Book Club
If you’re here I know you love to read a good book but isn’t reading more exciting when you’re able to read with a group of friends while discussing and reflecting what you read keeping the story alive. Join Books and Black Coffee’s online virtual book club!
#BookClubFam Monthly Subscription $25/month (Subscription is what gives you access to the book club!)
- All paperback choices of the month will be free, hardcovers will be 50% off
- Free shipping
- Ability to deactivate and reactivate subscription at any time
Whereas a collective we decide which bestsellers is our book of choice for the month. This will also create a unique experience by getting you away from your comfort zone by choosing a different genre than you would normally purchase to read and openly discuss. We will host a video meeting using Microsoft Teams the last Thursday of every month to have an engaging and open discussion of what was read the previous weeks. We will also have reading challenges during selective months.
Please don’t be shy and feel free to bring your own drink of choice to the meeting whether it’s coffee, wine, or water.
If you think you’ll make a great host please send us an email at info@booksandblkcoffee.com letting us know why and how you’ll make the book club a comfortable, fun space.
Interested in joining our Urban book club, where we only read urban tales? All you have to do is purchase book with us, no subscription required. Email sgjames@booksandblkcoffee for more details!
Books We’ve Read Together
I’m Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.
November 9 – Colleen Hoover
Fallon meets Ben, an aspiring novelist, the day before her scheduled cross-country move. Their untimely attraction leads them to spend Fallon’s last day in Los Angeles together, and her eventful life becomes the creative inspiration Ben has always sought for his novel. Over time and amidst the various relationships and tribulations of their own separate lives, they continue to meet on the same date every year. Until one day Fallon becomes unsure if Ben has been telling her the truth or fabricating a perfect reality for the sake of the ultimate plot twist. Can Ben’s relationship with Fallon—and simultaneously his novel—be considered a love story if it ends in heartbreak?
When No One Is Watching – Alyssa Cole
Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block – her neighbor, Theo. But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear.
Small Doses – Amanda Seales
Comedian, writer, actress, and social media star Amanda Seales is a force of nature who has fearlessly and passionately charted her own course through life and career. Now, in her one-of-a-kind voice that blends academic intellectualism, Black American colloquialisms, and pop culture fanaticism, she’s bringing her life’s lessons and laughs to the page. This volume of essays, axioms, original illustrations, and photos provides Seales’s trademark “self-help from the hip” style of commentary, fueled by ideology formed from her own victories, struggles, research, mistakes, risks, and pay-offs. Unapologetic, fiercely funny, and searingly honest, Small Doses engages, empowers, and enlightens readers on how to find their truths while still finding the funny!
Book Lovers
One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming…Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
The Other Black Girl
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust. Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.
How to Fall Out of Love Madly – Jana Casale
“Joy and Annie are friends and roommates with decent jobs, crushing student loans, and an extra bedroom in need of an occupant-ideally someone they don’t hate. Theo instantly fits the bill, and soon, Joy and Theo are platonically nesting over movie nights and midnight hijinks. When Annie moves out, Joy happily gets to work creating a cozy home for Theo and herself. Then he brings home Celine, a girlfriend he’s never mentioned and quite possibly the most perfect woman Joy has ever seen. Joy is soon tying herself in knots trying to maintain her fantasy that she and Theo are meant to be. Annie is worried about Joy, but she has her own troubles. After moving in with her boyfriend, she realizes that she’s become an actress constantly performing his approved-of version of herself. Then, when she receives an anonymous letter accusing her brilliant, supportive boss of sexual assault, she is forced to decide who and what she’s willing to stand up for. Meanwhile, Celine may look perfect on the outside, but she’s wrestling with some inner demons of her own”.
What Lies in The Woods – Kate Alice Marshall
Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.
And they were liars.
For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods―no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty – Akwaeke Emery
Currently Reading – September
It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits—his father.
This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers. Who is she ready to become? Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there’s the biggest question of all—how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love? Akwaeke Emezi’s vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing, and the constant bravery of choosing love against all odds.
Book Club Signup
#BookClubFam starts October 2022, if interested sign up here: