1.  Browngirl, Brownstones – Paule Marshall
2.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
3.  Segu – Maryse Conde
4.  The Secret of Gumbo Grove – Eleanora Tate
5.  No Easy Place To Be – Steven Corbin
6.  Long Distance Life – Marita Golden
7.  Sweet Whispers Brother Rush – Virginia Hamilton
8.  Assata – Assata Shakur
9.  Are You There God It’s Me Margaret – Judy Blume
10.  The Known World – Edward P. Jones
11.  Lillith’s Brood – Octavia Butler
12.  The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
13.  Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
14.  A Farewell To Arms – Ernest Hemingway
15.  The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
16.  Homegirls and Hand Grenades – Sonia Sanchez
17.  El Barrio –
18.  Ego Tripping – Nikki Giovanni
19.  Nejma – Nayirrah Waheed
20.  Bone – Ysra Daley Ward
21.  Blood Dazzler – Patricia Smith
22.  Brutal Imagination – Cornelius Eady
23.  John Crow’s Devil – Marlon James
24. Graceland – Chris Abani
25.  The Warmth of Other Suns – Isabel Wilkerson
26.  Teaching My Mother To Give Birth – Warsan Shire
27.  Durango Street – Frank Bonham
28.  Black Girl in Paris – Shay Youngblood
29.  Like Trees, Walking – Ravi Howard
30.  The Bhagadavita
31.  Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi
32.  The Friends – Rosa Guy
33.  Altogether Elsewhere – Marc Robinson, ed.
34.  The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseni
35.  The Alchemist – Paulo Coehlo
36.  37.  Caucasia – Zadie Smith
38.  Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
39. The Art of War – Sun Tzu
40.  The Autobiography of Malcom X
41.  The Simple Stories – Langston Hughes
42. Chicago Poems – Carl Sandburg
43. Krik Krak – Edwidge Danticat
44.  The Missing Piece – Shel Silverstein
45. Zeely – Virginia Hamilton
46. The Prince – Machiavelli
47. The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
48. Graceland – Chris Abani
49. Cane – Jean Toomer
50. Sundiata