You might have seen this going around the past few days. I want to make some recommendations, and not the same ones as everyone else.

The goal of this exercise is to put Black authors on the bestseller list. Which is a worthy goal. But it concentrates the effort on a small number of Black writers, which is silly. There is no reason we shouldn't be supporting as many as we can.

Black writers often get less publicity and marketing for their books, and with lower sales it's harder for them to get higher advances and royalties to live on. I want to give attention to books that didn't get the sales they deserve.

Maybe it'll help someone get a new deal or maybe it'll just put some extra money in their pocket. And for you, it'll give you some truly excellent books to put on your shelf.

I compiled this list by using Goodreads reviews as my metric. Goodreads is pretty heavily white, which actually helps my purpose here. All the books listed here have less than 5,000 reviews.

THE MOTHER by @YvvetteEdwards. Marcia brought up her son right, so she can't figure out how he was killed by the wrong kind of boy. As she watches the killer's trial, she has to confront her own issues with class and race. Crime novel and literary fiction.

VICTOR LAVALLE'S DESTROYER by @victorlavalle. A graphic semi-retelling of Frankenstein, where a mother attempts to resurrect her son after he's killed by the police. LaValle has multiple books on this list and I'm mad at all of you because WTF he is the actual best.

GHOST SUMMER by @TananariveDue. The first stories in this collection are some of the scariest I have ever read. Horror is an incredibly white genre, but Due is one of the best we have in it and yet again she has more than one title on this list so get to it.

MARY TOFT; OR THE RABBIT QUEEN by @dexterauthor. This was one of my favorites of 2019. An incredible historical novel about a real event that examines our fixation with the horrible and inhuman. Palmer's previous novel, VERSION CONTROL, is the best time travel novel ever, FYI.

THE HIDDEN KEYS by André Alexis. Better known in Canada, but should be a bigger deal here. This is that rarest of gems: a puzzle mystery. Part of a cycle of novels with similar themes, including my favorite, prizewinning FIFTEEN DOGS.

THE LESSON by @CadwellTurnbull. An alien invasion novel that's also about colonialism. The aliens have landed in the Virgin Islands where the mostly-Black population has to bear the brunt of the aliens' actions while the rest of the world benefits from their tech.

IN WEST MILLS by De'Shawn Charles Winslow. Do you want a decades-long family saga full of secrets? I've got a decades-long family saga full of secrets. Set in a rural North Carolina town from the 40's to the 80's.

HERE FOR IT by @oureric. Want to support a new 2020 hardcover? Here you go! R. Eric is everyone's Twitter fave and his memoir-in-essays is hilarious and moving and gay as hell. Everyone loves this book, let's sell many more copies please?

SURPASSING CERTAINTY: WHAT MY TWENTIES TAUGHT ME by @janetmock. I almost yelped when I saw this has only 1,775 Goodreads ratings. It is Janet Damn Mock! This memoir is not Trans 101, it really is about the choices you make in your 20's to find yourself. A great grad gift!

WE RIDE UPON STICKS by Quan Barry. My favorite book of 2020, we should have made this the book everyone is reading and frankly I am mad that we didn't. I have pushed it on many people and everyone is absolutely delighted by this witchy 80's girls field hockey team.

THE NOBLE HUSTLE by @colsonwhitehead. Yeah you thought Colson wouldn't be on this list because he's big time. Truth be told, this is my favorite of his books. Started as a magazine piece about entering the World Series of Poker. Heavy on the melancholy and deadpan.

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU MAKES YOU BLACKER by @DamonYoungVSB. A great memoir in essays from 2019 that hits the perfect blend of humor and big issues. His writing on race and masculinity is particularly good. Plus I loved his reading of the audio.

PLEASANTVILLE by @atticalocke. I usually pitch this book and Locke's debut BLACK WATER RISING by telling people she's like old school Grisham except actually good. One of the top 5 crime writers in the US, hands down. And the only thriller writer I can count on.

THE PREY OF GODS by @nickydrayden. A science-fiction novel stuffed with amazing ideas that will leave you invigorated. Everything happens in this book, perfect if you want a wild ride.

DROP THE BALL by @tdufu. A self-help book that is actually useful, believe it or not. And one about one of the biggest issues women face: work-life balance. Perfect for ambitious women trying to figure out a better system with their partner.

THE REVISIONERS by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. There are only two writers that my brain shelves next to Toni Morrison: Jesmyn Ward and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. Sexton writes about the trauma and the gifts that Black women hand down through generations.

BLACK MAN IN A WHITE COAT by Damon Tweedy. If you like medical memoirs, here's one you probably haven't heard of. Tweedy examines the issues Black Americans face as patients and as doctors in a racist system. Super straightforward, a good starter title for conservative readers.

FORTY ACRES by @writtenbysmith. Has Jordan Peele read this book? Because he would make a hell of a movie out of it. A secret society of elite Black men who get to be the masters this time.

REAL LIFE by @blgtylr. A literary novel about a Black bioscience grad student steeped in loneliness. I'm not going to try to sell this by saying it's not sad, because it is, but it's worth it. So how about I sell it by saying it has some of my favorite sex writing instead.

HEAVEN, MY HOME by @atticalocke. See previous tweet about the utter genius that is Attica Locke, best writer in Texas. This is the second book in her new series and it is literally a crime novel about white supremacists so get on it. (BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD is book 1.)

THE GONE DEAD by Chanelle Benz. A slow burn crime novel that brings small-town Mississippi to life. Billie barely knew her father but when she inherits his house she finds there are mysteries about his death and her own childhood.

LONG DIVISION by @KieseLaymon. Words fail me on this one. Kiese is a genius. This is a time travel book. I mean. Come on.

WE LOVE YOU, CHARLIE FREEMAN by @surlybassey. This book has no rules and I absolutely love it for that. It's about family and the long shadow of institutional racism and I still think about it and I cannot wait for her next book. (This is actually on my to-buy list this week.)

WE CAST A SHADOW by @MauriceRuffin. I didn't think I would ever have a book I could comp to THE SELLOUT but this is it. A sharp satire in a near-future that wants to make every single reader squirm.

WELCOME TO BRAGGSVILLE by @GeronimoJohnson. This book is a real original, a can't-put-it-down plot that's also social satire. I would put it on a shelf with WHITE TEARS and LONG DIVISION and feel good about that.

THE GOOD HOUSE by @TananariveDue. Due sat down and said "I'm going to write a Stephen King novel" and she did even better. It's a big fat doorstop (597 pages!) old school horror and it's fantastic. Again, how is it not already a movie?

AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES by Chigozie Obioma. An ambitious retelling of The Odyssey set in Nigeria. If you read Obioma's amazing debut, THE FISHERMEN, you already know he will smash your heart into tiny pieces.

LOVING DAY by @mat_johnson. This book lives inbetween satire and realism, just as its biracial characters live between blackness and whiteness. Yes, this is another satire with racial issues, and yes, it is also really good.

THE FIELD GUIDE TO THE NORTH AMERICAN TEENAGER by @gohomeben. I have trouble with Contemporary YA because I am old and dead inside but this book's super-sarcastic protagonist who always has the perfect quip but is going to Grow Into a Better Person really won me over.

A KIND OF FREEDOM by Margaret Willkerson Sexton. See previous tweet about Sexton, who is somehow only two novels in and already one of our most important writers.

THE DEVIL IN SILVER by @victorlavalle. A horror novel about a monster in a mental hospital. This is an easy sell. Also while we're here, BIG MACHINE, which is one of the weirdest most wonderful books and only isn't on this list because I read it before I was logging on GR.

THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING by @MorganJerkins. If you're a white person, I invite you to sit down with this book that does not in any way try to make you its default audience. Also do not look up how old she was when she wrote this, you will just get mad that she is this good.

PATSY by @ndennis_benn. Another best of 2019 book, one that will be on my bookshelf the minute it's in paperback (it has to match my copy of HERE COMES THE SUN). An incredibly moving book about a queer Jamaican woman who comes to the US and leaves her daughter behind.

PATSY is the last book on this list and may I point out that it was a Jenna's Book Club pick, and yet it has some of the lowest review numbers for that list. Yet again, I am mad at y'all for not making this book the massive seller it should be.

As I compiled this list, I was constantly surprised at how few reviews so many of these books got. I usually read pre-publication, based on what looks good rather than what sells. And wow, it was rough to see so many of these stellar novels not be the bestsellers they deserve.

Remember: this isn't a one-week endeavor. Reading diversely is easy and it's incredibly rewarding. If you can't purchase, library check-outs can also send publishers the message that this is a book people want to read and there should be more of them in the world.

Today I will be ordering WE LOVE YOU, CHARLIE FREEMAN and VERSION CONTROL (which I don't own because I never see it in the bookstore which is the whole problem I'm trying to fix here) and my bookshelf is very much looking forward to it.

Oh and if it isn't clear, these are all books I have read and am personally vouching for. They absolutely deserve your time and your dollars.