darajas are trapped there by a deadly, inscrutable mist, making escape impossible. But something within the mist calls to Koffi, igniting her magic. It soon becomes clear that the very thing imprisoning her could be the key to not only her freedom, but finally unlocking the remaining mysteries of her own magic, allowing her to fight the god of death and perhaps even win.
 

Cover ArtBlack Leopard, Red Wolf by James, Marlon

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780525526858
Publication Date: 2019-02-04
In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying? Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has crafted a novel unlike anything that's come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that's also an ambitious, involving story.
 
Romance

Cover ArtHappily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant; Jordan Cobb (Read by)

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780063058132
Publication Date: 2021-01-05
A charming debut romantic comedy filled with Black Girl Magic. Perfect for fans of Mary H. K. Choi and Nicola Yoon, with crossover appeal for readers of Jasmine Guillory and Talia Hibbert romances. Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She's rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. Tessa just needs to find some inspiration in a real-life love story of her own. And she's ready with a list of romance novel-inspired steps to a happily ever after. She's well on her way to having her own real-life love story, but is it the one she wants, after all?
 

Cover ArtThe Davenports by Marquis, Krystal

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780593634783
Publication Date: 01-30-2023
The Davenports delivers a totally escapist, swoon-worthy romance while offering a glimpse into a period of African American history often overlooked. The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love—even where they’re not supposed to. Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, The Davenports is the tale of four determined and passionate young Black women discovering the courage to steer their own path in life—and love.

 

Coming of Age

Cover ArtThe Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; Bahni Turpin (Read by)

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780062677082
Publication Date: 2017-02-28
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer.
 

Cover ArtSwing Time by Smith, Zadie

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780735205642
Publication Date: 2016-11-13
Two brown girls dream of being dancers-but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live. But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey-the same twists, the same shakes-and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time.
 

Cover ArtThe Vanishing Half by Bennett, Brit

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780525637165
Publication Date: 2020-06-01
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
 
Satire

Cover ArtMy Sister, the Serial Killer by Braithwaite, Oyinkan

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780525643296
Publication Date: 2018-11-19
Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her "missing" boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she's exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola's phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she's willing to go to protect her. Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite's deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening.
 

Cover ArtJames by Percival Everett

Type: eBook
ISBN: 9780385550376
Publication Date: 2024-03-19
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

 

Historical Fiction

Cover ArtHomegoing by Gyasi, Yaa

Type: eAudio
ISBN: 9780451484192
Publication Date: 2024-06-05
The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day. Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.