How our Book Club Operates

Participation is easy. Discussions are held on the comments section of the book’s description page, near the book of the page. Feel free to join us anytime; discussions are not limited to the month the book was selected and anyone may join the conversation. 

How Books Are Selected

Starting with the August 2019 selection, books are selected, for our reading list, from a list of books suggested by our readers. Our club’s moderator, Tony Lindsay, has the final say on the books selected. He is always free to select a book of his choice. 

Whether your book is selected or not, by sharing your book recommendation will help us all discover interesting books to read.

You may suggest books for our reading list on our Black Literature Forum.  The only criteria is that the book be written by or about Black people.  All genres in fiction and nonfiction are acceptable.

Where Discussion Take Place

The discussions for each book will take place on the page describing the book (as described here).

Additional Information 

AALBC.com’s online book club, “The Coffee Will Make You Black” ran, continuously, from 1998 until 2006. The book club was moderated by Thumper. The club was briefly resurrected in 2010, when both Fiction and Nonfiction titles were selected. Unfortunately, the club was discontinued the same year.

In October of 2018, novelist, educator, avid reader, and advocate for Black literature, Tony Lindsay began running AALBC’s “The Coffee Will Make You Black online book club.” after a 8-year hiatus.

Finally, our book conversations do not have to be limited to the books on AALBC's reading list. Conversation can take place on the pages of any of the, over 13,000, books highlighted on our website.  

Please post any questions or suggestions by replying.

We have decided to open up the process of selecting the books on a reading list to readers, authors, educators, publishers, or anyone who has an interest in discussing a book on AALBC.

We are looking for suggestions for our August reading list here.  The only criteria is that the book be; written by, or about, Black people; and it should be in print and available for purchase.  All genres in fiction and nonfiction are acceptable.

The book does not need to be on AALBC.com. If the chosen book is not on AALBC.com, it will be added.

Simply reply to this post to suggest a book for August. When you suggest a book tell us why you are suggesting it; that will help us (myself and the club's moderator Tony Lindsay) chose a book from the titles suggested.

The August book will be selected from books suggested here.

1. Starting with the August 2019 selection, books will be selected for our reading list from a list of books suggested by our readers.
2. The discussion of each book will take place on the page describing the book (as described here).

Both changes are being tried in an effort to get more readers to participate in the conversations.

In fact, these types of conversations do not have to be limited to the books on AALBC's reading list. Conversation can take place on the pages of any of the over 12,000 books described on our website.  

You may suggest books for our reading list on our Black Literature Forum.  The only criteria is that the book be written by or about Black people.  All genres in fiction and nonfiction are acceptable.

Parable of the Sower was voted the #69 of the Top 100 Book of the 20th Century by AALBC visitors!

We will be discuss Parable right here, simply reply to this message (see screen shot below).  If you’ve read Parable please let us know what you thought about the book, and encourage other to share their thoughts here too..

Also read, our Book Club’s moderator, Tony Lindsay’s review of Parable.

Book Description:
"This outstanding book is a tribute to one woman but will surely speak to the experiences of many" (Kirkus) A singular memoir that tells the story of one unforgettable mother, her devoted daughter, and the life they lead in the Detroit numbers of the 1960s and 1970s

In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee borrowed $100 from her brother to run a Numbers racket out of her tattered apartment on Delaware Street, in one of Detroit’s worst sections. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis’ mother. Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, granddaughter of slaves, Fannie became more than a numbers runner: she was a kind of Ulysses, guiding both her husbands, five children and a grandson through the decimation of a once-proud city using her wit, style, guts, and even gun. She ran her numbers business for 34 years, doing what it took to survive in a legitimate business that just happened to be illegal. She created a loving, joyful home, sent her children to the best schools, bought them the best clothes, mothered them to the highest standard, and when the tragedy of urban life struck, soldiered on with her stated belief: "Dying is easy. Living takes guts."

A daughter’s moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to "make a way out of no way" to provide a prosperous life for her family — and how those sacrifices resonate over time. This original, timely, and deeply relatable portrait of one American family is essential reading.
 

More books like The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers may be found by selecting the categories below:

• Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs
• Biography & Autobiography / Women
• History / African American

Tell us what do you think about The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers.

Book Description:

Walter Mosley’s indelible detective Easy Rawlins is back, with a new detective agency and a new mystery to solve.

Picking up where his last adventures in Rose Gold left off in L.A. in the late 1960s, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins finds his life in transition. He’s ready—finally—to propose to his girlfriend, Bonnie Shay, and start a life together. And he’s taken the money he got from the Rose Gold case and, together with two partners, Saul Lynx and Tinsford “Whisper” Natly, has started a new detective agency. But, inevitably, a case gets in the way: Easy’s friend Mouse introduces him to Rufus Tyler, a very old man everyone calls Charcoal Joe. Joe’s friend’s son, Seymour (young, bright, top of his class in physics at Stanford), has been arrested and charged with the murder of a white man from Redondo Beach. Joe tells Easy he will pay and pay well to see this young man exonerated, but seeing as how Seymour literally was found standing over the man’s dead body at his cabin home, and considering the racially charged motives seemingly behind the murder, that might prove to be a tall order.

Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not, a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and his life in shambles around his feet.

Description:

“For single parents, working parents, and caregivers who worry about the time they spend away from their children, the mother of The Other Wes Moore shares strategies to raise happy, well adjusted kids.”

As the mother of Wes Moore, whose memoir about overcoming the obstacles that face a fatherless young black man was a huge bestseller, Joy is constantly asked: How did you do it? How can you be a good parent, have a career and stay healthy when you don’t have a partner to pick up the slack? How do you connect with a child when you can't always be there? Joy's answer is "presence." Specifically, seven different ways of being a force in a child’s life, ensuring that they feel your influence. We can’t always be physically there for our children, but the power of presence can help us to be a voice in the back of their minds that guides them through difficult times.

In The Power of Presence, Moore explores seven pillars of presence — heart, faith, mind, courage, financial freedom, values, and connectedness — that all parents can use to positively influence their children. Using compelling stories from women who have been there and practical advice on everything from savings accounts to mindfulness, this book is a compassionate look at what it takes to raise great kids even in less than ideal circumstances.

Book Description:

Praise Song for the Butterflies addresses “Trokosi,” the practice of sending girls to shrines as slaves to serve priests in order to protect their family from the gods’ anger. 

Book Description:

Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in America - more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society.