Toni Morrison was an icon in the literary world giant of the literary world who penned no less than 10 novels, seven non-fiction works, two plays, and three children’s books.

When she passed away in 2019, she had a long list of achievements to her name, including a Pulitzer prize, a Nobel Prize, and even a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Perhaps Morrison’s greatest contribution to literature—and the world—was the way she captured and crystallized the Black throughout American history, in all its horrors and beauty.

Needless to say, pretty much anything Toni Morrison touched is gold, but with so many great titles, we’ll help you out with 10 essential reads to start with.

10 Must-Read Toni Morrison Books

Below are 10 essential Toni Morrison books to add to your must-read list.

1. Beloved

Beloved is often regarded as Morrison’s best novel, in part because it won her the Pulitzer Prize.

Set in the wake of the American Civil War, the novel follows Sethe, a runaway slave who remains haunted by her memories of the plantation 18 years after her escape.

Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. A terrifying but incredibly important read, Beloved explores guilt, parenthood, and the psychological scars of slavery.

2. The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye, her debut novel, on scraps of paper while cooking her son’s dinner, and it was published in 1970 when she was 40 years old and working as an editor.

The book follows Pecola, a young Black girl who is bullied for her dark skin. She prays for blue eyes, the hallmark of American white beauty.

Pecola’s childhood rape by her father leads to her unraveling, but the book also focuses on the torment and pain that racialized standards of beauty can cause.

3. Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon is Morrison’s third book, and blends fantasy, magical realism, and fable into a dizzying masterpiece of historical nonfiction.

The story follows Macon “Milkman” Dead, who grows up in the industrial Midwest during the Great Depression and later travels through Pennsylvania and Virginia to forge his own identity while searching for his family’s rumored hidden treasure.

4. Tar Baby

With the release of Tar Baby, Toni Morrison was able to become a full-time writer, no longer juggling her job as an editor with the duties of full-time mother.

The book follows Jadine Childs, a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins.

Son is a Black fugitive who embodies everything Jadine loathes, yet desires. Through their affair, Morrison presents the nuanced and superficial differences and assimilations that pit people against each other: master and servant, man and woman, Black and white. 

5. Jazz

Following Beloved, Jazz is the second in Toni Morrison’s trilogy on African American history. Set in 1920s Harlem, this book contains vignettes of a troubled couple’s life.

Through the love triangle between a murderous door-to-door salesman, his green-eyed, unstable wife, and his teenaged lover, Morrison explores the injustices often dealt to Black women.

6. Sula

In Morrison’s second book, we meet two best friends living the poor, Black midwest, in a neighborhood known as Bottom.

The two girls are as close as can be, but eventually grow into two very different women. Nel, raised in a conservative family, marries straight out of high school, while Sula, raised by her eccentric grandmother and unpredictable mother, disappears from town soon after Nel’s wedding.

When she returns 10 years later, she is treated as the town pariah, even by Nel, illustrating the mistrust society has toward strong women.

7. Paradise

Paradise is set in a patriarchal, all-Black community in rural Oklahoma that believes to be under threat by a nearby all-female town called the Convent.

Opening with a horrifying scene of mass violence, Paradise explores the chilling process by which victims become victimizers, strong women are demonized, and years of oppression form violent rage.

8. God Help the Child

Toni Morrison’s final novel was also her first to be set in the present time, and seemed to anticipate the discussions around colorism that would arise several years later.

The novel follows “Bride,” a confident and beautiful blue-black skin. Bride turns heads everywhere she goes, but as a child could not please her light-skinned mother.

A desperate moment from her past causes her to lose the man she loves to anger, showing us how the traumas of childhood can shape, or misshape, life as an adult.

9. A Mercy

A Mercy examines an era of the slave trade that gets less coverage than its final decades, taking us instead into its very beginnings during the seventeenth century. 

In Virginia, an Anglo-Dutch merchant named Jacob Vaark who agrees to accept a slave girl from a plantation owner in lieu of payment for a debt.

Florens enters Jacob’s home to join Jacob’s wife Rebekka; their Native American servant, Lina; and an abandoned infant the family has taken in, named Sorrow.

Among these women, Florens seeks the love she lacks in a mother, and together they endure a harsh environment as Jacob attempts to make a place for himself in a hostile and lawless new nation.

10. The Source of Self-Regard

In the last book to be published before her death, The Source of Self-Regard gives us Toni Morrison in her own words.

This collection of her most important essays and speeches is organized into three parts and spans the four decades of her work.

Throughout, Morrison reflects on a variety of subjects, from female empowerment, to wealth, and her own creative process. A must-read for anyone touched by Morrison’s work.

Reading Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s works offer intense, often painful looks at the raw realities of the oppressed, including slaves and women of all colors.

Her unflinching portrayals of violence, rape, incest, and other horrifying situations have led some parents to call for her books to be banned in schools, but her books nonetheless remain essential entries in the literary canon.

In fact, recent controversy over the required reading of Beloved in schools has actually led the book to once again emerge as a best seller.

Whatever your stance, Morrison’s talent as a writer and storyteller is undeniable, and her books deserve all the recognition they’ve earned over the years.

Do you have a favorite Toni Morrison book? Share it with us in the comments below!

 

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