Black and Loved Book Club Playlist

There's Always This Year

On Basketball and Ascension

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“Using basketball as a vehicle for reflection of East Columbus history and personal memoir, There’s Always This Year is a triumph of contemplative, emotionally-rich writing that will have you wiping tears and on the edge of your seat. Read more

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

By: Tia Williams
Narrated by: Mela Lee & Preston Butler
Length: 11 hours 42 minutes

“Tia Williams you genius. Page one and Ricki feels like home - at least to me, a Black woman with ADHD who also dreams of operating a small business, so maybe she was narrow casting a bit. But the parental relationship, the banter with her sisters, the Blackness (this book is Black as hell, i mean just gorgeous, earnest, unforced Blackness all... Read more

All About Love

New Visions

By: bell hooks
Narrated by: January LaVoy
Length: 6 hours 9 minutes

“There’s nothing I can say about bell hooks that hasn’t already been said. This book is excellent and did cause me to think about love in a different way. It’s beautifully-written and philosophically brilliant. Read more

Good Women

Stories

By: Halle Hill
Narrated by: Tovah Ott
Length: 5 hours 18 minutes

"A stunning slow burn brimming with observation, emotion, and incident.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“A fantastic firecracker of a collection I'll return to again and again!” —Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
In her dynamic debut, Halle Hill’s Good Women delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the... Read more

Paradise

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 15 hours 17 minutes

"Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their honeymoons. Two brothers shot each other on New... Read more

The Changeling

A Novel

By: Victor LaValle
Narrated by: Victor LaValle
Length: 14 hours 1 minute

“Mesmerizing . . . a dark fairy tale of New York, full of magic and loss, myth and mystery, love and madness.”—Marlon James, author of the Dark Star trilogy

NOW AN APPLE TV+ SERIES STARRING LAKEITH STANFIELD • ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME

Winner of an American Book Award, a Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, a British Fantasy... Read more

Didn’t We Almost Have It All

In Defense of Whitney Houston

By: Gerrick D. Kennedy
Narrated by: Leon Nixon
Length: 9 hours 14 minutes

A candid exploration of the genius, shame, and celebrity of Whitney Houston a decade after her passingOn February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In the decade since, the world has mourned her death amid new revelations about her relationship to her Blackness, her sexuality,... Read more

Seven Days in June

By: Tia Williams
Narrated by: Mela Lee
Length: 10 hours 32 minutes

“Fans of second chances and epic teenage love will fall hard for this book. There is just so much feeling and feelings. Chemistry just crackles off the page. Read more

D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

By: Chencia C. Higgins
Narrated by: Rebecca Lee
Length: 8 hours 47 minutes

Instant I Do could be Kris Zavala’s big break. She’s right on the cusp of really making it as an influencer, so a stint on reality TV is the perfect chance to elevate her brand. And $100,000 wouldn’t hurt either. D’Vaughn Miller is just trying to break out of her shell. She’s sort of neglected to come out to her mom for years, so a big splashy... Read more

We Deserve Monuments

By: Jas Hammonds
Narrated by: Tamika Katon-Donegal
Length: 10 hours 22 minutes

What's more important: knowing the truth or keeping the peace?
When her family moves to Bardell, Georgia, on the cusp of her senior year, Avery
Anderson is uprooted from DC and thrust into the hostile home of her terminally
ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty
makes for a frosty arrival and reveals a... Read more

Royal Holiday

By: Jasmine Guillory
Narrated by: Janina Edwards
Length: 6 hours 50 minutes

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal and a “rising star in the romance genre” (Entertainment Weekly) comes a dazzling novel about a spontaneous holiday vacation that turns into an unforgettable romance.

Vivian Forest has been out of the country a grand total of one time, so when she gets the chance to tag along on her... Read more

People Person

By: Candice Carty-Williams
Narrated by: Danielle Vitalis
Length: 10 hours 4 minutes

The author of the “brazenly hilarious, tell-it-like-it-is first novel” (Oprah Daily) Queenie returns with another witty and insightful “treat” (Jesse Armstrong, creator of Succession) of a novel about the power of family—even when they seem like strangers.

If you could choose your family...you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons.

Dimple Pennington... Read more

Black Girl, Call Home

By: Jasmine Mans
Narrated by: Jasmine Mans
Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

“This collection. Have you ever closed a book and suddenly felt that all that you are, all that you've seen has somehow been made tangible through another's voice? Have you ever felt called in to let go, to be heard, and to be seen? That is what Mans has done here. I will forever hold onto the beautiful ways in which Jasmine pulls apart and gives... Read more

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

By: Dawnie Walton
Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, André De Shields, Dennis Boutsikaris, Steve West, Gabra Zackman & full cast
Length: 13 hours 16 minutes

“If you read the first twenty pages of this book and think, like I did "this seems exactly the same as Daisy Jones and the Six KEEP GOING. The way the stories are setup is similar, but Opal and Nev have a unique story that demands to be heard. Walton combines oral music history, intense relationship dynamics, and strong character development to... Read more