Our Adult Book Picks for 2024
Have a look at our curated selection of books from black authors so far for 2024 below. They'll all be available at Black Food Bookstore & Culture Shop on or shortly after their respective release dates.
1. On Thriving
We’ve all been there: We take a pause, look at our lives, and desire more—more from our relationships, more from our wellness journeys, maybe simply more from ourselves. For some, it might be more fun, more peace, more exploration—but what does it take to get to the other side of living in survival mode? In On Thriving, Brandi Sellerz-Jackson helps us wade through what she calls the four great labors of our lives—labors that she’s had to overcome and that she has led many clients through.
2. Woke Up No Light
Leila Mottley follows her trailblazing first novel with a perfectly pitched first collection of poems that demonstrate her spark and scope. woke up no light reckons with themes of reparations, restitution, and desire. Moving in sections from “girlhood” to “neighborhood” to “falsehood” to, finally, “womanhood,” these poems are the breathing life of a Black girl as she grows into adulthood, simultaneously youthful and profound. Each poem is a searing vignette, capturing the dissonance of Black girlhood through visceral language. The collection is sharp and raw, wise and rhythmic, a combination that lights up each page. From unearthing histories to searching for ways to dream of a future in a world constantly on the brink of disaster, Mottley sets forth personal and political revelation with piercing detail.
3. The Road to the Salt Sea
Described as a searing exploration of the global migration crisis that moves from Nigeria to Libya to Italy, Kolawole ‘s novel follows its main character, Able God, who works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his “toothpaste-white smile” for wealthy guests. But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest. Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself.
4. Children of Anguish and Anarchy
Children of Anguish and Anarchy is the last novel in Adeyemi’s monumental fantasy trilogy titled Legacy of Orisha. This book continues where the last left off.
5. The Road to the Country
Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is an epic war story involving a shy, bookish student, Kunle, haunted by long-held guilt and shame, who must go to war to free himself. Kunle’s search for his brother becomes a journey of atonement that will see him conscripted into the breakaway Biafran army and forced to fight a war he hardly understands.
6. An African History of Africa
In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history – from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilisations and mediaeval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story.