She’s been on Obama and Oprah’s reading lists and awarded prestigious literary prizes. She’s published several novels, including bestseller An American Marriage. If you enjoy Tayari Jones’s work, consider adding these excellent selections to your reading list.

Kin by Tayari Jones

First, the long-awaited new release from Tayari Jones has arrived! Bound by being motherless daughters, Vernice and Annie have been best friends since they were kids. One, raised by a fierce aunt, steps into an affluent community of powerful Black women. The other, determined to find her mother, remains stuck in the past, searching for answers on a dangerous journey. Set in the American south, this book is Jones’s first delve into historical fiction and you won’t want to miss it.

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Maame by Jessica George

Overwhelmed by caring for her ailing father, dealing with a difficult boss, and resenting her mother who travels to Ghana as often as possible, Maddie decides it’s time for a change. She’s 25 and ready to do all the things she’s been putting off: moving out to start, internet dating, and advancing in her career. Maame is a beautiful coming-of-age story about finding peace with family and culture, confronting racism, and figuring out where you belong.

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Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

A wealthy New England black family, the only one in the neighborhood, loses their 15-year-old in a home robbery gone wrong. Twenty years later, Ebby reckons with the loss of her brother. A tragic but love-filled story, Good Dirt examines the impact of family heritage and growth after loss.

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Devil is Fine by John Vercher

When a biracial man discovers he’s inherited an old slave plantation from his white grandfather, he has to contend with his past and contemplate his future. An exploration of grief and family history, this story of transformation will leave you thinking long after you’ve closed the book.

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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Set in a community of two disparate cultures, this epic tale is centered by a murder mystery, and examines how a Jewish community and a Black community come together to survive their oppressors. The writing and characters are unique, vibrant, and colorful, and the message of community is inspirational.

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Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

As Lara spends the pandemic lockdown with her three adult daughters on the family cherry farm, she recounts what happened during a long past summer where she dated a now-famous actor. It’s a beautiful story of family and seeing people how they really are. Reading this ponderous and meandering book feels like a date night that goes into the wee hours, never running out of things to say or desire to be together.

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Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

The perfect book for your book club to analyze, this story follows an African-American author on a book tour across the country. While he’s not the most reliable narrator, any confusion along the way is made quite clear at the revelatory ending. Hell of a Book plays with ideas of community and race in a mystical, heartbreaking, and profound manner.

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Long After We Are Gone by Terah Shelton Harris

As a group of siblings come together to mourn their father and save their family home, they each must face secrets from the past and sins of their present lives, deciding what is important and what they can let go.

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How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair

This memoir about the author’s strict Rastafarian upbringing will inspire you as you read about the author’s journey to overcome the suffocating and even violent environment of her childhood. Sinclair illuminates a world of patriarchy and oppression not well-known, but all too easy to understand. With education as rebellion, Sinclair’s story will inspire and move you.

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Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson

Set in the aftermath of WWII and dealing with themes of family, race, love, and loss, this story examines the plight of mixed-race children born in Germany, after their black fathers left the war to go home. Based on the true story of the “Brown Baby Plan” of the 1950s, the novel brings to light an emotional and unfamiliar story from American history.

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Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

A poignant journey of life after loss, this beautifully written novel is about Eve, who recently lost her husband to suicide, and how she grapples with despair and uncertainty. She struggles to connect with her mother-in-law, who grieves her son much differently from Eve. In spite of the sad topic, the book inspires hope and will leave you with a sense of gratitude and wonder.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon