Read On Book Club

We are all about bringing together people who love to read and who want to build a community focused on discovering and celebrating the literature of Black Writers.  

Please join us on the last Monday of the month for amazing conversations about amazing books.

January 26 – Friends and Lovers by Eric Jerome Dickey

Lifetime is adapting Eric J. Dickey’s Friends and Lovers as a two-part movie event, starring Naturi Naughton, Simone Missick, Kendrick Sampson, and RonReaco Lee.  This is a contemporary romantic drama exploring how friendship, passion, and forgiveness all collide together.

February 23 – The Vice President’s Black Wife: the Untold Life of Julia Chinn by Amrita Chakrabarti Myers  Award-winning  historian Myers has recovered the riveting, troubling, and complicated story of Julia Ann Chinn (1796-1833), the enslaved mixed-raced wife of Richard Mentor Johnson, owner of Blue Spring Farm, veteran of the War of 1812, and US Vice President under Martin Van Buren.  Johnson never freed Chinn, but during his frequent absences from his estate, he delegated to her management of his property.  This meant that Chinn, while enslaved, had substantial control over economic, social, financial, and personal affairs.  When the family left the farm, they faced steep steps moving forward, exclusion from town dances, burial in separate graveyards, and much more.

March 23 – Kin: A Novel by Tayari Jones

Bestselling author of An American Marriage has written a novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

April 27 – Calling All Blessings: A Heartwarming Novel by Beverly Jenkins

Buried family trauma, self-discovery, and forgiveness in the small fictional town of Henry Adams, Kansas.  Meet Tamar July, town matriarch who is being haunted by dreams of her humiliating wedding day, sixty years ago, when she discovered her intended, Joel Newton, was already married.  Why are these dreams coming to her now?  There are no secrets in Henry Adams, but there’s never a dull moment either.

May 25 – Bad Seeds by Mary Monroe

A warm-hearted generous businesswoman discovers her dark side when she’s betrayed by both the younger man she thought was the love of her life and her best friend she’s always trusted.

June 22nd – Plus Size Player (Book 2) by Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen wowed in Curvy Girl Summer and delivers the next book obsession in the follow up Plus Size Players.  Nina Ford doesn’t like to put all her eggs in one basket.  She works multiple jobs, she enjoys multiple hobbies, and she dates multiple men.  Inevitably, her eggs are bound to get cracked!

July 27 - Grown Women by Sarai Johnson

Four generations of complex Black women contend with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma, and the tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves.

August 24 – Hunting Ava by Kiki Swinson

In order to save her abducted children, Ava had to crossed one line too many.  Now a high-end criminal turned suburban mom in hiding must fight even more dangerous fallout from her corrupt past and from someone out to destroy her future.

September 28 – I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel by Percival Everett

From his hysterical birth to his unlikely and unofficial adoption by Ted Turner and beyond. This is a novel about belonging, identity, and the divide between poverty and wealth.  Race is an undercurrent, breaking the surface of the story periodically, pulled up by the actions and reactions of other people.  Not Sidney doesn’t think his skin color should matter.  The world tells him otherwise.

October 26 – Murder at the Wham Bam Club by Carolyn Marie Wilkins

A Psychics and Soul Food Mystery – While America’s wealthy celebrates the roaring twenties jazz age, psychic Nola Ann Jackson uses her abilities to help the Black community of Agate, Illinois, fight against crime and corruption.