Over the years I have found that recommending books to others can often be a thankless endeavor. Sometimes the books are hits and other times not. Please realize, then, that some of the books listed here may not suit YOUR reading tastes. Whatever problems I may have had with some of these books aside, my final criterion for listing them here was an affirmative answer to the question: was this book worthy of the time spent in reading it? Happy reading!

Fiction Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier 1997 National Book Award for Fiction Middle Passage by Charles Johnson 1990 National Book Award for Fiction The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Sula by Toni Morrison Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison 1978 National Book Critics Circle Award Beloved by Toni Morrison 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Mama Day by Glory Naylor Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright Bailey's Cafe by Gloria Naylor Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair Good Hair by Benilde Little Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa Sisters&Lovers by Connie Briscoe Annie John by Jamaica Kinkaid Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper Mama Rose by Bernadene High Coleman Oxherding Tale by Charles Johnson Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden The Wedding by Dorothy West Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor The Men of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

Non-Fiction Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose (1996) Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1997) The Shaping of Black America, 2nd Ed. by Lerone Bennett, Jr. Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin (1998) American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (1997) 1997 National Book Award for Non-Fiction Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin (1962) Black Boy by Richard Wright (autobiography) Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball (1998) 1998 National Book Award for Non-Fiction George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal by Fritz Hirschfeld (1997) Africans in America : America's Journey Through Slavery by Charles Johnson, Patricia Smith (1998) The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang (1997) Arguing about Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress by William Lee Miller (1996) Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography Joshua A. Fogel, editor (2000) Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower (1999) 1999 National Book Award Winner 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War by George Hicks (1995) Lies My Teachers Told Me by James W. Loewen (1995) Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-1945 and the American Cover-up by Sheldon H. Harris (1994) Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder (1998) Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix (2000) 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography/Autobiography Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II by Yuki Tanaka (1996) Dust Tracks on the Road by Zora Neale Hurston Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis (2000) 2001 Pulitzer Prize in History

Academic The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1988)

Reading In Progress Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year by David Ewing Duncan (1998) Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity by Masahiro Yamamoto (2000)

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last updated: June 3, 2003
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