I love using my blog to keep track of my own reading habits. I recently joined a Book Club on Instagram called Diverse Classics that, obviously, celebrates Diverse Classics. The creator (never_withouta_book) posted a list of 100 Diverse Classics that she put a ton of time and energy into creating. Much of the diverse classics I’m hoping to read came from that list but there are certain authors I would like to read every book by so I’ve made a few additions.
You should all give Diverse Classics a follow on Instagram! I have linked them.
The following are Diverse Classics I would like to read (I’ve put a check next to the ones I’ve read):
Chinua Achebe 1. Things Fall Apart (1958) √ 2. No Longer at Ease (1960) 3. Arrow of God (1964) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 4. Americanah (2013) √ Julia Alvarez 5. In the Time of Butterflies (1994) 6. Before We Were Free (2002) Maya Angelou 7. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) √ 8. Gather Together in My Name (1974) 9. Singin' and Swingin' and and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976) 10. And Still I Rise (1978) 11. The Heart of a Woman (1981) 12. All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986) James Baldwin 13. Go Tell it On a Mountain (1953) 14. Notes of a Native Son (1955) 15. Giovanni's Room (1956) √ 16. Another Country (1962) 17. The Fire Next Time (1963) 18. If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) Jorge Luis Borges 19. On Argentina (2010) Gwendolyn Brooks 20. A Street in Bronzeville (1945) 21. Maude Martha (1953) 22. Annie Allen (1972) Claude Brown 23. Manchild in the Promised Land (1965) William Wells Brown 24. Clotel: or, The President's Daughter(1853) Octavia Butler Patternist Series 25. Patternmaster (1976) 26. Mind of My Mind (1977) 27. Survivor (1978) 28. Wild Seed (1980) 29. Clay's Ark (1984) Xenogenesis Series 30. Dawn (1987) 31. Adulthood Rites (1988) 32. Imago (1989) 33. Xenogenesis (1989) 34. Lilith's Brood (2000) Parable Series 35. Parable of the Sower (1993) 36. Parable of the Talents (1998) 37. Kindred (1979) Alice Callahen 38. Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1997) Wu Cheng'en 39. The Journey to the West (1592) Alice Childress 40. Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life (1986) Sandra Cisneros 41. The House on Mango Street (1984) Pearl Cleage 42. What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day (1997) Ta-Nehisi Coates 43. Between the World and Me (2015) √ Paulo Coelho 44. The Alchemist (1988) Edwidge Danticat 45. Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) Angela Y. Davis 46. An Autobiography (1974) 47. Women, Race, and Class (1981) 48. Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) 49. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle (2015) W.E.B. Du Boise 50. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) Alexandre Dumas 51. The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) 52. The Three Musketeers (1844) 53. Twenty Years After (1845) 54. The Vicomte de Bragelonne (1847) 55. The Red Sphinx: A Sequel to The Three Musketeers (1866) Ralph Ellison 56. Invisible Man (1952) Louise Erdrich 57. Love Medicine (1984) 58. Jacklight (1984) 59. The Beet Queen (1985) 60. Tracks (1988) 61. The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year (1995) 62. Tales of Burning Love (1996) 63. The Antelope Wife (1998) Frantz Fanon 64. Black Skin, White Masks (1952) 65. The Wretched of the Earth (1961) Jessie Redmon Fauset 66. The Chinaberry Tree (1931) Ernest J. Gaines 67. A Lesson before Dying (1993) Nikki Giovanni 68. Black Feeling, Black Talk / Black Judgement (1970) Alex Haley 69. Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1979) Lorraine Hansberry 70. A Raisin in the Sun (1959) Chester Himes 71. If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) Bell Hooks 72. All About Love: New Visions (1999) 73. Salvation: Black People and Love (2001) 74. Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) Langston Hughes 75. The Ways of White Folks (1934) Zora Neale Hurston 76. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) James Weldon Johnson 77. Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson (2000) Gayl Jones 78. Corregidora (1975) Yasunari Kawabata 79. Thousand Cranes (1952) Elizabeth Keckley 80. Behind the Scenes (1868) Jamaica Kincaid 81. Annie John (1985) 82. A Small Place (1988) 83. Lucy (1990) Nella Larsen 84. Quicksand (1928) 85. Passing (1929) Camara Laye 86. The Dark Child (1954) Andrea Levy 87. Small Island (2004) Mario Vargas Llosa 88. The Time of the Hero (1962) Alain LeRoy Locke 89. The New Negro (1925) Audre Lorde 90. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) 91. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984) Paule Marshall 92. Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959) Ayana Mathis 93. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (2012) James McBride 94. The Color of Water (1996) Nathan McCall 95. Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America (1994) Bernice McFadden 96. Sugar (2000) Claude McKay 97. Home to Harlem (1928) Louise Meriwether 98. Daddy was a Number Runner (1970) Toni Morrison 99. The Bluest Eye (1970) √ 100. Sula (1973) 101. Song of Solomon (1977) 102. Tar Baby (1981) 103. Beloved (1987) 104. Jazz (1992) 105. Paradise (1997) Walter Mosley 106. Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) Siddhartha Mukherjee 107. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010) Gloria Naylor 108. The Women of Brewster Place (1982) 109. Mama Day (1988) 110. Bailey's Cafe (1992) 111. Linden Hills (1985) 112. The Men of Brewster Place (1998) Solomon Northup 113. Twelve Years a Slave (1853) Chinelo Okparanta 114. Under the Udala Trees (2015) Ann Petry 115. The Street (1946) 116. The Narrows (1973) José Rizal 117. Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not) (1887) Zitkala-Ša 118. American Indian Stories (1921) George S. Schuyler 119. Black No More (1931) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 120. Don Quixote (1605) Assata Shakur 121. Assata: An Autobiography (1987) Ntozake Shange 122. For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (1975) Naoya Shiga 123. A Dark Night's Passing (1962) Murasaki Shikibu 124. The Tale of Genji (1008) Mildred D. Taylor 125. Song of the Trees (1975) 126. Roll of Thunder, Hear Me Cry (1976) Zadie Smith 127. White Teeth (2000) Rabindranath Tagore 128. The Home and the World (1916) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o 129. The River Between (1965) 130. A Grain of Wheat (1967) Wallace Thurman 131. The Blacker the Berry (1929) Jean Toomer 132. Cane (1923) Amos Tutuola 133. The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) Alice Walker 134. You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories (1971) 135. Meridian (1976) 136. The Color Purple (1982) Margaret Walker 137. Jubilee (1966) Jesmyn Ward 138. Where the Line Bleeds (2006) 139. Salvage the Bones (2011) 140. Men We Reaped (2013) 141. The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race (2016) √ Booker T. Washington 142. Up From Slavery (1900) Ida B. Wells-Barnett 143. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (1970) Dorothy West 144. The Living is Easy (1948) 145. The Wedding (1995) 146. The Richer, the Poorer (1995) Phillis Wheatley 147. Complete Writings (2001/1700s) Isabel Wilkerson 148. The Warmth of Other Suns (2010) August Wilson 149. Fences (1986) Harriet Wilson 150. Our Nig (1859) Richard Wright 151. Uncle Tom's Children (1936) 152. Native Son (1940) 153. Black Boy (1945) 154. The Outsider (1953) Malcolm X 155. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) Lu Xun 156. The True Story of Ah Q (1918)
Out of the 156 books on the list, I have only read 6 of them so I have a lot of work to do! I’m not sure how long it will take me but I can’t imagine it will be a quick process.
I will try to do regular updates! Any that I should prioritize?
