Books were a way to escape from anything that I had going on in my life. If I were sad, hurt, or angry, reading would calm me and make me happy. I loved being able to read a book and get sucked into the world of the characters. I would even insert myself in the book as one of the characters. I felt they needed me when I read them doing something crazy. Books were my safe haven at one point, and as I have gotten older, I’ve noticed that now I don’t rely on books to be an escape as much anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve become more confident in myself, or I’m starting to know who I am. I don’t read as much as I used to, and that has made me sad. I used to run to books and even got my friends in school to read with me; now I pick up a book maybe every two months when I used to read three or more books a month.
With that being said, I still lose myself in a library or book store, and I still consider myself a lover of all books-fiction, nonfiction, action, romance, crime, and murder. I never paid attention to if any of the authors of the books I would read were White, Black, or Hispanic. With books I never saw color, I only saw the words and the story that I would lose myself in. National Book Lovers Day was yesterday, August 9th, and I thought maybe I should start reading some more books by my people to support and uplift Black authors. So, I’ve created a list of 13 books you should read by Black authors.
- Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
- We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
- You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
- Waiting To Exhale by Terry McMillan
- Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
- Â Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale HurstonÂ
- The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming The American Dream by Barack Obama
- Becoming by Michelle Obama
