Black History Month 2025

"From the author of The Violin Conspiracy and Symphony of Secrets comes a mesmerizing page-turner about a young Black musical virtuoso at the peak of his career who's forced into hiding when his family runs afoul of a ruthless international cartel-and uses his music to fight back. Curtis Wilson is a classical music prodigy. Playing since the age of five, he is that rare performer who, through sheer force of will and phenomenal talent, has clawed his...

Sommy, a Nigerian woman comes to the United States for graduate school two weeks after her brother, Mezie, attempts suicide. Plagued by the guilt of leaving Mezie behind, Sommy struggles to fit into her new life as a student and an immigrant. Lonely and homesick, Sommy soon enters a complicated relationship with her boisterous Nigerian roommate, Bayo, a relationship that plummets into deceit when Sommy falls for Bryan, a biracial American, whose estranged...

"A dazzling, unforgettable novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system--a debut that announces a blazingly original voice. Kiara Johnson and her brother Marcus are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex that calls itself, optimistically, the Regall-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while...

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR TAYARI JONES "How can a novel's social criticism be so unflinching and clear, yet its plot moves like a house on fire? I am tempted to describe Petry as a magician for the many ways that The Street amazes, but this description cheapens her talent... Petry is a gifted artist." - Tayari Jones, from the Introduction The Street follows the spirited Lutie Johnson, a newly single mother whose...

When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."

"In this moving debut novel, two estranged siblings must set aside their differences to deal with their mother's death and her hidden past -- a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her famous black cake. In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with...

"Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman. It's fair to say that Maddie's life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson's. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. When her...

"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 families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and...

"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 Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath...