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Tayari Jones

Goodreads Author

Born

in Atlanta, Georgia, The United States

Website

http://www.tayarijones.com/

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Fiction

Member Since

May 2010

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/tayari

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Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, February 2018). Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Silver Sparrow was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State Univers ...more

467 posts
Tayari Jones's Blog

Recent Podcasts

Listen to the New York Times Book Club podcast conversation here with MJ Franklin, Lauren Christensen and Elisabeth Egan, who wrote about Jones in a February 24 profile for the Times

Mother’s Day podcast on NPR’s All Things Considered: a conversation with Tayari Jones and Meg Wolitzer on mothers

The Stacks podcast presents “The Feeling of Being Known with Tayari Jones“

Tayari Jones discusses the mean

Combine Editions
Tayari Jones’s books

Average rating: 3.96 · 505,931 ratings · 45,839 reviews · 27 distinct works • Similar authors

	An American Marriage 3.93 avg rating — 393,552 ratings — published 2018 — 86 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Silver Sparrow 3.90 avg rating — 47,554 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kin 4.26 avg rating — 38,701 ratings — published 2026 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Leaving Atlanta 4.06 avg rating — 7,376 ratings — published 2002 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Untelling 3.72 avg rating — 5,012 ratings — published 2005 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Half Light by Tayari Jones (Goodreads Author), Bahni Turpin (Narrator) 3.72 avg rating — 2,544 ratings — published 2020 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dispossession by Tayari Jones (Goodreads Author), Gabrielle Union (Narrator) 3.86 avg rating — 1,944 ratings — published 2021 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Atlanta Noir (Akashic Noir) 3.54 avg rating — 428 ratings — published 2017 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	An American Marriage & Silver Sparrow By Tayari Jones 2 Books Collection Set by Tayari Jones (Goodreads Author) 3.99 avg rating — 81 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	LaKeisha and the Dirty Girl (McSweeney's 28) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Tayari Jones…

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Tayari is Currently Reading

Tayari Jones is currently reading

Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington's Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; Young Readers Edition

by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

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May 13, 2019 03:32PM

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Tayari’s Recent Updates

Tayari Jones wrote a new blog post NPR All Things Considered: Novelists Tayari Jones and Meg Wolitzer on Mothers “Ahead of Mother’s Day, we brought together two novelists — and friends — Tayari Jones and Meg Wolitzer, to talk about what they love about reading an Read more of this blog post »
May 30, 2026 12:11AM · like

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Quotes by Tayari Jones (?)

“But home isn't where you land; home is where you launch. You can't pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

179 likes

“Much of life is timing and circumstance, I see that now.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

117 likes

“There should be a word for this, the way it feels to steal something that’s already yours.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

73 likes

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Polls

Help us find our next Book of the month! Please vote for your favorites below :)

Fantasy

Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle, #1) by Christopher Paolini

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1) by Susan Ee

Angelfall by Susan Ee

The Collectors’ Society (The Collectors’ Society, #1) by Heather Lyons

The Collectors’ Society by Heather Lyons

71 votes 35.3%

Contemporary

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

71 votes 35.3%

Historical fiction

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

59 votes 29.4%

201 total votes

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