Choose a Book from this List of Noteworthy Books I’ve Read with Settings or Authors in

North America

Read North America
  • A House of My Own, Sandra Cisneros
  • A Mercy, Toni Morrison
  • A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
  • A Million Aunties, Alecia McKenzie
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
  • An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
  • Another Country, James Baldwin
  • Ariel, Sylvia Plath
  • Black Boy, Richard Wright
  • Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat
  • Brown Girl, Brownstones, Paula Marshall
  • Cane, Jean Toomer
  • Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine
  • Claire of the Sea Light, Edwidge Danticat
  • Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody
  • Complete Writings, Phillis Wheatley
  • Dien Cai Dau, Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama
  • Dust Tracks on a Road, Zora Neale Hurston
  • East of Eden, John Steinbeck
  • Eight White Nights, André Aciman
  • Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
  • Faces in the Crowd, Valerie Luiselli
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
  • Freeman, Leonard Pitts Jr.
  • Going to Meet the Man, James Baldwin
  • Gorilla, My Love, Toni Cade Bambara
  • Great Speeches by African Americans, James Daley
  • Heavy, Kiese Laymon
  • Hell of a Book, Jason Mott
  • Home, Toni Morrison
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
  • I Put a Spell on You, Nina Simone
  • I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes
  • If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin
  • If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, Farah Jasmine Griffin
  • Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
  • Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Ann Jacobs
  • In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Alice Walker
  • Infants of the Spring, Wallace Thurman
  • Intimations, Zadie Smith
  • Just Above My Head, James Baldwin
  • Kindred, Octavia Butler
  • King Me, Roger Reeves
  • Last Night in Montreal, Emily St. John Mandel
  • Laughter in the Dark, Vladimir Nabokov
  • Let America be America Again, Langston Hughes
  • Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward
  • Letter to My Daughter, Maya Angelou
  • Linden Hills, Gloria Naylor
  • Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, T Kira Madden
  • Madame de Treymes, Edith Wharton
  • Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
  • Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir, Natasha Trethewey
  • Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward
  • Michelle: A Biography, Liza Mundy
  • Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Miss Anne in Harlem, Carla Kaplan
  • My Ántonia, Willa Cather
  • My Soul Looks Back, Jessica B. Harris
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass
  • Native Guard: Poems, Natasha Trethewey
  • Negroland, Margo Jefferson
  • Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, Yusef Komunyakaa
  • No Name in the Street, James Baldwin
  • Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, Aimé Césaire
  • Notes from No Man’s Land, Eula Bliss
  • Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin
  • On Beauty, Zadie Smith
  • Once, Alice Walker
  • One of Ours, Willa Cather
  • O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
  • Open City, Teju Cole
  • Paradise, Toni Morrison
  • Passing, Nella Larsen
  • Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker
  • Quicksand, Nella Larsen
  • Rosarita, Anita Desai
  • Ruby, Cynthia Bond
  • Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward
  • Selected Poems, Langston Hughes
  • Silver Sparrow, Tayari Jones
  • Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
  • Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
  • So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell
  • Some of Us Did Not Die, June Jordan
  • Someone Else’s Shoes, Jojo Moyes
  • Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
  • Stoner, John Williams
  • Street Shadows, Jerald Walker
  • Sula, Toni Morrison
  • Summer, Edith Wharton
  • Table for Two, Amor Towles
  • Take My Hand, Dolen Perkins-Valdez
  • Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, James Baldwin
  • Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape, Lauret Savoy
  • The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
  • The Awakening, Kate Chopin
  • The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
  • The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
  • The Big Sea, Langston Hughes
  • The Blacker the Berry, Wallace Thurman
  • The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
  • The Bridge of Beyond, Simone Schwartz-Bart
  • The Catcher in the Rye, J.D.Salinger
  • The Color Purple, Alice Walker
  • The Complete Stories, Flannery O’Connor
  • The Darkest Child, Delores Phillips
  • The Devil Finds Work, James Baldwin
  • The Dutch House, Ann Patchett
  • The Essential June Jordan, June Jordan
  • The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • The Farming of Bones, Edwidge Danticat
  • The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
  • The Garden of Eden, Ernest Hemingway
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Heart of a Woman, Maya Angelou
  • The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
  • The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
  • The Journals of Sylvia Plath, Sylvia Plath
  • The Known World, Edward P. Jones
  • The New Negro, Alain LeRoy
  • The Personal Librarian, Marie Benedict
  • The Professor’s House, Willa Cather
  • The Poems of Octavio Paz, Octavio Paz
  • The Richer, the Poorer, Dorothy West
  • The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
  • The Source of Self-Regard, Toni Morrison
  • The Street, Ann Petry
  • The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
  • The Toni Morrison Book Club, Juda Bennett
  • The Touchstone, Edith Wharton
  • The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes
  • The Wedding, Dorothy West
  • The Women of Brewster Place, Gloria Naylor
  • The World Has Changed, Alice Walker
  • The Yellow Wallpaper, Chalotte Perkins Gilman
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
  • This Close to Happy, Daphne Merkin
  • This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Thrall, Natasha Trethewey
  • Trading Dreams at Midnight, Diane Mckinney-Whetstone
  • Walden, Henry David Thoreau
  • Warhorses, Yusef Komunyakaa
  • We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Andre Dubus
  • Wild Women Don’t Wear No Blues, Marita Golden
  • Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Maya Angelou
  • Year Before Last, Kay Boyle