Books like Not without laughter by Langston Hughes

The Hate U Give tracks 16‑year‑old Starr Carter, a Black teenager from a poor Bronx neighborhood who attends an elite private school, as she confronts police violence, social media battles, and community turmoil after witnessing her friend’s shooting.

The beloved classic of American literature, Little Women, narrates the adventures of four March sisters as they grow up during the Civil War era.

Alice Walker's 1982 novel, The Color Purple, won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, exploring the lives of black women in the South and their experiences of abuse and struggle for independence.

A lonely orphan girl on the Yorkshire moors befriends a disabled cousin and unlocks the secrets of a hidden garden.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Pulitzer‑winning novel follows Janie Crawford’s journey of self‑discovery and empowerment, mapping her search for love, independence, and identity against the backdrop of the African‑American South during the early 20th century.

James Baldwin’s 1963 essay collection, written as two letters for the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, confronts America’s racial injustices and urges both black and white citizens to confront the legacy of racism.

Richard Wright’s autobiographical memoir chronicles his growth from childhood to adulthood while confronting the harsh realities of segregation in the Jim Crow South.

Set in a Southern California black community, The Mothers follows 17‑year‑old Nadia Turner as she navigates grief, a forbidden romance, and an unplanned pregnancy that shapes her and her friends' futures for years to come.

The Warmth of Other Suns is a non‑fiction study of the Great Migration, tracing the journey of nearly six million African Americans from the South to northern and western cities between 1915 and 1970.

A contemporary family drama in which a mother‑child relationship is complicated by a companion chimpanzee, raising questions of identity, secrecy and moral responsibility.

African-American fiction

When a mysterious old man arrives in the sleepy town of Bascom, North Carolina, his tales promise to alter the lives of the Waverley women and shake the quiet rhythm of their community.

A Visitation of Spirits follows sixteen‑year‑old Horace Cross, a tormented black teenager in rural North Carolina, as he confronts demons of identity and family expectations while intergenerational memories of the Cross family reveal struggles of faith, sexuality and survival.

James Weldon Johnson’s autobiographical novel traces the life of a mixed‑race narrator who, able to pass as white, struggles with identity and injustice in early 20th‑century America.

Edna Ferber's Pulitzer‑winning tale follows Selina Peake Dejong—from marriage to widowhood to thriving as a Western truck farmer—while painting late‑19th‑century Chicago and exploring poverty, Americanization, family tension, sexism and female independence.

A curated selection of Langston Hughes’ poems, paired with Benny Andrews’ art, edited by David Roessel and Arnold Rampersad.

Langston Hughes' 1934 collection, "The Ways of White Folks," presents 14 short stories exploring race relations, manners, and customs in early 20th-century America, reflecting Hughes’ sardonic realism and pessimism about racial dynamics.

Set in 1930s Philadelphia, Jessie Redmon Fauset’s novel follows Joanna Mitchell and Peter Bye as their families navigate inheritance, prejudice, and the social aspirations of the black middle class.

Black Misery was first published in 1969, but the gentle, funny, and sometimes melancholy words of Langston Hughes still cause a blink of recognition. After 25 years, it remains relevant in our own time. As you turn the pages you may say, "I remember feeling like that!" You may say, "I feel like that now." As you look at Arouni's black and white illustrations and read the short but powerful one sentence captions, you feel the predicament of a black child adjusting to the new world of integration of the 1960s. You feel the mix of hope and dismay that characterized the decade. Langston Hughes was a writer who often made his readers ask hard questions about life. In Black Misery he wrote about prejudice and indifference, but he wrote with humor and compassion. Today--just as we did 25 years ago-we smile and even laugh, and we also understand that some things are more than hard, are more than sad. They are pure misery. Black Misery was the last book that Langston Hughes wrote. He died in May 1967, while working on the manuscript.

An African‑American woman inherits a sugarcane farm in rural Louisiana and moves with her eleven‑year‑old daughter from Los Angeles to start anew, confronting family tensions, agricultural challenges, and the legacy of the South.