Monsters, ghosts, magic, secret societies, the Book of Names and don’t forget The Safe Negro Travel Guide are just a few of the many eerie goodies brought to life in HBO’s original Lovecraft Country series executive produced by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. This extreme supernatural, yet historically relatable story gives us everything we need to temporarily ignore our own modern-day reality. (Haven't seen the show? You can view the trailer here.)                             

Written by Matt Ruff, Lovecraft Country is a 2016 dark fantasy novel that takes its readers to 1950s America, when prevalent racism, gender inequality, and suppression of sexual freedom are used to remind non-whites how much they don’t look like the others. Sprinkle the injustice of the Jim Crow era, The Tulsa Race Massacre, and the lynching murder of Emmet Till and you get a whole lot of intense feelings and the harsh reality of living while Black in the land of the free.

But there would be no Lovecraft Country story to tell without the written works of Howard Phillips "H.P." Lovecraft whose virulently racist views came through in much of his writing. Perhaps best known for his story "The Call of Cthulhu," and novels The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and The Whisperer in Darkness, his work has left an indelible mark in the science fiction and horror genres.

Because I would never judge a book by its author, I gave Ruff and Lovecraft Country a read, and surprisingly, it made me a fanatic for the TV show. The librarian in me could not help but notice the numerous written and musical works within the series and since the final episode left us all clutching our pearls and chest for more, it just seems appropriate to create a Reading Recommendation List as we await season two!

So, drum roll please… I present to you….

TV’s Lovecraft Country Fanatic Reading Recommendation List

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of the racism that unfortunately continues to haunt us today. 

 

The Negro Motorist Green Book:1938-1963 by Victor H. Green
Book | Digital Collections
The Negro Motorist Green Book was assembled by NYC postal worker Victor H. Green as a landmark resource that made travel much more accessible for African Americans. Published annually from 1936 until two years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was a guidebook for African American travelers that provided a list of hotels, boarding houses, taverns, restaurants, service stations, and other establishments throughout the country. 

The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson: The Baseball Legend's Battle for Civil Rights during World War II by Michael Lee Lanning
Book | e-Book 
This is a dramatic story about a young black lieutenant who refused to move to the back of a U.S. Army bus in Texas and found himself court-martialed. The defiant soldier was Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. Already a celebrated athlete in track and football,  a few years later he would become the man who would break Major League Baseball's color barrier.

Emmett Till: The Murder that Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery Anderson
Book | e-Book 
Anderson tells the tragic story of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. Anderson utilizes documents that had never been available to previous researchers, such as the trial transcript, long-hidden depositions by key players in the case, and interviews given by Carolyn Bryant to the FBI in 2004 (her first in fifty years), as well as other recently revealed FBI documents. The author also interviewed family members of the accused killers, most of whom agreed to talk for the first time, as well as several journalists who covered the murder trial in 1955.

 A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
A young Civil War veteran chased by Indians takes refuge in a mysterious cave and a strange gas paralyzes him. His spirit leaves his body and travels to Mars where he becomes a warrior.

 

 

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
Young Edmond Dantès is engaged to a beautiful woman, is about to become the captain of a ship, and is well-liked by almost everyone. But his perfect life is shattered when he is falsely accused of treason by a jealous rival and thrown into a dark prison cell for fourteen years. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

Dracula by Bram Stoker
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
The quintessential horror tale of the powerful, centuries-old vampire follows his bloodthirsty trail from the mountains of Central Europe to England until the savvy Dr. Van Helsing comes up with a way to end his reign of terror.

 

 

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. The story follows three slaves and their experiences in and out of slavery, Stowe's novel deals with the effects of slavery on both blacks and whites in the antebellum, or pre-Civil War, South. 

 

Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James w. Loewen
Book | e-Book
In this groundbreaking work, sociologist James W. Loewen investigates segregation practices in the northern sections of twentieth century America revealing how racial exclusion and oppression persisted into the contemporary era, in an account that challenges modern beliefs about race and racism.

 

Another Country by James Baldwin
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions—sexual, racial, political, artistic—that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.

 

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
First published in 1963, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time stabbed at the heart of America's so-called "Negro problem." As remarkable for its masterful prose as for its frank and personal account of the black experience in the United States, it is considered one of the most passionate and influential explorations of 1960s race relations, weaving thematic threads of love, faith, and family into a candid assault on the hypocrisy of the  "land of the free."
 

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
A classic psychological thriller by the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Steveson and popularly known as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson, who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde.

 

Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Toots of Black travel in America by Candacy Taylor
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
The book explores the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book, a travel guide for black motorists. Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book was hailed as the "black travel guide to America." At that time, it was very dangerous and difficult for African Americans to travel because black travelers couldn't eat, sleep, or buy gas at most white-owned businesses. The Green Book listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses that were safe for black travelers. It was a resourceful and innovative solution to a horrific problem.
  

The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 by Tim Madigan
Book | e-Book 
The author recreates the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explores the hatred, racism, and mistrust between its black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population, narrates events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation, and documents the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy.

 

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Book | e-Book | e-Audiobook
In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. Bringing a lifetime of wisdom to bear as a scholar, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time while showing how African Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a "New Negro" to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to America as it hurtled toward the modern age.

Gordon Parks: Segregation Story by Gordon Parks
Book 
This book features a broad selection of images, most published for the first time in Gordon Parks' powerful 1956 photographic series documenting the "Restraints: Open and Hidden." Parks documented the everyday activities and rituals of one extended African American family living in the rural South under Jim Crow segregation. 

 

If you wish to dive deeper into the world of our science fiction and mystery genre of books, check out our Fall 2020 staff picks list.

Can't get enough Lovecraft? NYPL hosted author Matt Ruff in conversation with librarian and Tor.com critic Alexandria Brown for a discussion on the book, legacies of racism in the horror genre, and the newly adapted HBO series. Watch below: 

 

 

---

Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Summaries adapted from NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.