Celebrating Black Books, Black Bookstores & Black Publishing

There is a particular kind of joy that comes from walking into a bookstore where the shelves were curated with you in mind. Where the spines you see reflect lives that look like yours, histories you were never taught in school, and voices that have always deserved far more room than the publishing industry has traditionally given them. This week, in the spirit of National Honey Bee Awareness Month — a month about the kind of labor that sustains entire ecosystems without getting nearly enough credit — we are turning our attention to the Black literary world: its writers, its bookstores, its publishers, and the readers and influencers who have kept it thriving.

We are not waiting for February. Black literature is a year-round conversation, and this week’s newsletter is our contribution to it.

The Shelves That Built Communities: Black-Owned Bookstores

Black-owned bookstores have long functioned as far more than retail spaces. They have been community centers, organizing hubs, safe spaces for young readers to see themselves on a cover for the first time, and preservers of a literary tradition that mainstream publishing has too often overlooked. Across the country, these stores are thriving — and they need our support not just during Black History Month, but every single month.

A few worth knowing and supporting wherever you are:

Mahogany Books (Washington, D.C. and Maryland) has become one of the most celebrated Black-owned bookstores in the country, known for its community events, author partnerships, and mission to make Black literature accessible to everyone.

Harriet’s Bookshop (Philadelphia, PA), named for Harriet Tubman, is dedicated to books by women, women of color, and activists. Owner Jeannine Cook has built it into a neighborhood institution.

Baldwin & Co. (New Orleans, LA), named for James Baldwin, goes beyond books — offering free books, food, tutoring, and live entertainment to the surrounding community.

For Keeps Books (Atlanta, GA), on Auburn Avenue, has been recognized by filmmaker Ava DuVernay and is a love letter to Black literature rooted in one of the South’s most historically significant corridors.

The Lit. Bar (Bronx, NY) is the only brick-and-mortar bookstore in the Bronx and has become a vital cultural anchor for one of New York City’s most underserved literary communities.

If you are looking to find a Black-owned bookstore near you — or to shop online from one — the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC) maintains a directory of more than 180 Black-owned bookstores across the United States at www.aalbc.com. It is one of the most comprehensive resources available, and it is updated regularly.

Black Publishing: Who Is Telling These Stories

Black publishing imprints and independent publishers have been essential in bringing the books we love to readers. Imprints like One World (Penguin Random House), Amistad (HarperCollins), and Grand Central’s Forever Yours have made space for Black authors across every genre — from literary fiction to thriller to romance to YA. But independent Black-owned publishers like Third World Press, Just Us Books, and Black Classic Press have done something equally important: they have published books the major houses passed on, kept writers in print when interest waned, and reinvested in Black literary culture without waiting for permission.

Supporting Black publishing means buying from Black-owned imprints, requesting titles at your local library, and paying attention to who is on the masthead — not just who is on the cover.

The Readers Who Built the Conversation: Black Book Influencers

BookTok, Bookstagram, Blue Mojito Book Reviews, and literary podcasts have transformed how readers discover books — and Black book influencers have been at the center of some of the most important conversations in that space. Communities like #BlackBookTok and #BlackBooksBlackMinds have amplified titles that might have been overlooked by traditional review outlets, built devoted readerships for debut authors, and created space for the kind of honest, community-centered literary discussion that has always existed in Black reading groups but now reaches far wider audiences.

If you are not already following Black book influencers and literary Blue Mojito Book Reviews on Substacks, this week is a good time to start. The recommendations are excellent, the conversations are richer, and the community is genuinely welcoming.

Five Books Worth Your Time

This week we are highlighting five titles that represent the range, depth, and ambition of contemporary Black literature. These are not just good books — they are books that shifted something.

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby (2021). Two ex-convict fathers — one Black, one white — are united by the murder of their sons, who were married to each other. What follows is a relentless Southern noir that is as much about grief, homophobia, and the failures of fathers as it is about vengeance. Cosby has been called a once-in-a-generation storyteller, and this is the book that makes the case most powerfully.

Deacon King Kong by James McBride (2020). Set in a 1969 Brooklyn housing project, this National Book Award winner opens with a drunk church deacon shooting the neighborhood drug dealer — and then grows into a sprawling, tender, funny portrait of an entire community. McBride’s ability to hold humor and heartbreak in the same breath is extraordinary.

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (2021). Part Gossip Girl, part Get Out, this debut YA thriller follows two Black students at an elite prep school who are targeted by an anonymous blackmailer. A sharp, propulsive novel about racism, institutions, and what it costs to survive spaces that were never designed for you.

By Her Own Design: A Novel of Ann Lowe, Fashion Designer to the Social Register by Piper Huguley (2022). The remarkable true story of Ann Lowe, a Black woman and granddaughter of enslaved people, who designed Jackie Kennedy’s wedding gown — and almost no one knew her name. Huguley’s biographical historical novel is a portrait of extraordinary talent persisting against extraordinary prejudice.

Model Home by Rivers Solomon (2024). A Locus Award finalist and one of the most talked-about literary horror novels of recent years, this book follows the Maxwell siblings — the only Black family in a gated Dallas suburb — as they return to their childhood home after their parents’ mysterious deaths. Haunting, lyrical, and deeply unsettling in the best way.

How to Support Black Literary Spaces Year-Round

Celebration is a starting point, not a destination. Here are a few practical ways to invest in Black literary culture beyond any single month or moment:

Buy from Black-owned bookstores whenever possible — many ship nationally and have excellent online shops. When you buy from them instead of a major retailer, you keep money in the community.

Request titles from your library. Libraries buy what patrons request. If a book by a Black author is not on the shelf, ask for it. It costs you nothing and adds it to the collection permanently.

Follow and share Black book influencers. Signal-boosting a recommendation, sharing a Substack post, or tagging a friend in a review costs nothing but expands the reach of these voices significantly.

Diversify your reading year-round, not just in February or June. Pay attention to whose stories you are choosing, whose you are skipping, and why.

Attend events at Black-owned bookstores — readings, signings, book clubs. These spaces survive on foot traffic and community investment. Show up.

Did You Know? Honey Bee Fun Fact

Honey bees are among the few creatures on earth that sustain ecosystems far larger than their own colony. As pollinators, they are responsible for roughly one-third of the food humans eat — not by keeping what they collect, but by spreading it. The work they do benefits the entire environment, often invisibly. There is a lesson in that. The labor that holds communities together is frequently the labor that goes least credited. This week, we are trying to credit some of it.

Check out this cool video on: The Science Behind Bees & Food How Do Bees Make Our Food

A new bee fact every Tuesday in August.

Coming This Thursday

Did You Know? Honey Bee Fun Fact

Honey bees are among the few creatures on earth that sustain ecosystems far larger than their own colony. As pollinators, they are responsible for roughly one-third of the food humans eat — not by keeping what they collect, but by spreading it. The work they do benefits the entire environment, often invisibly. There is a lesson in that. The labor that holds communities together is frequently the labor that goes least credited. This week, we are trying to credit some of it.

Check out this cool video on: The Science Behind Bees & Food How Do Bees Make Our Food

A new bee fact every Tuesday in August.

Coming This Thursday

Thursday’s newsletter brings us two books that are impossible to read in the same sitting without carrying both of them with you long after: Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, a dark academia boarding school thriller in which a new student’s roommate vanishes on her very first night, and Perfect Peace by Daniel Black, a profound and wrenching novel set in 1940s rural Arkansas about a mother who raises her youngest son as the daughter she always wanted. Two very different books. Two very necessary ones. See you Thursday.

Blue Mojito Book Reviews · The Mojito Reader · Published Every Tuesday

National Honey Bee Awareness Month — August 2026