American Poets Continuum Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Good Woman |
1987 |
Buy |
| Next |
1987 |
Buy |
| The City in Which I Love You |
1990 |
Buy |
| Quilting |
1991 |
Buy |
| What We Carry |
1994 |
Buy |
| Red Suitcase |
1994 |
Buy |
| The Terrible Stories |
1996 |
Buy |
| Fuel |
1998 |
Buy |
| Tell Me |
2000 |
Buy |
| Blessing the Boats |
2000 |
Buy |
| Smoke |
2000 |
Buy |
| Book of My Nights |
2001 |
Buy |
| Mules of Love |
2002 |
Buy |
| The Hawk Temple at Tierra Grande |
2002 |
Buy |
| Love Song with Motor Vehicles |
2003 |
Buy |
| The Owner of the House |
2003 |
Buy |
| The Orchard |
2004 |
Buy |
| The Rooster’s Wife |
2005 |
Buy |
| Postcards from the Interior |
2005 |
Buy |
| You & Yours |
2005 |
Buy |
| Darling Vulgarity |
2006 |
Buy |
| Not for Specialists |
2006 |
Buy |
| Slope of the Child Everlasting |
2007 |
Buy |
| Sleeping With Houdini |
2007 |
Buy |
| The Fortieth Day |
2008 |
Buy |
| Elephants & Butterflies |
2008 |
Buy |
| Voices |
2008 |
Buy |
| And |
2009 |
Buy |
| Carpathia |
2009 |
Buy |
| Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone |
2009 |
Buy |
| Sharp Stars |
2009 |
Buy |
| Chaos is the New Calm |
2010 |
Buy |
| Long Lens |
2010 |
Buy |
| Burning of the Three Fires |
2010 |
Buy |
| Diwata ) |
2010 |
Buy |
| Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line |
2010 |
Buy |
| Kingdom Animalia |
2011 |
Buy |
| Your Father on the Train of Ghosts |
2011 |
Buy |
| Ennui Prophet |
2011 |
Buy |
| Transfer |
2011 |
Buy |
| Gospel Night |
2011 |
Buy |
| The Hands of Strangers |
2011 |
Buy |
| True Faith |
2012 |
Buy |
| The Reindeer Camps |
2012 |
Buy |
| To Keep Love Blurry |
2012 |
Buy |
| The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 |
2012 |
Buy |
| Theophobia |
2012 |
Buy |
| The Book of Goodbyes |
2013 |
Buy |
| No Need of Sympathy |
2013 |
Buy |
| Refuge |
2013 |
Buy |
| Birth Marks |
2013 |
Buy |
| There’s a Box in the Garage You Can Beat With a Stick |
2013 |
Buy |
| The Keys to the Jail |
2014 |
Buy |
| All You Ask For is Longing |
2014 |
Buy |
| What He Took |
2014 |
Buy |
| Copia |
2014 |
Buy |
| The Chair |
2014 |
Buy |
| In a Landscape |
2014 |
Buy |
| Fanny Says |
2015 |
Buy |
| Testament |
2015 |
Buy |
| Why God is a Woman |
2015 |
Buy |
| Broken Hallelujahs |
2015 |
Buy |
| Antidote for Night |
2015 |
Buy |
| I’m No Longer Troubled by the Extravagance |
2015 |
Buy |
| Beautiful Wall |
2015 |
Buy |
| The Black Maria |
2016 |
Buy |
| Celestial Joyride |
2016 |
Buy |
| Whereso |
2016 |
Buy |
| Struggling Times |
2016 |
Buy |
| The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech |
2016 |
Buy |
| The End of Pink |
2016 |
Buy |
| Primitive |
2016 |
Buy |
| Mandatory Evacuation |
2016 |
Buy |
| The Trembling Answers |
2017 |
Buy |
| Bye-Bye Land |
2017 |
Buy |
| Sky Country |
2017 |
Buy |
| The Smoke of Horses |
2017 |
Buy |
| All Soul Parts Returned |
2017 |
Buy |
| The Second O of Sorrow ) |
2018 |
Buy |
| Holy Moly Carry Me |
2018 |
Buy |
| Clues from the Animal Kingdom ) |
2018 |
Buy |
| Dresses from the Old Country ) |
2018 |
Buy |
| In Country |
2018 |
Buy |
| The Tiny Journalist |
2019 |
Buy |
| All Its Charms |
2019 |
Buy |
| Night Angler |
2019 |
Buy |
| The Human Half |
2019 |
Buy |
| Cyborg Detective |
2019 |
Buy |
| On the Shores of Welcome Home |
2019 |
Buy |
| Rue |
2020 |
Buy |
| Year of the Dog |
2020 |
Buy |
| Let’s Become a Ghost Story |
2020 |
Buy |
| Brand New Spacesuit |
2020 |
Buy |
| Mercy |
2020 |
Buy |
| How to Carry Water |
2020 |
Buy |
| Caw |
2020 |
Buy |
| Letters to a Young Brown Girl |
2020 |
Buy |
| Mother Country |
2020 |
Buy |
| I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World |
2021 |
Buy |
| The Naomi Letters |
2021 |
Buy |
| Diamonds |
2021 |
Buy |
| Useful Junk |
2022 |
Buy |
| Field Notes from the Flood Zone |
2022 |
Buy |
| A Season in Hell with Rimbaud |
2022 |
Buy |
| Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency |
2022 |
Buy |
| A Tinderbox in Three Acts |
2022 |
Buy |
| Little Mr. Prose Poem |
2022 |
Buy |
| The Dug-Up Gun Museum |
2022 |
Buy |
Anthologies#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir |
1987 |
Buy |
| Go the Way Your Blood Beats |
1996 |
Buy |
| The Good Parts |
2000 |
Buy |
| Black Satin |
2004 |
Buy |
| Women of Color Pray |
2012 |
Buy |
| Her Own Accord |
2016 |
Buy |
| Writers: Their Lives and Works |
2018 |
Buy |
Chapbooks#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Big Box |
1999 |
Buy |
| The Book of Mean People |
2002 |
Buy |
| The Mirror Or The Glass? |
2005 |
Buy |
Non-Fiction#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power |
1992 |
Buy |
| The Nobel Lecture In Literature, 1993 |
1994 |
Buy |
| Conversations with Toni Morrison |
1994 |
Buy |
| The Dancing Mind |
1996 |
Buy |
| Birth of a Nation’hood |
1997 |
Buy |
| Memoirs |
1999 |
Buy |
| Remember |
2004 |
Buy |
| What Moves at the Margin |
2008 |
Buy |
| Burn This Book |
2009 |
Buy |
| To Die for the People |
2009 |
Buy |
| Please, Louise |
2013 |
Buy |
| The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations |
2019 |
Buy |
| Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations |
2019 |
Buy |
| Goodness and the Literary Imagination |
2019 |
Buy |
| The Writer Before the Page: From The Source of Self-Regard |
2019 |
Buy |
| The Measure of Our Lives |
2019 |
Buy |
| Language as Liberation |
2026 |
Buy |
Picture Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Peeny Butter Fudge |
2009 |
Buy |
| Little Cloud and Lady Wind |
2010 |
Buy |
| The Tortoise or the Hare |
2010 |
Buy |
Plays#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Desdemona |
2012 |
Buy |
Short Stories/Novellas#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Recitatif |
1983 |
Buy |
| Race |
2017 |
Buy |
Standalone Novels#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The Bluest Eye |
1970 |
Buy |
| Sula |
1973 |
Buy |
| Song of Solomon |
1977 |
Buy |
| Tar Baby |
1981 |
Buy |
| Beloved |
1987 |
Buy |
| Jazz |
1992 |
Buy |
| Paradise |
1997 |
Buy |
| Love |
2003 |
Buy |
| A Mercy |
2008 |
Buy |
| Home |
2011 |
Buy |
| God Help the Child |
2014 |
Buy |
The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition |
1941 |
Buy |
| i: Six Nonlectures |
1953 |
Buy |
| Sincerity and Authenticity |
1972 |
Buy |
| The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance |
1973 |
Buy |
| Six Walks in the Fictional Woods |
1994 |
Buy |
| The Romantic Generation |
1995 |
Buy |
| Lessons of the Masters |
2003 |
Buy |
| Bathers, Bodies, Beauty: The Visceral Eye |
2006 |
Buy |
| The Origin of Others |
2016 |
Buy |
The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| The American Newness |
1986 |
Buy |
| Highbrow/Lowbrow |
1988 |
Buy |
| Revolutions |
1990 |
Buy |
| Playing in the Dark |
1992 |
Buy |
| The Southern Tradition |
1994 |
Buy |
| Writing Was Everything |
1998 |
Buy |
| The Dissent of the Governed |
1998 |
Buy |
| Achieving Our Country |
1999 |
Buy |
| The Real American Dream |
1999 |
Buy |
| To Be the Poet |
2002 |
Buy |
| Reporting the Universe |
2003 |
Buy |
| Circles and Lines |
2004 |
Buy |
| Architecture as Signs and Systems |
2004 |
Buy |
| Reshaping the Work-Family Debate |
2010 |
Buy |
| Tiger Writing |
2013 |
Buy |
| Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations |
2015 |
Buy |
| Just a Journalist |
2017 |
Buy |
Who’s Got Game? Reading Order#
| Title |
Published |
Buy on Amazon |
| Who’s Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? |
2003 |
Buy |
| Who’s Got Game? The Lion or the Mouse? |
2003 |
Buy |
| Who’s Got Game? Three Fables |
2003 |
Buy |
| Who’s Got Game? Poppy or the Snake? |
2004 |
Buy |
Toni Morrison published eleven novels between 1970 and 2014, beginning with The Bluest Eye and ending with God Help the Child. Her fiction returns again and again to the lives of Black Americans across different eras, from the post-slavery period of Beloved to the mid-twentieth century of Song of Solomon to the contemporary settings of Love and God Help the Child.
Beyond her novels, Morrison wrote essays, speeches, children’s books, and a play (Desdemona). She edited anthologies, gave lecture series at Harvard (the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, resulting in The Origin of Others), and collected her non-fiction in volumes like The Source of Self-Regard. Her picture books with her son Slade Morrison, including the Who’s Got Game? fables, show another side of her writing. Morrison died in 2019, leaving behind a body of work that changed American literature.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has Toni Morrison written?
Toni Morrison has written 182 books across eleven series.
What was Toni Morrison's first book?
Toni Morrison’s first book is Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, published in 1941.
What is Toni Morrison best known for?
Toni Morrison is best known for her novels Beloved (1987), Song of Solomon (1977), and The Bluest Eye (1970). She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for Beloved and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.