20 Bestselling Fiction Books for July/August - 2020

AALBC’s Bestselling Book SealOur bestsellers list has been published continuously since 1998. Learn More ▶

Fiction: Novelist d. E. Rogers earned the #1 spot on our fiction bestsellers with with his debut novel, Black States of America: Real Black Power. Perennial AALBC favorite author Octavia Butler, makes our bestsellers list for the 3rd time with Parable of the Sower.

Nonfiction: Nonfiction sales have been strong all summer, outselling all other bestseller categories combined. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo was the overall bestselling book. First-time nonfiction bestsellers include, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla Saad.

Children’s Books: A Black Woman Did That by Malaika Adero leads in the sales of all children’s books, while Whose Knees Are These? by Jabari Asim continues to be the bestselling board book on AALBC.

Poetry: The Collected Poems Of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010, the 2013 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Winning Book for Poetry, is the only bestselling book of poetry this period.

View a printer-friendly version and a collage of the book covers. Also, check out links to more great books. Enjoy

#5

Book cover of The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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#7

Book cover of The Stolen Daughter by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

The Stolen Daughter

by ReShonda Tate Billingsley

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#14

Book cover of Homegoing: A Novel by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing

by Yaa Gyasi

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#15

Book cover of Blessings: A Novel by Sheneska Jackson

Blessings

by Sheneska Jackson

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#17

Book cover of Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved

by Toni Morrison

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#18

Book cover of Binti (#1) by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti (#1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

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More About our Bestsellers List


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), Black History 365 Education, and Amazon.com*.

We aggregate all formats of a book sold (print, ebook, and audio) into one format, usually the most popular print format

*For a few years, we actively boycotted Amazon but have discontinued this practice, as many of our authors have made their books exclusively available from Amazon. While we discourage giving Amazon the exclusive right to sell a book, we do not want this to be a reason to exclude an author from our site. Amazon also has an effective monopoly on eBooks and out-of-print books, which we highlight on this site.


The Most Critically Acclaimed Books

Bestselling Books By Year May be Found Here

Our All-Time Bestselling Books May be Found Here