Black-Owned Bookstores I Send Readers To Outside NYC

People ask me all the time where they can find Loverboy, Still outside New York. I tell them the truth—any bookstore that centers Black voices, that makes space for quiet stories about masculinity and intimacy, that doesn't need a book to be loud to stock it on the shelf. Those places exist all over the country, and most of them are Black-owned, family-run, or both.

These are the stores I send people to. Not just because they'll carry my book—but because they're the kind of spaces that understand what it means to hold something tender without treating it like it's fragile. If you're looking for Loverboy, Still or anything like it, start here.

1. The Known World by Edward P. Jones

If you responded to the way Gregory navigates memory in Loverboy, Still, you'll recognize something in Jones's prose—the way time collapses, the way a single moment can hold an entire history. This is a masterclass in structure and restraint, and it lives on the same shelf as anything I've tried to write.

2. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Smith writes love and family with a clarity that doesn't apologize for complexity. If you're looking for something that captures how people remain unknowable even when you've known them your whole life, this is it. It's sprawling where my book is focused, but the honesty is the same.

3. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

These stories sit in the same emotional register as the quieter chapters of Loverboy, Still—people trying to figure out who they are while the world keeps assigning them roles. Packer doesn't flinch, and she doesn't explain. She just shows you the person and trusts you to see them.

4. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

If you're drawn to stories about what we inherit and what we choose, Bennett's novel will land for you. It's about identity and performance and the distance between who you are and who the world sees. That tension runs through every chapter of my book, and it runs through this one too.

5. Corregidora by Gayl Jones

Jones writes desire and damage in the same breath, and she doesn't separate them. If the intimacy in Loverboy, Still felt real to you—not romanticized, just real—you'll understand what Jones is doing here. This is one of the books that taught me how to write about love when love isn't clean.

6. An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Solomon builds worlds that feel like pressure systems—contained, deliberate, where every choice costs something. If you responded to the way Loverboy, Still examines survival and selfhood under constraint, this speculative novel will give you that same feeling in a completely different key.

7. All About Love by bell hooks

This isn't fiction, but it's the book I return to when I need language for what I'm trying to do on the page. hooks writes about love as practice, as something you build rather than something that happens to you. That framework is all over my novel, even if I never say it outright.

8. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Ward writes tenderness in the middle of everything falling apart. If the emotional core of Loverboy, Still worked for you—the way Gregory keeps reaching even when reaching costs him—Ward's work will feel like home. She doesn't look away, and she doesn't make it easier than it is.

Where to Find These Books

If you're near the Bronx, The Lit. Bar is the first place I send people—Noëlle Santos built something real there, and the shelves reflect that care. In Harlem, Sister's Uptown Bookstore has been holding it down for decades. Out in DC, Mahogany Books and Loyalty Bookstores are both doing the work. Chicago's Semicolon is newer but necessary. And if you're on the West Coast, Marcus Books in Oakland—oldest Black-owned bookstore in the country—has been a landmark since 1960.

These stores don't just stock books. They curate conversations. If you're looking for Loverboy, Still or anything that lives in the same world, call ahead or order online. They'll get it to you.

You can also grab Loverboy, Still directly here on the site—paperback or audiobook, performed in Gregory Mitchell's voice. Thanks for reading.