Earlier this month, I got into a testy professional conversation with an online colleague who was bemoaning how colleges/universities are no longer permitted to teach the dead white guy literary canon because diversity, or something equally stupid. It pissed me off. Not only is that claim patently untrue, but it also denigrates the many brilliant writers who don’t happen to be white males (dead optional). So next year’s personal reading will be an all-female and POC affair. I asked my Facebook friends, a blend of lifelong friends, writers, former students, and teacher colleagues if they had suggestions. Boy howdy, did they! Some of these I’ve read, some of these I teach, but many of these are new to me. I’m fortunate to have so many well-read friends. Here are their suggestions, divided by author names and specific titles. Names may appear on both lists. Hope you find something you’d like to try next year as well!

AUTHORS

Chiminanda Ngozi Adichie
Margaret Atwood
Claire Battershill
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Octavia Butler
Ally Carter
Edwidge Danticat
Lawrence Hill
Langston Hughes
Beverly Jenkins
Tayari Jones
Maxine Hong Kingston
Jhumpa Lahiri
Vincent Lam
Gabriel García Marquez
Sharyn McCrumb
Toni Morrison
Bharati Mukherjee
Haruki Murakami
Joyce Carol Oates
Heather O’Neill
Louise Penny
Marge Piercy
Lee Smith
Zadie Smith
Amy Tan
Kim Thuy
Miriam Toewes
Alice Walker

TITLES

After by Marita Golden
Almanac of the Dead, by Leslie Marmon Silko
Americanah by Chiminanda Ngozi Adichie
The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich
Art by Yasmina Reza
Ash by Malinda Lo
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Back of the Turtle by Thomas King
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Marquez
Circus by Claire Battershill
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toewes
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale
The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toewes
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez
Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chiminanda Ngozi Adichie
Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headmaster’s Wager by Vincent Lam
His Wives’ Cats by Mahmoud Shukair
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
The Illegal by Lawrence Hill
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King
Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Island of Eternal Love by Daína Chaviano
Itchy Brown Girl Seeks Employment by Ella DeCastro Baron
Joplin’s Ghost by Tananarive Due
The Jumbie Bird by Ismith Khan
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Law of Love by Laura Esquivel
Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Lime Tree Can’t Bear Orange by Amanda Smyth
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill
The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Mordechai’s Mustache by Mahmoud Shukair
Orleans by Sherri L. Smith
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
Purple Hibiscus by Chiminanda Ngozi Adichie
A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
Ru by Kim Thuy
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
So Far from God by Ana Castillo
Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes by Kathleen Alcala
The Stars Change by Mary Anne Mohanraj
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart
A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb
Swing Low: A Life by Miriam Toewes
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
To Sir, With Love by E. R. Braithwaite
The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative by Thomas King
The Way the Crow Flies by Anne-Marie MacDonald
The Wedding by Dorothy West
The Well-Dressed Ape by Hannah Holmes
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafar
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
You Learn by Living by Eleanor Roosevelt

La Lettre by Abraham Solomon, 1843