All 98 Bestselling Books for Full Year - 2023

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Click Headings Below for a the List of Bestselling Books with Images. View a collage of these titles.

25 Bestselling Fiction

  1. Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham
  2. Swimming in Cotton by Lawrence Deron Thomas
  3. Behold the Dreamers: A Novel by Imbolo Mbue
  4. Voices of the Harlem Renaissance: Originally Published as The New Negro an Interpretation by Alain Locke and Introduction by Troy Johnson
  5. Intermission by Phyllis R. Dixon
  6. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
  7. Running to Fall: A Novel by Kalisha Buckhanon
  8. Killens Review of Arts & Letters (Fall / Winter 2021) by Clarence V. Reynolds
  9. Sex Therapy by Shaun Sinclair
  10. Dr. No by Percival Everett
  11. The Coming by Daniel Black
  12. Black Girl Lost by Donald Goines
  13. Killens Review of Arts & Letters (Fall / Winter 2022-2023) by Clarence V. Reynolds
  14. midnight & indigo Issue 7: celebrating black women writers by Ianna A. Small
  15. Jackal by Erin E. Adams
  16. Fool Me Thrice: Money Changes Everything by Dean Conan
  17. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
  18. Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown
  19. Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
  20. The Talk by Darrin Bell
  21. Coleman Hill (hardcover): A Biomythography by Kim Coleman Foote
  22. The Thing about Home by Rhonda McKnight
  23. Alice in Dreamland by Roland S. Jefferson
  24. Homegoing: A Novel by Yaa Gyasi
  25. Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

27 Bestselling Nonfiction Books

  1. Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
  2. Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America! by Ronald Dalton Jr.
  3. Only for the Brave at Heart: Essays Rethinking Race, Crime, and Justice by Leon E. Pettiway
  4. Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot
  5. CROWNED: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora by Kahran and Regis Bethencourt
  6. How White Folks Got So Rich: The Untold Story of American White Supremacy by Reclamation Project
  7. The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain and Reclaiming Their Power by Robin L. Smith and Courtney B. Vance
  8. Black on Black: On Our Resilience and Brilliance in America by Daniel Black
  9. In Spite of the Consequences: Prison Letters on Exoneration, Abolition, and Freedom by Lacino Hamilton
  10. The Jewish Onslaught: Despatches from the Wellesley Battlefront by Tony Martin
  11. I Love My People by Kim Singleton
  12. Searching for Agabus: Embracing Authenticity and Finding Your Way to You by Michael Walrond
  13. Black Labor, White Wealth : The Search for Power and Economic Justice by Claud Anderson
  14. The Gospel according to James Baldwin: What America’s Great Prophet Can Teach Us about Life, Love, and Identity by Greg Garrett
  15. The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin
  16. Reparations on Fire: How and Why it’s Spreading Across America by Nkechi Taifa
  17. White Fear: How the Browning of America Is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds by Roland S. Martin
  18. It Hurts to Lose a Special Person: Grieving the Death of One You Love by Amy Ross Mumford
  19. Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances by Kwame Alexander
  20. New Dimensions in African History by John Henrik Clarke
  21. Black History: An Inclusive Account of American History by Walter Milton, Jr. and Joel A. Freeman
  22. Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice by Denisha Jones and Jesse Hagopian
  23. The ISIS Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing
  24. Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote-A History, a Crisis, a Plan by Eric Holder
  25. A Black History Reader: 101 Questions You Never Thought to Ask by Claud Anderson
  26. How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill by Jericho Brown
  27. Don’t Let Them Bury My Story: The Oldest Living Survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre in Her Own Words by Viola Ford Fletcher

25 Bestselling Children’s Books

  1. I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes
  2. Bright Eyes, Brown Skin by Cheryl Willis Hudson and Bernette Ford
  3. The Making of Butterflies by Zora Neale Hurston and Adapted by Ibram X. Kendi
  4. Repeat After Me: Big Things to Say Every Day by Jazmyn Simon and Dulé Hill
  5. Cornrows (2023) by Camille Yarbrough
  6. I Want to Be Big! by Tiffany Golden
  7. Treasure Island (hardcover): Runaway Gold by Jewell Parker Rhodes
  8. Something, Someday by Amanda Gorman
  9. Shining Legacy: Storypoems for the Young, So Black Heroes and Heroines Forever Will Be Sung by Nkechi Taifa
  10. I Am Rosa Parks (Penguin Young Readers, Level 4) by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins
  11. An American Story by Kwame Alexander
  12. My Red, White, and Blue by Alana Tyson
  13. A Flag for Juneteenth by Kim Taylor
  14. Black Mother Goose Book by Elizabeth Murphy Oliver
  15. The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country by Amanda Gorman
  16. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
  17. C is for Curly by Markita Staples-Green
  18. Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton
  19. Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi
  20. Remember Us by Jacqueline Woodson
  21. Little Rosetta and the Talking Guitar: The Musical Story of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Woman Who Invented Rock and Roll by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow
  22. Jelani’s Key by D. Amari Jackson
  23. Sailing Commitment Around the World with Captain Bill Pinkney by Bill Pinkney
  24. Black Girls by Dominique Furukawa
  25. Dream Big, Little Leader by Vashti Harrison

21 Bestselling Poetry Books

  1. Life On Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
  2. Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans
  3. Leadbelly by Tyehimba Jess
  4. Dream of a Word: The Tia Chucha Press Poetry Anthology by Quraysh Ali Lansana and Toni Asante Lightfoot
  5. Mother Love: Poems by Rita Dove
  6. Afrodisia;: New poems by Ted Joans
  7. Heroism in the New Black Poetry: Introductions and Interviews by D. H. Melhem
  8. Three Pieces by Ntozake Shange
  9. Never As Strangers by Laini Mataka
  10. The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry by Arnold Rampersad and Hilary Herbold
  11. Blessing The Boats: New And Selected Poems 1988-2000 (American Poets Continuum) by Lucille Clifton
  12. Hipology: Horizons in Poetry by Ron Alle and Stella Crews
  13. Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
  14. Black Poetry by Dudley Randall
  15. Collected Poems: 1974–2004 by Rita Dove
  16. 1919 by Eve L. Ewing
  17. Above Ground by Clint Smith
  18. On The Imperial Highway: New And Selected Poems by Jayne Cortez
  19. Side Notes from the Archivist: Poems by Anastacia-Reneé
  20. Magic City by Yusef Komunyakaa
  21. S O S: Poems 1961-2013 by Amiri Baraka