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Black Fiction

Cover of the book The white boy shuffle
The white boy shuffle
By Paul Beatty.
A slapstick satire on race relations featuring Gunnar Kaufman, a black writer from Santa Monica who becomes famous by saying all the right things whites want to hear. The novel pokes fun at both blacks and whites. A first novel.
Cover of the book Perfect Peace
Perfect Peace
By Daniel Black.
When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, "You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain't what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon' be a boy." From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.
Cover of the book The sexy part of the Bible
The sexy part of the Bible
By by Kola Boof.
Following in the footsteps of her idols Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, Kola Boof asserts her own literary prowess with a chilling sociopolitical love story.
Cover of the book Sisters and husbands
Sisters and husbands
By Connie Briscoe.
"In this sequel to Sisters and lovers, we follow Beverly through her struggle for love, happiness, and the ability to truly commit"--Provided by publisher.
Cover of the book A cold piece of work : a novel
A cold piece of work : a novel
By Curtis Bunn.
Forced to reconsider his womanizing lifestyle after discovering that he has fathered a child with a woman he left heartbroken, a man finds himself seeking forgiveness and is further challenged by discouraging news about his best friend.
Cover of the book The impeachment of Abraham Lincoln
The impeachment of Abraham Lincoln
By Stephen L. Carter.
In an alternate history novel, Lincoln escapes assassination by John Wilkes Booth only to face impeachment, and Abigail Canner, a young black woman involved in his defense, helps investigate the murder of the president's counsel.
Cover of the book Till you hear from me : a novel
Till you hear from me : a novel
By Pearl Cleage.
Just when it appears that all her hard work on Barack Obama's presidential campaign is about to pay off with a White House job, thirty-five-year-old Ida B. Wells Dunbar finds herself on Washington, D.C.'s post-election sidelines even as her twentysomething counterparts overrun the West Wing. She returns home to Atlanta, and her controversial civil rights icon father, Reverend Horace A. Dunbar.
Cover of the book Life is short but wide
Life is short but wide
By J. California Cooper.
In the early twentieth century, Irene and Val build a life for themselves in Wideland while also allowing neighbors Bertha and Joseph to live on their land, and the two families cope with changing times and fortunes.
Cover of the book The dew breaker
The dew breaker
By Edwidge Danticat.
Story of a man known as a "dew breaker," a Haitian torturer, whose past crimes lie beneath his new American reality.
Cover of the book Chasing destiny
Chasing destiny
By Eric Jerome Dickey.
Known on the streets for her beauty and impressive motorcycle, Ducati discovers that she is pregnant just before her boyfriend decides to return to his wife, a situation that is complicated by an attempt on Ducati's life.
Cover of the book Pride of Carthage : a novel of Hannibal
Pride of Carthage : a novel of Hannibal
By David Anthony Durham.
A saga set against the backdrop of the ancient Punic Wars describes Hannibal's struggle against the Roman Republic, his decision to attack Rome via a land route deemed impossible, and the young Roman military leader who defeated him.
Cover of the book Half-blood blues
Half-blood blues
By Esi Edugyan.
The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there's more to the journey than he thought.
Cover of the book I am not Sidney Poitier : a novel
I am not Sidney Poitier : a novel
By Percival Everett.
The novel follows the life of a young man named Not Sidney Poitier, after he was orphaned at age eleven and inherited a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.
Cover of the book What Mother never told me
What Mother never told me
By Donna Hill.
"Raised in the Delta by her grandmother, Parris McKay has the voice of an angel and the promise of a bright, loving future with the man she adores. But everything Parris believes about her life is rocked to the core when she discovers that Emma, the mother she believed dead, is very much alive. Compelled to discover the roots of this decades-long deception, Parris goes in search of her mother in France, but the meeting only opens old wounds for them both. Hurt and disillusioned, Parris finds solace in two new friends, Leslie and Celeste. Both have difficult relationships with their own mothers, and both, like Parris, are coming to terms with a legacy of long-buried secrets. And as Emma returns to the States, spurring unexpected revelations, the bond that Parris, Leslie and Celeste forge will sustain them on a journey from heartbreak to healing" --Cover, p. 4.
Cover of the book Old habits die hard
Old habits die hard
By LaJill Hunt.
At a prestigious nail salon, the toughest nail techs and make-up artists share their romantic adventures, including Yaya, a diva who believes she has found love with a blue collar man, and Taryn, whose new crush has a few dark secrets.
Cover of the book Middle passage
Middle passage
By Charles Johnson.
A freed slave escapes his bad debts in New Orleans by stowing away on a slave ship en route to Africa.
Cover of the book The known world
The known world
By Edward P. Jones.
When a plantation proprietor and former slave--now possessing slaves of his own--dies, his household falls apart in the wake of a slave rebellion and corrupt underpaid patrollers who enable free black people to be sold into slavery.
Cover of the book Silver sparrow : a novel
Silver sparrow : a novel
By by Tayari Jones.
A story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families, the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters, the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle, she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another's lives. At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers--think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye--Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women, just not as their mothers.
Cover of the book Big machine : a novel
Big machine : a novel
By Victor LaValle.
Scraping out an existence as a New York bus porter, recovering addict and suicide cult survivor Ricky Rice is inducted into a band of paranormal investigators who share his experience of having heard voices that may have a divine source.
Cover of the book The cutting season : a novel
The cutting season : a novel
By Attica Locke.
When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate's manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie's history, which leads her to a centuries old mystery involving the plantation's slave quarters--and her own past.
Cover of the book Song yet sung
Song yet sung
By James McBride.
A tale set against a backdrop of slave rights conflicts in the nineteenth-century Chesapeake Bay region finds young runaway Liz Spocott inadvertently inspiring a slave breakout from the attic prison of a notorious slave thief.
Cover of the book The twelve tribes of Hattie
The twelve tribes of Hattie
By by Ayana Mathis.
The story of an African American family held together with a mother's grit and monumental courage.
Cover of the book Getting to happy
Getting to happy
By Terry McMillan.
A sequel to "Waiting to Exhale" picks up fifteen years later to find Savannah contemplating divorce, Bernadine succumbing to painkiller addiction after a second husband's swindle, Robin falling into shopaholism, and Gloria confronting profound change after a fateful event.
Cover of the book God ain't through yet / Mary Monroe.
God ain't through yet / Mary Monroe.
By
A poignant and passionate new novel featuring lifelong friends Annette Goode Davis and Rhoda O'Toole-- two women whose best intentions don't always yield the best results. This time around, Annette is devastated when one of her greatest fears comes true-- and there may be nothing she can do about it...
Cover of the book Beloved : a novel
Beloved : a novel
By by Toni Morrison ; [with a new foreword by the author].
Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement. After the Civil War ends, Sethe longingly recalls the two-year-old daughter whom she killed when threatened with recapture after escaping from slavery 18 years before.
Cover of the book All I did was shoot my man
All I did was shoot my man
By Walter Mosley.
When Zella Grisham is accused of both shooting her boyfriend and stealing more than six million dollars from the Rutgers Assurance Corp., Leonid McGill investigates, while his own family life begins to unravel around him.
Cover of the book The women of Brewster Place
The women of Brewster Place
By Gloria Naylor.
The stories of seven Black women living in an urban ghetto evoke the energy, brutality, compassion, and desolation of modern Black America.
Cover of the book Wench : a novel
Wench : a novel
By Dolen Perkins-Valdez.
Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It's their open secret. Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don't bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory--but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change.--From publisher description.
Cover of the book Single mama's got more drama
Single mama's got more drama
By Kayla Perrin.
This single mama's been through hell -- her cheating and still-married fiance is dead, her professional reputation is in tatters, the man she really loves walked out of her life and, worst of all, she's about to lose her fabulous South Beach condo to a conniving bitch.
Cover of the book A distant shore
A distant shore
By Caryl Phillips.
From the acclaimed author of "The Nature of Blood" and "The Atlantic Sound" comes a masterful new novel set in contemporary England about an African man and an English woman whose hidden lives are revealed in their fragile, fateful connection.
Cover of the book The darkest child
The darkest child
By Delores Phillips.
Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Her ten children are mostly light, too. They constitute the only world she rules and controls. Her power over them is all she has in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe. Rozelle favors her light-skinned kids, but Tangy Mae, 13, her darkest-complected child, is the brightest. She desperately wants to continue with her education. Her mother, however, has other plans. Rozelle wants her daughter to work cleaning houses for whites, like she does, and accompany her to the "Farmhouse," where Rozelle earns extra money bedding men. Tangy Mae, she's decided, is of age. This is the story from an era when life's possibilities for an African-American were unimaginably different.
Cover of the book The reverend's wife : a novel
The reverend's wife : a novel
By Kimberla Lawson Roby.
Maintaining a cordial relationship with the unfaithful Charlotte while planning a divorce when their son graduates from high school, the Reverend Curtis Black resists his wife's efforts to reconcile and considers a proposition by a woman who desperately wants to marry him.
Cover of the book Third girl from the left
Third girl from the left
By Martha Southgate.
Three generations of African-American women--Tamara, her mother Angela, and her grandmother Mildred--find their lives and destinies linked across time by the power and influence of the movies, from the 1920s to the present day.
Cover of the book Cane River
Cane River
By Lalita Tademy.
Follows four generations of African American women, from slavery to the early twentieth century, as they struggle for economic security and the future of their families along the Cane River in rural Louisiana.
Cover of the book Salvage the bones : a novel
Salvage the bones : a novel
By Jesmyn Ward.
Enduring a hardscrabble existence as the children of alcoholic and absent parents, four siblings from a coastal Mississippi town prepare their meager stores for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina while struggling with such challenges as a teen pregnancy and a dying litter of prize pups.
Cover of the book The color purple : a novel
The color purple : a novel
By by Alice Walker.
Set in the period between the world wars, this novel tells of two sisters, their trials, and their survival.
Cover of the book The man in 3B : [a novel] / ;
The man in 3B : [a novel] / ;
By Carl Weber.
"Meet Darryl Graham, or as his new neighbors in Jamaica, Queens call him, The Man in 3B. He is the man every woman wants and every man wants to be, so inquiring minds want to know. Unfortunately, in Darryl's world, what you know can hurt you, and when he winds up dead, those inquiring minds become the prime suspects"--Provided by the publisher.
Cover of the book Sag Harbor : a novel
Sag Harbor : a novel
By Colson Whitehead.
Benji, one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan, tries desperately to fit in, but every summer, he and his brother, Reggie, escape to the East End of Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals has built aworld of is own.

APL Recommends Blog

Saturday, May 18
Two Hundred Years of Mr. Darcy!
by: debbie.schneekloth

Many of you may know that this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice.  Austen wrote the novel in 1797-98, originally calling it First Impressions.  Her father attempted to have it published, but the manuscript was rejected.  It was not until her first novel, Sense and Sensibility was published in 1812 that Pride and Prejudice was accepted.  By that time, another author had published their novel called First Impressions.  Austen found another title for her book from a quote in fellow female author Fanny Burney’s novel, Cecila.  Thus Pride and Prejudice was born.   The novel was an instant success and has proved to be her most popular novel.

While we know much about her life from records and her own letters, there are aspects of her life of which we know nothing because her sister destroyed letters after the author’s death in 1817 in order to protect family privacy.  Scholars and authors can only speculate what the subjects of those letters were and what dimensions they could have added to our understanding of Jane Austen.  

By Jane Austen:

Jane Austen's Letters by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice (DVD) Miniseries starring Colin Firth

Based on Jane Austen:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance -- Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Seth Grahame-Smith

The Pemberley Chronicles: A Companion Volume to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Rebecca Ann Collins

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Lost in Austen (DVD) Miniseries starring Jemima Rooper

Pride and Prescience, Or, A Truth Universally Acknowledged: A Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery by Carrie Bebris

 

 

 

Friday, May 17
The Best Thing About Books You Hate
by: betsey.blanche

The Twitter feed “Fake Library Stats” recently tweeted “After complaining the pituitary glands of 63% of librarians secrete a hormone that is necessary to keep them alive.” Sure, there’s a stereotype that we librarians like to complain but we can also be overwhelmingly positive when it comes to resources we offer. And I’m about to be super positive about the fact that I just read a library book and did not enjoy it at all.

The Library’s Graphic Novel Book Club just finished reading and discussing Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden. In Garden, a large group of people with strange masks and costumes on explore a strange garden and describe what they see in terse sentences. That goes on for 300 pages in which none of the characters are developed and nothing really happens in a conventional plot kind of way. As a result, I was feeling nervous before the meeting. I couldn’t think of a single productive thing to say about it. Worse, I was reminded of a frustrating, non-library book club meeting I’d attended to discuss Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in which most participants could only comment on the weirdness of the novel. Was that going to be me?! After finishing the reading all I could think was, “Huh. Well. I just don’t . . . What?! I don’t get it. It’s weird.” Neither articulate nor a good way to start a conversation.  I felt like I was missing something. But this is one of the best things to happen to a book club because it this case everyone felt the same way and was more than willing to talk about how much they disliked the reading experience and why. It turns out this makes for a much more fruitful conversations than when everyone unanimously enjoys a book. In those cases all you can do is say, “yeah, it was good. I liked the art and the characters and the story. Yup.”

I’m willing to consider the possibility that I really just didn’t get it. So give it a try for yourself and see! Maybe ask some friends to read it too. It might result in a heated debate if one of you loves it. Or, you might just have a pleasant time complaining about how annoying it was. Either way is pretty fun. 

Side note: Graphic Novel Book Club is free and open to the public. We meet on the third Wednesday of every month at Jo's Coffee Downtown and you can find our reading list on the Events page of the Library's website. 

Thursday, May 16
Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See
by: carolyn.rogers

The 2010 novel Anthill is a fictional account of an Alabama backwoods boy who grows up to be a Harvard lawyer fighting to save the woodlands of his childhood, the West Nokobee Tract at the edge of William Ziebach National Forest. It is a privately owned tract of longleaf pine savanna. It becomes his secret place and he bicycles into it every chance he gets to escape his parent's troubled marriage. The woodlands and the national forest are fictional but the ecology is not. Longleaf pine forests are the most diverse ecosystem in North America, with 500 species per square kilometer. In the novel, the eminent Harvard biologist  E.O. Wilson tells a southern coming-of-age story while persuading Americans, and especially Southerners, to protect our vanishing natural environment and wildlife.

E.O Wilson also wrote the forward to Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See: A New Vision of North America's Richest Forest which offers 11 essays on these forests, including numerous photographs that cultivate appreciation for the beauty of the tree itself; of the unique species it supports; and of the breathtaking landscape it creates.

Longleaf pine savanna is one of the only ecosystems that is both forest and meadow. The book reveals this dynamic system in panoramic images of golden light filtering through trees and illuminating long grasses beneath. And there's no shortage of close-ups.  Longleaf was once so common that it was hardly remarked upon, and ecologists are only now beginning to understand the forest that once covered 90 million acres of North America and now covers only 3 million acres, some of it in Texas. The final sections of the book detail potential restoration solutions for the longleaf that remains. Longleaf is not a story of loss, but one of deep reverence for the grandeur and mystery of these regions.

Using your Austin Public Library card you can read both books together.

Wednesday, May 15
Book Your Summer
by: christina.chiarchiaro

Summer time in Austin, Texas cannot be defined by the temperature outside. If it were, then we wouldn't have a Fall or Spring. Instead, universities, teachers, parents, and especially students define it by the months-long reprieve from the daily obligations of school.  Retailers and restauranteurs mark Summer as when the tourists come to town. For festival goers it is the time between SXSW and ACL. For myself, I like to honor its arrival by joining the Summer Reading Program at my neighborhood branch of the library. Because I continue to work full time during that period of the calendar I can't necessarily devote more time to reading. Therefore, I have adopted my own personal challenge. Each year I have a goal to use the summer months to try a genre I don't normally read. Last year it was graphic novels and the year prior was nonfiction. In doing so, I discovered that I rather enjoy graphic novels and that they include so much more than superheroes. I also learned that I mentally focus much better on nonfiction material when I listen to it rather than read it, especially when it's read by an enthusiastic and passionate author or actor. So far my favorite of these is Michael Pollan, most notably known for Omnivore’s Dilemma, and who has a new one out soon I look forward to trying. I haven't decided yet on this year's genre, but it will undoubtedly be a mind opening experience. The pretty great thing about APL is that no matter which subject matter or material type I choose, I will have tons of titles from which to pick. The other awesome thing about summer reading in Austin is being part of the Summer Reading Program. It is a great way to inspire kids to join the youth summer reading program and encourage people all over town to read by showing off your progress. I have seen whole families come in to pick out items they planned to read together. Now that makes me excited about summer!

Wednesday, May 15
Stream Independent Films with IndieFlix
by: amy.mullin

IndieFlix logoIf you're a fan of film festivals and out-of-the-ordinary movies, you'll love IndieFlix. It offers over 4,500 features, shorts, and documentaries from independent filmmakers hailing from all corners of the globe. Entries from film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, SxSW, and the Austin Film Festival are highlighted. All you need to watch is an Austin Public Library card and a broadband Internet-connected device.

You can watch a film’s trailer, add a film to your queue for later viewing, view it immediately on a device, or watch it on your TV with a Roku or XBox. You can search for films by title or browse films by channel. You can limit films according to length, country of origin, festival, genre, or age range. These films are not rated by the MPAA, so viewer discretion is advised.

The IndieFlix registration process is pretty easy. If you’ve already signed up for Zinio, you can use the same email and password to login to the IndieFlix landing page. You will be directed to the IndieFlix page where you need to register with them directly (You can use the same email address and password that you used on the landing page). But that’s it! Then you're ready to browse the movies and start watching. No checkouts, returns, or deletions from your device. Multiple users can watch the same film on different devices at the same time.

Steps to sign up:

1. You will need to create a login at the landing page (aka RB Digital Gateway) first.

2. You will receive a confirmation email for this login. Please verify your account by clinking the link in the email. You can return to the landing page and login again. A pop-up Notice will appear. You will need to check the box and click "Continue" to get to the IndieFlix page.

3. On the IndieFlix page, you need to create another login. You can use the same email and password that you did on the landing page.

4. On the IndieFlix page, you can search for films, or browse by genre, mood, length, and rating. Click on the movie to watch the trailer or full feature. You can also click on the + sign to add to your queue for later viewing.

 

There are links to a Help page and an FAQ at the bottom of the IndieFlix site that can help you with most issues. Also, Customer Support is available via email: indieflix@recordedbooks.com

Grab some popcorn, and stream some films that you won't see anywhere else.

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Cover of the book The art of fielding : a novel
The art of fielding : a novel
By Chad Harbach.
"At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big-league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended."--from publisher's description.
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