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The AALBC's Favorite 100 African American
Books of the 20th Century

Back to Titles 1 - 20

Rank

Title

% of
Total

80

The Women of Brewster PlaceThe Women of Brewster Place - Gloria Naylor

The women of Brewster Place are "hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased". In their stories, Gloria Naylor has created a community of women that has touched thousands of readers across the country. Now the basis for a November 1988, ABC-TV, three-hour movie, starring Oprah Winfrey.

0.34%

81

Bessie - Chris Albertson
(The publisher is out of stock.)

Out of Print Sale
Condition: FINE/VG. FIRST EDITION. WITH FRONTISPIECE PHOTO OF BESSIE SMITH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN (1936). RICHLY ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOS THROUGHOUT.
Format: Hardcover / First Edition / Dust Jacket
Associated Dealer: JULIAN'S BOOKS   New York, NY
Price: $105.00 (as of January 1999)

0.29%

83

Black BoyBlack Boy: (American Hunger) - Richard Wright

Wright's unforgettable and eloquent autobiography of growing up in the Jim Crow South offers an unsurpassed portrait of the struggles against the ingrained racism and poverty faced by African Americans.

0.29%

84

Magic CityMagic City - Jewell Rhodes Parker

Inspired by real events--the 1921 razing of the black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, after a black man was falsely accused of raping a white woman--this atmospheric, critically acclaimed novel of an American travesty reflects the powerful core of bigotry that still gnaws at our nation's heart. MAGIC CITY is an unforgettable story of two people divided by race, but forever joined by fate.

0.29%

85

Scenes From A SistaScenes from a Sistah - Lolita Files

Misty Fine and Reesy Snowden, best friends since the second grade, share at least two common goals: having fun and finding "Prince Charming". "Scenes from a Sistah" tells what happens when they embark on a series of adventures in search of "Mr. Right".

0.29%

86

The Color of LoveThe Color of Love - Sandra Kitt

Considered by many to be the foremost African American writer of romance, Kitt presents a sizzling romance that compares to The Bodyguard. Leah Downey is a talented black artist dealing with a loveless relationship. Jason Horn is a white cop trying to get over the traumas of his past. When they meet, sparks fly--but can they keep it together?

0.29%

87

What A Woman...What a Woman's Gotta Do - Evelyn Coleman

Using vivid details from her experiences as a journalist, Evelyn Colemen has created a memorable black heroine--and written a groundbreaking debut thriller about a misogynist and sinister conspiracy that threatens the world. 320 pp. National author publicity. 5-city author tour.

0.29%

88

B-Boy BluesB-Boy Blues: A Seriously Sexy, Fiercely Funny, Black-on-Black Love Story - James Earl Hardy

Mitchell Crawford always wished, hoped, and dreamed for a RUFFNECK - a hip-hop-lovin', street-struttin', cool posin', crazy crotch-grabbin' brotha. And he finally finds one in Raheim Rivers, who is a vision of lust: six feet tall and 215 pounds of mocha-chocolate muscle. Mitchell knows Raheim will take him for a walk on the wild side, especially between the sheets. But he doesn't count on getting behind Raheim's mask - and finding someone he can love.

0.25%

89

Belly Song and Other Poems - Etheridge Knight
Title currently out of Print  - Reprint date not known

0.25%

90

The Color of WaterThe Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother - James McBride

This "fascinating . . . superbly written" (Boston Globe) national bestseller tells the story of James McBride and his mother--a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a church, and put 12 children through college.

0.25%

91

Corregidora Corregidora - Gayl Jones

"Corregidora is the most brutally honest and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women"--James Baldwin. "Jones's writing powerfully blends narrative and lyricism...Her imagination seems to thrive on outstripping one's expectations" -- Margo Jefferson, Newsweek

0.25%

92

Giovanni's RoomGiovanni's Room - James Baldwin

Set in the contemporary Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. James Baldwin's brilliant narrative delves into the mystery of loving with a sharp, probing imagination, and he creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the heart.

0.25%

93

I've Been in Sorrow's.....I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots: A Novel - Susan Straight

A rich, passionate first novel featuring a strong and determined African American woman living in contemporary South Carolina. "Straight's portrayal . . . is nearly miraculous in its astonishing richness of detail . . . emotional honesty and . . . human thought and feeling".--"USA Today".

0.25%

94

In Search of...In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens - Alice Walker

A collection of 37 essays, articles, reviews, and talks.

Walker's essays would have been worthwhile reading if they simply recounted autobiographical experiences. But the essays, spanning 1967 to 1983, subtly and brilliantly detail aspects of American political and social history and Afro-American folklore and could adequately serve as an introductory course inblack women's literature. Her tributes to Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King are emotionally powerful. . . . I discovered parts of myself in Walker's Garden. Everyone should read these marvelous, thought- and feeling-provoking essays. Black women, in particular, will be uplifted, since Walker's art and life demonstrate that she loves us all so very much. -- Jewell Parker Rhodes - America

0.25%

95

JazzJazz - Toni Morrison

In the afterglow of her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Beloved, Morrison moves to even higher ground--the story of Joe Trace, a door-to-door salesman in his 50s, his mentally unstable wife, and his 18-year-old lover. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, the story captures the rhythms of the city and the bittersweet mood of African American life at a moment in our history we assumed we understood.

0.25%

96

Middle PassageMiddle Passage - Charles Johnson

From a critically acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author comes a compelling adventure that "The Seattle Times" hailed as "a work of art that is a rattling good sea yarn as well as a profound meditation on the nature of self-knowledge".

0.25%

97

Playing in the...Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination - Toni Morrison

A Pulitzer Prize-winning author illuminates the "Africanist" presence shaping the American imagination in a landmark work of literary criticism. "Morrison challenge(s) some of the most widely accepted generalizations about our literary history."--San Francisco Chronicle.

0.25%

98

PushPush - Sapphire

In an electrifying novel, a black street girl, sixteen years old and pregnant, again, with her father's child, speaks. In a voice that shakes us by its language, its story, and its unflinching honesty, Precious Jones records her journey up from Harlem's lowest depths... For Precious, miraculously, hope appears and the world begins to open up when a courageous black woman - a teacher hellbent to teach - bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary: to discover the truth of her life. Day after day they go over the pages, translating the illiterate but developing language of Precious' journals. The learning process itself, as vividly revealed as the most brutal aspects of Precious' daily existence, is the heartbeat of a novel that will disturb, galvanize, and stay in the mind.

0.25%

99

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored ManThe Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man - James Weldon Johnson

"The Autobiography's unprecedented analysis of the social causes and artistic consequences of a black man's denial of the best within himself constitutes perhaps James Weldon Johnson's greatest service to African-American culture, the 'force stronger than blood' that, unlike the ex-colored man, Johnson always revered and never deserted." -- William L. Andrews

0.25%

100

SounderSounder - William H. Armstrong

Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.

0.25%

 

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