11 Books by Black authors releasing in October
TheGrio...
Black Book Threads is a thing just in time for major new releases by Black authors.
There’s a lot for the Black Book community to be excited about right now.
From major new releases arriving today and through the rest of this month to the emergence of Black Book Threads on the Meta platform as an official topic, the Black Book lovers are so up right now.
On Monday, Oct. 5, just in time for major releases to hit shelves and soon become topics of conversation online and elsewhere, users started noticing that Black Book Threads, with its sideways triangle made out of three Meta-blue dots, had arrived. Since its arrival, users have been celebrating, setting the ground rules—only discuss Black authors, preferably who center Black characters, for one—and doing what Black book lovers do best: discussing books.
“#1 rule in the black book threads streets is black authors only. Thank ya!” one user, @aysiiiaaaa wrote under the new tag.
Another user, @jordyn2_gorgeous, added, “Don’t go posting on book threads and wondering why they in our business. We have a home now.”
After many began crediting the popular book content creator Dr. Jaleesa Reads for its creation she quickly chimed in, expressing her appreciation while giving credit where it’s really due.
“The most beautiful sight…….I appreciate all the love and shoutouts BUT we all did this!!!! So shoutout to all of us….WE HEREEEEEEEE,” she wrote.
The arrival of Black Book Threads couldn’t have come at a better time. Fall is already a very popular time for book lovers to crack one open. October also has lots of major releases arriving now through the end of the month. From dark comedies about family curses, to romcoms about the summer, to rousing memories from figures like D.L. Hughley, to pensive essay collections and more, we round up 11 books by Black authors arriving in the month of October.
“The Occidental Book of the Dead” by T. Geronimo Johnson (Oct. 6)
Billed as a darkly funny literary crime novel, “The Occidental Book of the Dead” by T. Geronimo Johnson follows George Washington Jonson, a Black cop who, after building a life with his white wife in a quiet Atlanta suburb, finds his carefully woven alliances with whiteness start to unravel after a violent encounter with a white teenager sets off a chain of events.
“Notes on a Backlash” by April Ryan (Oct. 6)
Veteran White House Correspondent April Ryan knows a thing or two about going viral. In “Notes on a Backlash,” she revisits moments from her career that caused her to go viral, including an infamous one involving President Donald Trump, and reveals, with gripping vulnerability, what it’s really like to be seen.
“Charlie’s Boy” by D.L. Hughley (Oct. 6)
Legendary comedian D.L. Hughley takes readers back to where it all started, like never before, in “Charlie’s Boy,” his new memoir that offers an intimate look at his upbringing in South Central LA, his life as a member of the Bloods gang, and how humor became his saving grace.
“Friends and Family” by Natalie Baszile (Oct. 6)
Natalie Baszile, the author of “Queen Sugar,” returns with the novel “Friends & Family,” which explores the boundaries of family and interracial friendship when two mothers who happen to be best friends living in the Bay Area, one Black, the other white, but both with Black children, experience a traumatizing police encounter involving their children that leaves them more divided than ever.
“It’s Only Dancing” by Jasmine Guillory (Oct. 6)
Summer may be well gone, but New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory is bringing us right back to it with her debut YA novel, “It’s Only Dancing.” The “Dirty Dancing” inspired romcom follows Kat during the summer before her senior year as she’s forced to spend it at a summer camp with her family in the desert, where she finds herself tempted to bust a move with a handsome young staffer named Jordan.
“The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Oct. 6)
In Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s debut novel, “The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford,” we find ourselves in 1920s Tulsa, Oklahoma, some time after the Tulsa Massacre during the height of Prohibition and on the verge of the Great Depression, when Richard Milford, an infamous moonshiner and womanizer, ends up murdered. The top suspects: his four wives, who take readers for one wild ride as their stories begin to emerge.
“Back” by Lauren Michele Jackson (Oct. 13)
Lauren Michele Jackson explores one of the most metaphorized parts of the human body, the back, in her new essay collection, “Back.” Spanning a wide range of topics from bodybuilding to ballet to “Gone With the Wind,” and more, Jackson reveals how bodies and the stories we create around them shape culture.
“Hanging & Burning: A King Oliver Novel” by Walter Mosley (Oct. 20)
The prolific Walter Mosley returns with the latest installment in the gritty crime King Oliver series, “Hanging & Burning: A King Oliver Novel,” only this time, on a mission for a notorious L.A. gangsta, Arman Babylon, Joe King Oliver embarks on a quest across America’s coasts in search of a missing woman, unraveling a layered and complicated family past.
“The Hollow Sound of Lightweight Bodies” by Unathi Slasha (Oct. 20
Follow Mxabanisi Bulawayo, a 20-something crematorium worker and obituarist whose life is upended after the death of his grandmother under mysterious circumstances, launches him on a plot to figure out what happened, what’s real vs what’s a rumor, in the darkly funny comedy, “The Hollow Sound of Lightweight Bodies,” by Unathi Slasha.
“The Book of Menopause: Real Talk, Real Science, Real Strategies for the Next Chapter” by Oprah Winfrey and editors of O, The Oprah Magazine (Oct. 26)
After her primetime talk special with experts and other luminaries around the topic of menopause, Oprah Winfrey and the editors of O, The Oprah Magazine are keeping the conversation going with “The Book of Menopause: Real Talk, Real Science, Real Strategies for the Next Chapter.”
“Cursed Daughters” by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Oct. 27)
In the latest by Oyinkan Braithwaite, “Cursed Daughters,” which has already been called a “Best Book of the Year” by NPR, Time, an USA Today, a young woman named Eniiyi who has the misfortune of being born on the same day her cousin dies, must do what she can to stave off a family curse and fight the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, novel about love, female rivalry, family obigailtion, superstition, inherited trauma and so much more.