We all need a good book to read.

During the pandemic quarantine, ACW compiled a list of book suggestions from community members in various genres. Find your next favorite read right here.

Favorite Books by Black Authors

  • Fiction:
    • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Oliver Halasz)
    • Kindred by Octavia Butler (Carolyn Koestner)
    • Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi (Baylee Annis)
    • A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Lisa Bramen, Nathalie Thill)
    • An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (Lisa Bramen)
    • Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (Baylee Annis, Carolyn Koestner)
    • The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Carolyn Koestner, Nathalie Thill)
    • Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Baylee Annis, Nathalie Thill)
    • How to Escape a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique (Nathalie Thill)
  • Nonfiction:
    • We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Carolyn Koestner)
    • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (Carolyn Koestner)
    • On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A’Lelia Perry Bundles (Carolyn Koestner)
    • Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall (Carolyn Koestner)
    • How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (Carolyn Koestner)
    • The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore (Carolyn Koestner)
      Becoming by Michelle Obama (Carolyn Koestner)
  • Poetry:
    • Bury My Clothes by Roger Boniar-Agard (Nathalie Thill)
    • Bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward (Baylee Annis)
    • 1919 and Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing (Baylee Annis)
    • Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (Baylee Annis)
    • DayliGht by Roya Marsh (Baylee Annis)
    • Hum by Jamaal May (Nathalie Thill)
    • Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith (Nathalie Thill)

Fiction

  • 4321 by Paul Auster (Holly Wolff)
  • The Storytellers Secret by Sejel Badani (Holly Wolff)
  • Arthur & George by Julian Barnes (Nathalie Thill)
  • The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure (Lee Keet, Holly Wolff)
  • Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist (Oliver Halasz)
  • The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Holly Wolff)
  • American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (Holly Wolff)
  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Rich Frost)
  • Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (Holly Wolff)
  • Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Holly Wolff)
  • Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman (Sarah Cohen)
  • The World to Come by Dara Horn (Nathalie Thill)
  • Century Trilogy by Ken Follett (Holly Wolff)
  • Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff (Nathalie Thill)
  • Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (Galen Halasz)
  • The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson (Holly Wolff)
  • The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish (Holly Wolff)
  • Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Holly Wolff)
  • Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link (Nathalie Thill)
  • Wolf Hall trilogy: The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (Betsy Folwell)
  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Holly Wolff)
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Huston (Rich Frost)
  • Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Nathalie Thill)
  • Animal Farm by George Orwell, Graphic Novel (Linda Cohen)
  • The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (Sarah Cohen)
  • Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (Galen Halasz)
  • Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (Baylee Annis)
  • Kingkiller Chronicle Trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss (Holly Wolff)
  • My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell (Lee Keet)
  • Pas Pleurer by Lydie Salvayre (Erin Cass)
  • Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (Holly Wolff)
  • Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Holly Wolff)
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Holly Wolff)
  • Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (Baylee Annis)
  • Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Nathalie Thill)
  • Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (Nathalie Thill)
  • The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (Oliver Halasz)

Fiction – Middle Grade

  • The Secrets of Droon series by Tony Abbott (Oliver Halasz)
  • The Unicorn Princesses series by Emily Bliss (Oliver Halasz)
  • Freddy the Pig series by Walter R. Brooks (Oliver Halasz)
  • The Secret Rescuers series by Paula Harrison (Oliver Halasz)
  • Zita the Spacegirl series by Ben Hatke (Oliver Halasz)
  • The Mouse Mansion series by Karin Schaapman (Oliver Halasz)

Mystery

  • Authors: Michael Connnelly (John Ernst), Alexander Martin Cruz Smith (Daniela Gitlin), Elizabeth George (Sarah Cohen, Holly Wolff), Tony Hillerman (John Ernst), Donna Leon (Lee Keet), Louise Penny (Sarah Cohen, Holly Wolff), Thomas Perry (John Ernst), Terry Pratchett (Daniela Gitlin), Donald Westlake (Daniela Gitlin)
  • The Safety Net by Andrea Camilleri (Lee Keet)
  • Laura by Vierra Caspberry (Erin Cass)
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John le CarrĂ© (Jack Heinz)
  • The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (Jack Heinz)
  • Medicus by Ruth Downie (Daniela Gitlin)
  • Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (Tanya Roy)
  • The Polish Officer by Alan Furst (Jack Heinz)
  • The Cuckoo is Calling by Robert Galbraith (Holly Wolff)
  • The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (Jack Heinz)
  • Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household (Jack Heinz)
  • Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon (Jack Heinz)
  • The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz (continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series) (Charles Cass)
  • Women Crime Writers by various authors, Library of America (Erin Cass)
  • Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz (Daniela Gitlin)
  • Trick or Treat Mystery by Leslie Meier (Erin Cass)
  • Tell Me Lies by J.P. Pomare (Tanya Roy)
  • In the Bleak Winter by Julia Spencer Flemming (Lee Keet)
  • The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Jack Heinz, Lee Keet)
  • Guard series by Sam Vine (Daniela Gitlin)
  • Inspector Bruno series by Martin Walker (Holly Wolff, Lee Keet)
  • The Keep by Paul Wilson (Cintia Cara)

Young Adult (YA)

  • Michigan vs. The Boys by Carey S. Allen (Maggie Hayes)
  • Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (Simon Thill)
  • Caraval by Stephanie Garver (Jessica McGovern)
  • Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs by Tristan Gooley (Maggie Hayes)
  • Turtles All the Way Down by John Greene (Jessica McGovern)
  • The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice & Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (Jessica McGovern)
  • Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir (Baylee Annis)
  • Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Maggie Hayes)
  • Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (Lucy Thill, Jessica McGovern)
  • Bone Gap by Laura Ruby (Lucy Thill)
  • Revengeful by V.E. Schwaub (Simon Thill)
  • Arc of a Scythe Trilogy by Neal Shusterman (Nathalie Thill)
  • Daughter of Smoky & Bone Trilogy by Laney Taylor (Nathalie Thill, Simon Thill)
  • The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (Simon Thill)
  • I Am the Messenger and The Book Thief by Markus Zukas (Baylee Annis)

Nonfiction

  • The Body by Bill Bryson (Betsy Folwell)
  • Working by Robert Caro (Sarah Cohen)
  • There is No Stopping Us Now by Gail Collins (Sarah Cohen)
  • Merchants of Doubt by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes (Holly Wolff)
  • Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Holly Wolff)
  • The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich (Jim Gould)
  • Janet Frame: An Autobiography by Janet Frame (Holly Wolff)
  • Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales (Jim Gould)
  • Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwyn (Holly Wolff)
  • Rebel Cinderella by Adam Hochschild (Linda Cohen)
  • A Country Year by Sue Hubbell (Jim Gould)
  • Einstein by Walter Isaacson (Holly Wolff)
  • The Feather Thief by Kirk W. Johnson (Linda Cohen, Betsy Folwell)
  • Over The Mountain and Home Again: Journeys of an Adirondack Naturalist by Edward Kanze (Oliver Halasz)
  • The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson (Lee Keet)
  • Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore (Dorothy Federman)
  • Radium Girls: The Dark Story of American’s Shining Women by Kate Moore (Rich Frost)
  • Persist and Pursue by Pierre Nzuah (Lee Keet)
  • BirdNote by Emily Poole, Ellen Blackstone (Linda Cohen)
  • Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe (Dorothy Federman)
  • Gulp. by Mary Roach (Betsy Folwell)
  • Book of Migrations by Rebecca Solnit (Andrew Kelly)
  • The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey (Linda Cohen)
  • The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson (Gary Smith)
  • The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester (Sarah Cohen)
  • The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf (Betsy Folwell)

Poetry

  • The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven by MairĂ©ad Byrne
  • Earth Science by Sarah Green
  • 1919 by Eve Ewing (Baylee Annis)
  • Black Book of Poems by Vincent Hunanyan (Maggie Hayes)

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