4 Bestselling Poetry Books
Period: September/October - 2023
The African American Literature Book Club’s Bestsellers List has been published continuously since 1998. It celebrates the bestselling titles from our curated selection of books written by or about Black people. Learn More below.
★ New: The BLK Bestsellers: America’s Bestselling Books
Fiction:
Voices of the Harlem Renaissance makes our bestsellers list for the 19th time! Only 7 other books have accomplished this feat.
Nonfiction:
Edited by Jericho Brown How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill; debuted on at #3 on our list and now tops the nonfiction list.
Children’s Books:
Jelani’s Key by D. Amari Jackson was the top selling book of all titles this period, largely on the strength of sales during a book signing at Sankofa Bookstore and Cafe on October 28th.
Poetry:
Poetry sales were topped by Life On Mars: Poems by Tracy K. Smith, the 12-year-old collection of poems won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
More About our Bestsellers List
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You will learn about books selling well in the Black community that may never show up on lists published by corporate entities. Spread the word about our list; don’t let one or two lists, which we don’t control, determine which books are important.
We collect our bestselling titles from all our sales channels. The majority of our sales come from this website and our in-person events. We also include sales generated through our affiliate relationships, including Bookshop.org, Libro.fm (audiobooks), and Amazon.com*.
*For a few years, we actively boycotted Amazon but have discontinued this practice to ensure we do not exclude authors who are exclusive to that platform. We still discourage exclusivity but support all Black authors.