Black Authors

Jackal

By: Erin E. Adams

Narrated by: Sandra Okuboyejo & William DeMeritt

Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

RECOMMENDED BY GILLIAN FLYNN ON THE TODAY SHOW • A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white rust belt town. But she's not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .

“I read this thriller that is Get Out meets The Vanishing Half in one night.”—BuzzFeed

“Extraordinary . . . A terrifying tale of fears and hatreds generated by... Read more

Split Decision

By: Ice-T, Spike & Douglas Century

Narrated by: Ice-T, Spike & Douglas Century

Length: 8 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Award-winning actor, rapper, and producer Ice-T unveils a compelling memoir of his early life robbing jewelry stores until he found fame and fortune—while a handful of bad choices sent his former crime partner down an incredibly different path.

Ice-T rose to fame in the late 1980s, earning acclaim for his music before going on to enthrall... Read more

Gathering Blossoms Under Fire

By: Alice Walker

Narrated by: Aunjanue Ellis, Walker & Janina Edwards

Length: 22 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize­–winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and writer Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker’s fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades as an artist, human rights and women’s activist, and intellectual.

For the first time, the... Read more

Memphis: A Read with Jenna Pick

By: Tara M. Stringfellow

Narrated by: Karen Murray, Adenrele Ojo & Tara Stringfellow

Length: 9 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy.

“A rhapsodic hymn to Black women.”—The New York Times Book Review

“I fell in love with this family, from... Read more

Like a Sister

By: Kellye Garrett

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 11 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

In this "crackling domestic suspense" filled with "wry humor and deft pacing" (Alyssa Cole), no one bats an eye when a Black reality TV star is found dead—except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on a dangerous search for the truth.

Edgar Award Finalist for Best Novel • Lefty Award Winner for Best... Read more

Recitatif

By: Toni Morrison

Narrated by: Zadie Smith & Bahni Turpin

Length: 1 hour 54 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Nobel Prize winner—for the first time in a beautifully produced stand-alone edition, with an introduction by Zadie Smith
 
“A puzzle of a story, then—a game.... When [Morrison] called Recitatif an ‘experiment’ she... Read more

Black Love Matters

By: Jessica P. Pryde

Narrated by: Jessica P. Pryde, Gina Daniels, Julienne Irons,...

Length: 7 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

An incisive, intersectional essay anthology that celebrates and examines romance and romantic media through the lens of Black readers, writers, and cultural commentators, edited by Book Riot columnist and librarian Jessica Pryde.
 
Romantic love has been one of the most essential elements of storytelling for centuries. But for Black people in... Read more

African Town

By: Charles Waters & Irene Latham

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Ronald Peet, Andrew Eiden, ...

Length: 6 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse.

In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard a ship called Clotilda.... Read more

The Kindred

By: Alechia Dow

Narrated by: Dominique Moore & Amin El Gamal

Length: 11 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

“Utterly swoony…an endearing reminder that true love can change the world”
—J. Elle, New York Times bestselling author of Wings of Ebony

To save a galactic kingdom from revolution, Kindred mind-pairings were created to ensure each and every person would be seen and heard, no matter how rich or poor…

Joy Abara knows her place. A commoner from the... Read more

Stuntboy, in the Meantime

By: Jason Reynolds

Narrated by: Guy Lockard, Nile Bullock, Angel Pean, James Fo...

Length: 2 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

WINNER OF THE 2023 AUDIE AWARD FOR MIDDLE GRADE!
NAMED A 2023 ALA NOTABLE CHILDREN’S RECORDING!

An Odyssey Children’s Award winner
A Schneider Family Award Honor Book for Middle Grade

From Newbery Medal honoree and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes a hilarious, hopeful, and action-packed middle grade novel about the... Read more

The Perishing

By: Natashia Deón

Narrated by: Kevin R. Free & Lisa Reneé Pitts

Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

A Black immortal in 1930s Los Angeles seeks to recover the memory of her past in this visionary novel from NAACP Image Award nominee Natashia DeónLou, a young Black woman, wakes up in an alley in 1930s Los Angeles with no memory of how she got there or where she’s from. Taken in by a caring foster family, Lou dedicates herself to her education... Read more

The How

By: Yrsa Daley-Ward

Narrated by: Yrsa Daley-Ward

Length: 2 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

From the acclaimed poet behind bone, an exploration of how we can meet our truest selves, the ones we've always been meant to become

Yrsa Daley-Ward's words have resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers--through her books of poetry and memoir, bone and The Terrible; through her writing for Beyoncé on Black Is King; and through her always... Read more

My Monticello

By: Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Narrated by: Aja Naomi King, January LaVoy, Landon Woodson, ...

Length: 7 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

An AudioFile Earphones Award winner

Read by a full cast of narrators, featuring LeVar Burton and Aja Naomi King

“A badass debut by any measure—nimble, knowing, and electrifying.” —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle

"...'My Monticello' is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer... Read more

White Smoke

By: Tiffany D. Jackson

Narrated by: Marcella Cox

Length: 8 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

The Haunting of Hill House meets Get Out in this chilling YA psychological thriller and modern take on the classic haunted house story from New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson!Marigold is running from ghosts. The phantoms of her old life keep haunting her, but a move with her newly blended family from their small California... Read more

Assembly

By: Natasha Brown

Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner

Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

Abridged: No

This visionary and unflinching novel is about a black woman who has spent her life carefully navigating cutthroat worlds of privilege in her career and relationships—until one day she is pulled up short by a life and death decision.

Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Go to college, get an education, start a... Read more

The Last Nomad

By: Shugri Said Salh

Narrated by: Waceke Wambaa

Length: 9 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

A remarkable and inspiring true story that "stuns with raw beauty" about one woman's resilience, her courageous journey to America, and her family's lost way of life.

Winner of the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, Multicultural & Indigenous Category

Born in Somalia, a spare daughter in a large family, Shugri Said Salh was sent at age six to live... Read more

Skye Falling

By: Mia McKenzie

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 11 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • A woman who’s used to going solo discovers that there’s one relationship she can’t run away from in this “hilarious, electric” (The New York Times) novel, a probing examination of the complexities of family, queerness, race, and community

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER• ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston... Read more

All the Water I've Seen Is Running

By: Elias Rodriques

Narrated by: Landon Woodson

Length: 7 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Former high school classmates reckon with the death of a friend in this stunning debut novel.Along the Intracoastal waterways of North Florida, Daniel and Aubrey navigated adolescence with the electric intensity that radiates from young people defined by otherness: Aubrey, a self-identified "Southern cracker" and Daniel, the mixed-race son of... Read more

Marcus Makes a Movie

By: Kevin Hart

Narrated by: Kevin Hart

Length: 3 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Stand-up comedian and Hollywood box-office hit Kevin Hart keeps the laughs coming in a middle-grade novel about a boy who has big dreams of making a blockbuster superhero film. Perfect for readers of James Patterson's Middle School series and Lincoln Peirce's Big Nate series.
 
Marcus is NOT happy to be stuck in after-school film class . . .... Read more

Revival Season

By: Monica West

Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Length: 8 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

The daughter of one of the South’s most famous Baptist preachers discovers a shocking secret about her father that puts her at odds with both her faith and her family in this debut novel.

“Spellbinding…Revival Season should be read alongside Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.” —The Washington Post
A... Read more

I Am a Girl from Africa

By: Elizabeth Nyamayaro

Narrated by: Elizabeth Nyamayaro

Length: 9 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

A “profound and soul-nourishing memoir” (Oprah Daily) from an African girl whose near-death experience sparked a lifelong dedication to humanitarian work that helps bring change across the world.

When severe drought hit her village in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth Nyamayaro, then only eight, had no idea that this moment of utter devastation would come to... Read more

Above the Rim

By: Jen Bryant

Narrated by: Cary Hite

Length: 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Hall-of-famer Elgin Baylor was one of basketball’s all-time-greatest players—an innovative athlete, team player, and quiet force for change. One of the first professional African-American players, he inspired others on and off the court. But when traveling for away games, many hotels and restaurants turned Elgin away because he was black. One... Read more

Chlorine Sky

By: Mahogany L. Browne

Narrated by: Mahogany L. Browne

Length: 2 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A novel-in-verse about a young girl coming-of-age and stepping out of the shadow of her former best friend. Perfect for readers of Elizabeth Acevedo and Nikki Grimes.

"Mahogany L. Browne's debut YA ia an absolute masterpiece. It will leave you breathless." -Elizabeth Acevedo, New York Times bestselling author of The Poet X 

She looks me hard in my... Read more

Bevelations

By: Bevy Smith

Narrated by: Bevy Smith

Length: 8 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

From the host of the fabulous and popular show Bevelations on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy channel, Bevy Smith’s irreverent and inspiring memoir about learning to live a big, authentic, and unapologetic life—and how you can, too.

Bevy Smith was living what seemed like a glamorous dream as a fashion advertising... Read more