Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion

Huffington Post BlackVoices compiled a list of 50 Books that every African American should read. An interesting list of books encompassing various literary genres: Poetry, Fiction, Biography, Memoirs....A list that could be helpful in upcoming polls, placed on your TBR list or just for an ol' fashioned raucous discussion. How many of these have you read (I topped off at 15)? Which books would you add and which would you remove? Enjoy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07...

Thanks for posting this, Columbus! For some reason, your link wouldn't work for me. This one worked:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07...

And, of course, it's not only African Americans who should read these great books!

I concur, thank you.

Thank you for the wonderful list. Some I have read, but there are many I have yet to read. Again I thank you

Great list! Thanks for posting it.

Great list! Hopefully someone adds it as a list in goodreads!

I have read 6, and am currently reading Native Son, which makes it 7. I noticed many of them are on my TBR list already!

Glad to see Octavia Butler's Kindred mentioned, but there really needs to be MORE science-fiction/fantasy authors on that list. I can't believe the groundbreaking Samuel Delany was left off in favor of Jay-Z??? Really???

That's why I look at all "Books You Should Read" lists with a highly critical eye.

Vixenne wrote: "Glad to see Octavia Butler's Kindred mentioned, but there really needs to be MORE science-fiction/fantasy authors on that list. I can't believe the groundbreaking Samuel Delany was left off in fav..."

Vixenne, you are not alone with the Jay-Z book. I'm not familiar with it at all (memoir, autobiography, fiction?) but it's the one on the list that seems to have raised the most eyebrows.

I loved The Marrow of Tradition and would have liked that one to have made the list.

My issues with Jay-Z have nothing to do with his literary aspirations, and maybe the book is worth reading. Still I'd rather see a wider representation of the diasporic imagination. Most of the books on the list are pretty much standard reading material as it is. But how about writers like Nalo Hopkinson, Tannarive Due, Brandon Massey and Steven Barnes?

Yes, this was an interesting list. I am not sure if the title should have included MUST. But everybody is making lists today and sharing with others so - to be this is one's person opinion.

I have read 42 of the books on the list.

I am sure that a case could be made for anyone of the books on why it should stay on the list.
To me it seems that a lot of the books on the list were authors/people who received media coverage or are known within the literary community.

I was surprised at the number of short story collections that were included in this list.

I made this list into a goodreads list. Oddly, the Langston Hughes book was not in the GR database, so it is not on the list yet. I just added it to GR and it is not searchable yet.

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/22...

Renee wrote: "I made this list into a goodreads list. Oddly, the Langston Hughes book was not in the GR database, so it is not on the list yet. I just added it to GR and it is not searchable yet.

http://www.goo..."

Excellent job, Renee! Thank you!

Wilhelmina wrote: "Thanks for posting this, Columbus! For some reason, your link wouldn't work for me. This one worked:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07......"

Thank you for this list definitely plan on making a dent on these books.

Excellent, Renee!

i added books. not sure i can even begin to think about pronouncing on what every african american should read, but there are some books that mean a lot to me, and seem to me to do heavy-lifting in the african american tradition. so i added them. i didn't vote for any that were already there. i just feel that there are many books that should be mentioned. once they are mentioned, i'm happy.

My understanding was that Renee had created the list to be the Huntington Post selections. Renee, did you want to make it a more general list?

Wilhelmina wrote: "My understanding was that Renee had created the list to be the Huntington Post selections. Renee, did you want to make it a more general list?"

I had intended it to be just a list of the 50 chosen by Huffington Post (so I could work on reading more of them)... but, about 50 more books have been added, not sure by who since there were multiple people that voted.. so I figure it has now turned into the 50 chosen by Huffington Post, and the 50 that should have been chosen, haha!

I could not find a way to 'lock' the list to disallow anyone from adding to it, and honestly did not think about that until I had already seen many new books added to it.

No harm done I am sure. I'll see about recreating the list with just those chosen by Huffington Post and see if it can be 'locked'.

The Huffington Post list was interesting. My book group has read 12 of the works. There are at least 3 more that I have read on my own.

I tried to add to the Goodreads list the following:

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR
ONCE TWO HEROES
QUIET STRENGTH
BEFORE I FORGET
THE LAST DAYS OF PTOLEMY GREY

What an awesome list! Thank you for posting.

I loved the list. Even though it is what the huffington posts thinks we should read I would love to read them at least to find out why they might be on the list.

terrible list. I've only read about half. where was I with the rest?

If you were making the list what would you have on it?

that will require some real thought, so that answer will have to wait a bit. but I will give it a shot relatively soon.

I have read almost all of the list - and those I did not read was aware of but chose not to read.
It would have been interesting if a brief sentence told why they thought the book was one of the must reads. Then I thought it would be for a more interesting discussion and why it should be read.
I did not "like" all of the 42 books that I read. But everyone has their own reading tastes.

Brittany wrote: "If you were making the list what would you have on it?"

back again. I think I would have added Tony Morrison's Mercy certainly which I only read a month or so ago. certainly. and Pym, the originality of that is astonishing. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor. and The Marrow of Tradition.

No doubt there are others but I don't have most of my library here so, I'll have to drag through my own list of books here for others. I've been reading a fair amount of Octavia Butler lately, thanks to this group. I'm still trying to figure out what took me so long to start reading her. at the moment, I'm about to finish off Lilith's Brood.

I also would love to know the brief reason for each selection. If I were making such a list I'd be unable to withhold at least a few thoughts on those books I felt most passionately about. Thank you for making the list on listopia. Though it didn't go as planned, it's a valuable resourse for future reading ideas now that it has so many books on it.

Interesting list. As some others have said, I would take away some books, and add others. :)

A book most often submitted as a must-read and extremely influential particularly for African American's is Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro. Has anyone read It? Should it have made the list?

Columbus wrote: "A book most often submitted as a must-read and extremely influential particularly for African American's is Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro. Has anyone read It? Should it have ma..."

Yes, and yes!

Wilhelmina, I've never read that one but I intend to. Hopefully, very soon.

A book that I thought should have made the list and is still so relevant 55 years after its release is E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie: The Book That Brought the Shock of Self-Revelation to Middle-Class Blacks in America. So topical, so significant!

A book most often submitted as a must-read and extremely influential particularly for African American's is Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro. Has anyone read It? Should it have made the list?

Actually it did end up making a list--the reader's choice list they published as a follow up: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07...

Mamabelle wrote: "A book most often submitted as a must-read and extremely influential particularly for African American's is Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro. Has anyone read It? Should it have ma..."

Awesome! Some of my favorite books were listed as reader's choice. :)

Mamabelle wrote: "A book most often submitted as a must-read and extremely influential particularly for African American's is Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro. Has anyone read It? Should it have ma..."

Some good books on this list as well. A couple of them I'm unfamiliar with. Thanks, Mamabelle!

Hmmm. I wish they included a rationale for why certain books were chosen. Not that I disagree, but I think it would have been more effective if they had highlighted some of the reasons why people voted on those books.

Columbus wrote: "Huffington Post BlackVoices compiled a list of 50 Books that every African American should read. An interesting list of books encompassing various literary genres: Poetry, Fiction, Biography, Memoi..."

Thank you for sharing

Coming very late to this list, I've read fifteen and have six on the TBR. I question the lack of Larsen and Seacole.

I just listened to the I Have a Dream speech, and although we've all heard the last, rising crescendo of the speech a million times, sometimes it's good to go back and listen to the whole speech--here it is:

https://archive.org/details/MLKDream

I've also been reading "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" today, here is a good link:

http://bit.ly/1PzYoIh

Happy MLK Day. Listened to the speech just now. I know it really well because believe it or not I used to teach it in Japan! Today it felt like a call to action, especially when I got to the "fierce urgency of now" part.

For any James Baldwin fans (like me, I'm a huge fan). I've read almost everything and watched almost every youtube. Right now I am looking specifically back at when he talked about the direct effect of slavery (not just racism) on contemporary life. If you know where those references are, please let me know. In the meantime, I'm going back over the obvious places.

Abby wrote: "Audre Lorde!!! How could this list not include her?"

Audre Lorde is on the list.


I guess I would add Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois. It is quietly celebrating 100 years this year (2020), but needs to be read by a whole lot more people. Might rank with No Name in the Street by James Baldwin as the most underrated book of essays ever.