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The Coffee Will Make You Black Reading List

In order to accommodate more author chats, the CWMYB reading group created "AALBC Live!"

As of January 2007, The Coffee Will Make You Black, on-line book club is inactive. We hope to reactivate the club sometime in 2010. Below is the current (2010) reading list. You'll also find all of our reading lists from previous years.

Review The Coffee Will Make You Black Book Club’s Reading List (1998–2006, and 2010)

Review Our Entire Reading List Going Back to 1998 (Most of the titles below are great reads — they are ALL worth checking out!)
Month	Title	Author	Author in Chat	Transcript or Date of Chat
2006 Reading List
Dec 2006	The Heart of Happy Hollow: A Collection of Stories	Paul Laurence Dunbar
Nov 2006	The Red Moon	Kuwana Haulsey
Oct 2006	Lemon City by Elaine Meryl Brown	Elaine Meryl Brown
Sep 2006	My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations	Mary Frances Berry
Aug 2006	Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink	David Margolick
Jul 2006	There is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden	Leon Forrest
Jun 2006	Let The Lion Eat Straw	Ellease Southerland
May 2006	Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Sun	J. California Cooper
Apr 2006	Bang!	Sharon Flake
Mar 2006	A Killing in This Town	Olympia Vernon
Feb 2006	The Fire Next Time	James Baldwin
Jan 2006	White Rat	Gayl Jones
2005 Reading List
Dec 2005	At The Hands of Persons Unknown	Philip Dray		Chat Not Held
Nov 2005	Buffalo Gordon on the Plains	J. P. Sinclair Lewis		Chat Not Held
Oct 2005	No Book Selected This Month
Sep 2005	Those Bones Are Not My Child	Toni Cade Bambara		Chat Not Held
Aug 2005	My Life of Absurdity: The Later Years, The Autobiography of Chester Himes	Chester Himes		Chat Not Held
July 2005	The Salt Roads	Nalo Hopkinson		Chat Not Held
June 2005	No Book Selected This Month			Chat Not Held
May 2005	The Time of Our Singing	Richard Powers		Chat Not Held
Apr 2005	Dark Matter: Reading of the Bones	edited by Sheree R. Thomas		Chat Not Held
Mar 2005	Platitudes & “The New Black Aesthetic”	Trey Ellis		Chat Not Held
Feb 2005	Some People, Some Other Place	J. California Cooper		Chat Not Held
Jan 2005	Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson	Geoffrey C. Ward		Chat Not Held
2004 Reading List
Dec 2004	The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume 2: 1941-1967: I Dream a World	Arnold Rampersad		Sunday, January 9th
Nov 2004	The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume 1: 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America, Vol. 1	Arnold Rampersad		Sunday, Dec 12th 2004
Oct 2004	Sweets: A Collection of Soul Food Desserts and Memories	Patty Pinner		Sunday, Nov 14th 2004
Sept 2004	Segu	Maryse Conde		Sunday, Oct 10th 2004
Aug 2004	The Heart of Redness	Zakes Mda		Sunday, Sept 12th 2004
Jul 2004	The Lakestown Rebellion	Kristin Lattany		Sunday, Aug 15th 2004
Jun 2004	Echo Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas	Eugene B. Redmond		Sunday, Jul 11th 2004
May 2004	Cotillion: or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd	John Oliver Killens		Sunday, June 13th 2004
Apr2004	Last King: A Maceo Redfield Novel	Nichelle Tramble		Sunday, May 9th 2004
Mar 2004	Rendezvous Eighteenth	Jake Lamar		Sunday, April 11th 2004
Feb 2004	The Darkest Child	Delores Phillips	Yes	Sunday, March 14th 2004
Jan 2004	The First Thing Smoking	Nelson Eubanks		Sunday, Feb 22nd 2004
2003 Reading List
Dec 2003	West of Rehoboth	Alexs D. Pate		Sunday, Dec 14th, 2003
Nov 2003	Arrow of God	Chinua Achebe		Sunday, Nov 9th, 2003
Oct 2003	Shadow and Act	Ralph Ellison		Sunday, Oct 12th, 2003
Sep 2003	The Marrow of Tradition	Charles W. Chesnutt		Sunday, Sep 14th, 2003
Aug 2003	Such Was The Season	Clarence Major		Sunday, Aug 10th, 2003
Jul 2003	My Love, My Love, or The Peasant Girl	Rosa Guy		Sunday, Jul 13th, 2003
Jun 2003	Mules and Men	Zora Neale Hurston		Sunday, June 8th 2003
May 2003	Grace	Elizabeth Nunez		Sunday, May 11th, 2003
Apr 2003	Douglass' Women	Jewell Parker Rhodes		Sunday, Apr 13th, 2003
Mar 2003	The Ecstatic	Victor D. LaVelle	Yes	Sunday, Mar 9th, 2003
Feb 2003	What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace	Walter Mosley	No	Sunday, Feb 23rd, 2003
Jan 2003	The Wake of the Wind	J. California Cooper	No	Sunday, Jan 12th, 2003
2002 Reading List (July 2002 through December 2002 Book Club Temporarily Suspended)
Jun 2002	The Glory Field	Walter Dean Myers		Chat not held
May 2002	Richard Wright: The Life And Times	Hazel Rowley		Chat not held
Apr 2002	Dark Matter: The Anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction by Black Writers		Sheree Thomas	Chat not held
Mar 2002	The God Who Begat A Jackal	Nega Mezlekia		Chat not held
Feb 2002	The Return of Simple	Langston Hughes		Chat not held
Jan 2002	The Renegade Johnny Buffalo	Dan Smith	Yes	Chat not held
2001 Reading List
Dec 2001	Where I'm Bound	Allen B. Ballard	Yes	Chat not held
Nov 2001	Raising Fences	Michael Datcher		Chat Transcript
Oct 2001	Pipe Dream	Solomon Jones	Yes	Chat Transcript
Sep 2001	Babe	Delores Thornton	Yes	Chat Transcript
Aug 2001	Drop	Mat Johnson	Yes	Chat Transcript
Jul 2001	Jubilee	Margaret Walker		August 1st, 2001
Jun 2001	The Spyglass Tree	Albert Murray		September 5th, 2001
May 2001	Train Whistle Guitar	Albert Murray		Chat Transcript
Apr 2001	Anyplace but Here	Arna Wendell Bontemps		Chat Transcript
Mar 2001	DEM (BAM Series)	William Melvin Kelley		Chat Transcript
Feb 2001	Captain Blackman (Get an autographed copy)	John Alfred Williams	Yes	Chat Transcript
Jan 2001	Youngblood	John Oliver Killens		Chat Transcript
2000 Reading List
Dec 2000	Blues Dancing (Winner of AALBC Reader's Poll)	Diane Mckinney-Whetstone		Chat Transcript
Nov 2000	The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad	Karl Evanzz		Chat Transcript
Oct 2000	The Spook Who Sat by the Door	Sam Greenlee		11/1/2000 9:00 PM EST
Sep 2000	Sugar	Bernice McFadden	Yes	Chat Transcript
Aug 2000	Liars Game	Eric Jerome Dickey		Chat Transcript
Jul 2000	Uncle Tom's Children	Richard Wright		Chat Transcript
Jun 2000	Manchild in the Promised Land	Claude Brown	No	Chat Transcript
May 2000	Pictures of a Dying Man	Agymah Kamau	Yes	Chat Transcript
Apr 2000	The Essential Etheridge Knight	Etheridge Knight		Chat Transcripthat Transcript
Mar 2000	Two Cities	John Edgar Wideman		Chat Transcript
Feb 2000	A Long Way Home	Connie Briscoe		Chat Transcript
Jan 2000	Tar Baby	Toni Morrison
1999 Reading List
Dec 1999	Seraph on the Suwanee	Zora Neale Hurston		Chat Transcript
Nov 1999	Another Good Loving Blues	Arthur Flowers	Yes	Chat Transcript
Oct 1999	Standing at the Scratch Line	Guy Johnson	Yes
Sep 1999	Ring Around the Moon	Mary Burnett Smith
Aug 1999	Dummy	John Gibson		Chat Transcript
Jul 1999	Something's Wrong with Your Scale	Van Whitfield	Yes	Chat Transcript
Jun 1999	Zon	Gregory K Morris
May 1999	Not Without Laughter	Langston Hughes
Apr 1999	Dreamer	Charles Johnson
Mar 1999	Just Above My Head	James Baldwin
Feb 1999	What A Woman's Gotta Do	Evelyn Coleman	Yes
Jan 1999	Bloodline	Ernest J Gaines
1998 Reading List
Dec 1998	Eva's Man	Gayl Jones
Nov 1998	Invisible Man	Ralph Ellison
Oct 1998	Silent Conspiracy: A Lincoln Keller Mystery	Lee E. Meadows
Sep 1998	The Man Who Cried I Am	John A. Williams
Aug 1998	Soul Kiss	Shay Youngblood
Jul 1998	Cane - Read introduction by Arna Bontemps	Jean Toomer

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