18 books like If Beale Street Could Talk

What to read after If Beale Street Could Talk — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Little Green Walter Mosley · 2013 · ★ 4.5 · 291p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Surviving a near-fatal car wreck and cruising the streets of the Sunset Strip during the heyday of the late 1960s, Easy Rawlins investigates the disappearance of a young African-American, a case that is complicated by Rawlins's changing perspectives. Shares: African American men, African Americans

Yellow Wife Sadeqa Johnson · 2021 · ★ 4.4 · 288p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with… Shares: African American fiction, Prisons, African Americans

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick Zora Neale Hurston · 2020 · ★ 4.3 · 192p · ≈ 6h · Moderate From “one of the greatest writers of our time” (Toni Morrison)—the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God—a collection of remarkable stories, including eight “lost” Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time. New York Times’ Booksto Watch forBuzzfeed’sMost Anticipated BooksNewsweek’sMost Anticipated BooksForbes.com’sMost Anticipated BooksE!’sTop… Shares: African American fiction, African Americans, New york

The man in my basement Walter Mosley · 2004 · ★ 3.7 · 249p · ≈ 8h · Moderate The man at Charles Blakey's door has a proposition almost too strange for words. He wants to spend the summer in Charles's basement, and Charles cannot even begin to guess why. The beautiful house has been in the Blakey family for generations, but Charles has just lost his job and is behind on his mortgage payments. The money would be welcome. But Charles Blakey is black and Anniston Bennet is… Shares: African American men, African American fiction, African Americans

In love & trouble Alice Walker · 1973 · 138p · ≈ 4h · Moderate The desires and fears of the American black woman are explored with compassion and understanding in these thirteen short stories. Admirers of The Color Purple will find in these stories more evidence of Walker's power to depict black women-women who vary greatly in background yet are bound together. Dating back to the early 1970s and 1980s, respectively, these short stories cover the Pulitzer… Shares: African American fiction, African Americans

Invisible Man Ralph Ellison · 1952 · ★ 3.9 · 450p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Invisible Man is the story of a young black man from the South who does not fully understand racism in the world. Filled with hope about his future, he goes to college, but gets expelled for showing one of the white benefactors the real and seamy side of black existence. He moves to Harlem and becomes an orator for the Communist party, known as the Brotherhood. In his position, he is both… Shares: African American men, African Americans

Redbone Ron Stodghill · 2006 · ★ 4.2 · 256p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Lance Herndon was at the top of his game in 1996. At age forty-one he was a self-made millionaire, the owner of Access, Inc., a successful information-systems consulting company. As a prominent member of Atlanta's young, wealthy, and powerful set, he was surrounded by black Atlanta's "beautiful people." But when he failed to show up for work one day, friends and family started to worry. Their… Shares: African American men, African Americans

Dirty Jersey Phillip Thomas Duck · 2008 · 253p · ≈ 8h · Moderate A chance encounter with Fiasco, one of the hottest rappers around, gives Eric Posey entry into a world where he is suddenly cool and has access to anything he's ever wanted, for the price of his sister, Kenya. Shares: African American fiction, African Americans

Soul kiss Shay Youngblood · 1997 · ★ 4.0 · 207p · ≈ 6h · Moderate Left by her mother in the care of her aunts at the age of seven, Mariah dreams of her mother's return and of the father she has never met, eventually beginning a correspondence with him that leads to a tumultuous visit when she turns fourteen. A first novel. Shares: Noirs américains, African Americans

All God's Children Aaron Gwyn · 2020 This sweeping novel set in the province of Texas is "a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life [and] the vicious influence of racism" (The New York Times).Finalist for the Reading the West Book Award for Fiction In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, sets out to join the American army in the province of Texas, hoping that here he may live—and love—as he… Shares: Noirs américains, African Americans

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (Easy Rawlins Mysteries) Walter Mosley · 1990 · ★ 4.0 · 219p · ≈ 7h · Moderate Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins has few illusions about the world--at least not about the world of a young black veteran in the late 1940s in Southern California. His stint in the Army didn't do anything to dissuade him from his belief that justice doesn't come cheap, especially for men like him. "I thought there might be some justice for a black man if he had money to grease it," Easy says. Fired… Shares: African American men, African Americans

Native Son Richard Wright · 1940 · ★ 4.1 · 420p · ≈ 14h · Challenging Native Son (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s. ---------- Also contained in: Early Works Shares: African American men, African Americans

I am Mary Dunne Brian Moore · 1966 · ★ 3.7 · 231p · ≈ 7h · Moderate From the award-winning author of 'The Colour of Blood', this is the story of Mary Dunne. Mary has had several past lives and more than one husband - her true nature is revealed in this brilliant exploration of female desire and sexuality. Shares: New york, Romance & Relationships

Paradise Toni Morrison · 1997 · ★ 4.4 · 336p · ≈ 11h · Moderate "Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their honeymoons. Two brothers shot each other on New Year's Day. Trips to Demby for VD shots common. And what… Shares: Noirs américains, African Americans

Music in African American Fiction Robert H. Cataliotti · 2018 · 271p · ≈ 9h · Moderate Originally published in 1995, The Music of African American Fiction is a historical analysis of the tradition of representing music in African American fiction. The book examines the impact of evolving musical styles and innovative musicians on black culture as is manifested in the literature. The analysis begins with the slave narratives and the emergence of the first black fiction of the… Shares: Noirs américains, African Americans

Mama Day Gloria Naylor · 1988 · ★ 4.2 · 312p · ≈ 10h · Moderate Mama day is about many things. It's the story of Ophelia and George two black American's and how they fall in love in try to reconcile their differences of upbringing and culture. It's about the dying culture of Gullah on the Georgia sea islands and it is even a reworking of Shakespeare's Tempest. Shares: African American fiction, African Americans

Delilah Shelia M. Goss · 2011 · ★ 4.9 · 346p · ≈ 11h · Moderate Thirty and fine, Samson Judges is preacher of the Peaceful Rest Missionary Baptist Church . He's beloved by his congregation, but temptation is about to strike in the form of divalicious beauty Delilah, and only the Good Lord knows if Samson will be able to keep his head on straight with her. Especially considering he's about to be married to Julia Rivers. Julia helped shape Samson into the man… Shares: African Americans, Romance & Relationships

The Dead Room Heather Graham · 2007 · ★ 4.0 · 384p · ≈ 12h · Moderate A year ago, archaeologist Leslie MacIntyre barely survived the explosion that took the life of her fiance, Matt Connolly. In the long months since, she’s slowly come to terms not only with her loss but with her unsettling new ability to communicate with ghosts, a dubious “gift” received in the wake of her own brush with death.Now she’s returned to lower Manhattan’s historic Hastings House, site… Shares: New york, Romance

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