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5 Books By Black Authors To Curl Up With This Season

This article was produced in partnership with Penguin Books.


Attention all book babes! It is our season!

Of course, reading is a year-round pursuit, whether you’re stretched out on a picnic blanket during spring or lounging next to the pool in summer. But you have to admit, curling up with a blanket, a hot drink, your favourite candle and a good book just hits different when the temperature drops and the evenings get longer.

If you’re wondering what you should be reading this autumn and winter, we’re collaborating with our friends over at Penguin Books for a reading list that will keep you inspired, entertained and intellectually stimulated until the New Year, at the very least.

Left: Black woman with a black afro smiles for the camera resting her chin in her hand. She wears a sleeveless grey turtleneck knit top. Right: Cover of Your Money Life by Bola Sol.
Bola Sol and her book, Your Money Life.

Your Money Life: How to Afford the Future You Want by Bola Sol

Not to keep going on about how amazing The Black Ballad Weekender was, but if you missed Bola Sol’s workshop you really missed out. No fear! Bola’s book Your Money Life: How to Afford the Future You Want is packed full of wisdom and inspiration.

We know that money isn’t everything, but it is still really important – especially for those of us who haven’t had the best financial education from our environment or schools. Most importantly, money is a tool and Bola shows us how we can build our financial knowledge to enhance our wellbeing, open up new possibilities, and achieve the goals that will give us the lives we want.

Left: Black woman with straight black hair looks at the camera with a neutral expression. Right: The cover of New Methods For Women.
Sharmadean Reid (photograph by Kiran Gidda) and her book, New Methods For Women.

New Methods for Women: A Manifesto for Independence by Sharmadean Reid

So here’s a hot take: you already know exactly what you want. You just might not have worked out exactly how to get there, or you might feel stuck half way along the journey. I wish I had a cheat code to give you (I wish I had a cheat code for myself!), but let’s start with the next best thing: a guide to living a more purposeful and empowered life.

The inimitable Sharmadean Reid really has done it all. She’s a trailblazing entrepreneur, business-owner, tech and beauty visionary, but it wasn’t until her 39th birthday that she felt like she truly discovered real peace and contentment. In New Methods for Women she shares the lessons learned on this amazing journey, as well as the wisdom and teachings she’s picked up along the way.

Left: Older black woman with a short dark bob with a blunt fringe poses for the camera. Right: Cover of A Woman Like Me.
Diane Abbott and her book, A Woman Like Me.

A Woman Like Me by Diane Abbott

If you read Diane Abbott’s moving newsletter takeover for Black Ballad, you will want to delve deeper into her incredible life through her memoir, A Woman Like Me. From a childhood spent in the kitchens and front rooms of London’s working class Jamaican community in the 1960s, through to formal dinners in the hallowed halls of Cambridge, on her emergence into public life as the pioneering and principled Member of Parliament we know her to be, her journey is very literally one of one.

There were so many times reading that I thought, ‘Wow, Auntie Diane is just like me!’ – and that relatability is as much a part of her legacy as the causes she’s championed and the ordinary people of Hackney whose interests she’s represented for the last four decades.

Left: Light-skinned black woman wearing a multi-coloured headwrap, wearing a shirt with a blazer. Right: the cover of A Thousand Threads
Neneh Cherry (photograph by Clare Shilland) and her memoir, A Thousand Threads.

A Thousand Threads by Neneh Cherry

A certified icon in her own right, the award-winning musician, songwriter, collaborator, activist, mother, daughter, lover and friend gets deeply personal in this intimate memoir that chronicles her experiences of fame, friendship, addictions, traumas and everything in between that has shaped her as an individual.

At the heart of it all is her extraordinary family, three generations of artists and musicians that form both her inheritance and her legacy.

Left: light-skinned black woman wearing a white lace shirt and red lipstick poses against a white wall. Right: Cover for Sweetness In The Skin
Ishi Robinson and her novel, Sweetness in the Skin.

Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson

Did you really think you were going to get through an entire reading list and not get one single fiction recommendation?! Of course not!

If you haven’t seen Sweetness in the Skin across Bookstagram and BookTok, it’s never too late to enter the world of Pumkin Patterson, a young Jamaican girl with big dreams and a desire to escape the confines of the world as she knows it. The is a 1990s coming of age story that is as sweet as the title, and if the book has you craving gizzada or sweet potato pudding… well, you needed a snack to go with that hot drink anyway, right?


The links contained in this article are affiliate links, which means that if you do decide to purchase one of the books mentioned through that link, Black Ballad will receive a small commission from Amazon, at no additional cost to you. Any commission we do make is invested back into the ongoing work of Black Ballad.