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    $35.95

    In Sentient Flesh R. A. Judy takes up freedman Tom Windham’s 1937 remark “we should have our liberty 'cause . . . us is human flesh" as a point of departure for an extended meditation on questions of the human, epistemology, and the historical ways in which the black being is understood. Drawing on numerous fields, from literary theory and musicology, to political theory and phenomenology, as well as Greek and Arabic philosophy, Judy engages literary texts and performative practices such as music and dance that express knowledge and conceptions of humanity appositional to those grounding modern racialized capitalism. Operating as critiques of Western humanism, these practices and modes of being-in-the-world—which he theorizes as “thinking in disorder,” or “poiēsis in black”—foreground the irreducible concomitance of flesh, thinking, and personhood. As Judy demonstrates, recognizing this concomitance is central to finding a way past the destructive force of ontology that still holds us in thrall. Erudite and capacious, Sentient Flesh offers a major intervention in the black study of life.

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    $26.95

    In Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being, Kevin Quashie imagines a Black world in which one encounters Black being as it is rather than only as it exists in the shadow of anti-Black violence. As such, he makes a case for Black aliveness even in the face of the persistence of death in Black life and Black study. Centrally, Quashie theorizes aliveness through the aesthetics of poetry, reading poetic inhabitance in Black feminist literary texts by Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, and Evie Shockley, among others, showing how their philosophical and creative thinking constitutes worldmaking. This worldmaking conceptualizes Blackness as capacious, relational beyond the normative terms of recognition—Blackness as a condition of oneness. Reading for poetic aliveness, then, becomes a means of exploring Black being rather than nonbeing and animates the ethical question “how to be.” In this way, Quashie offers a Black feminist philosophy of being, which is nothing less than a philosophy of the becoming of the Black world.

  • Book cover image
    $29.00

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 4, 2024

    From one of the most prominent voices in the trauma conversation comes a groundbreaking new way to heal on a personal and a collective level.

    “I love this book.”—Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score

    “In a time when so many of us are being trained in cynicism, this book stands in necessary defiance.”—Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies and This Here Flesh

    As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect with one another, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how.

    What It Takes to Heal asserts that the principles of embodiment—the recognition of our body’s sensations and habits, and the beliefs that inform them—are critical to lasting healing and change. Hemphill, an expert embodiment practitioner, therapist, and activist who has partnered with Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Esther Perel, among others, shows us that we don't have to carry our emotional burdens alone. Hemphill demonstrates a future in which healing is done in community, weaving together stories from their own experience as a trauma survivor with clinical accounts and lessons learned from their time as a social movement architect. They ask, “What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?”

    In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls—to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.

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    $29.00

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 30, 2024

    Jay Ellis, star of HBO’s Insecure, tells the story of growing up with an imaginary best friend you will never forget—part Dwayne Wayne from A Different World, part Will Smith from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air—in this hilarious, vulnerable memoir.

    What to do when you’re the perpetual new kid, only child, and military brat hustling school to school each year and everyone’s looking to you for answers? Make some shit up, of course! And a young Jay Ellis does just that, with help from his imaginary friend, Mikey.

    A testament to the importance of invention, trusting oneself, and making space for creativity, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)? is a memoir of a kid who confided in his imaginary sidekick to navigate parallel pop culture universes (like watching Fresh Prince alongside John Hughes movies or listening to Ja Rule and Dave Matthews) to a lifetime of birthday disappointment (being a Christmas-season Capricorn will do that to you) and hoop dreams gone bad. Mikey also guides Ellis through tragedies, like losing his teenage cousin in a mistaken-target drive-by and the shame and fear of being pulled over by cops almost a dozen times the year he got his driver’s license.

    As his imaginary friend morphs into adult consciousness, Ellis charts an unforgettable story of looking inward to solve to some of life’s biggest (and smallest) challenges, told in the roast-you-with-love voice of your closest homey.

  • Book cover image
    $30.00

    PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 13, 2024

    A parent’s guide to cultivating an unhurried lifestyle and education that help their children thrive

    In a culture that prizes productivity, efficiency, and success, it’s easy to feel as though we’re constantly falling short and to lose sight of joy. The homeschool community is not exempt from this pressure, but longtime educator Leslie Martino shows parents how to slow down to recapture the delight and depth that are hallmarks of meaningful learning. In The Joy of Slow, she offers practical guidance on:

    * creating daily rhythms that celebrate the ordinary and make space for spontaneity
    * supporting children as they explore personal interests and engage in self-directed learning
    * tracking students’ progress in ways that might be overlooked by traditional assessments
    * prioritizing connection with other people and the natural world

    While parents of young children are more likely to embrace a slow childhood that nurtures wonder and imagination, panic often sets in as kids grow older, and parents worry about preparing them for the world beyond school. These fears are exacerbated by learning challenges, unspoken competition among peers, and standardized assessments. The Joy of Slow offers a much-needed reset, inspiring parents to prioritize the needs of each individual child and to help them find renewed freedom and passion.

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    by Dr. Ben Carson

    $29.99

    Learn from one of our leading conservative voices how we can return to the biblical values our nation was founded upon, especially the vital importance of the family, in order to secure a prosperous future for generations to come.

    Does America no longer feel like home? Widespread divorce rates, the erosion of traditional marriage, the popular rise of radical ideologies, attacks on faith, and government interference are only a few of the factors contributing to the struggles of families in our culture. And because of the importance of healthy families to every part of our national life, the breakdown of the family threatens to rob us of the country we love. But it doesn't have to be this way.

    Like many of us, Dr. Ben Carson fears we are losing the country we love. In this provocative and ultimately hopeful book, he gives us the facts, inspiration, and theory-to-action answers we need to restore a key foundation of America: the family.

    The Perilous Fight equips us to understand:

    * The hard data behind the breakdown of the family and its effects on our society, including poverty, crime, and deteriorating education
    * The core biblical beliefs that led our nation into unprecedented freedom and prosperity--and why abandoning those beliefs led to the social decline we see today
    * The fresh ideas and public policy options that could reverse negative trends impacting the family while maintaining a balance between constitutional freedoms and governmental involvement

    This is a practical and inspiring book for anyone who:

    * Feels discouraged about the state of our country and its institutions
    * Needs hope that there are commonsense, attainable solutions that we all can practice
    * Appreciates a conservative, Scripture-based approach to restoring faith, liberty, community, and life in America

    Strong families are the cornerstone of strong communities. Strong communities build a strong nation. Only when we prioritize the family as an institution established by God will we proudly remain the land of the free and the home of the brave.

  • Book cover image
    $27.00

    A unique collaboration from two of America’s leading artists that explores the fascinating and hidden history of the plant world.

    In this witty, deeply original book, the renowned novelist Jamaica Kincaid offers an ABC of the plants that define our world and reveals the often brutal history behind them.

    Kara Walker, one of America’s greatest visual artists, illustrates each entry with provocative, brilliant, enthralling, many-layered watercolors.

    There has never been a book like An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children―so inventive, surprising, and telling about what our gardens reveal.

  • PRE - ORDER: Autobiomythography of

    by Ayokunle Falomo

    $24.95

    PRE - ORDER: On Sale: September 10, 2024

    Autobiomythography of sifts through Nigerian stories and mythologies, both inherited and invented, to explore the self, family, and nationhood.

    In an attempt at decolonization, it is an exploration of what it means to be a subject—a person, yes, but also a literary subject—in the wake and afterlife of colonization. Intimate and personal, it is interested in figuring out how to wrest subjectivity—one’s notion of self—from this failed project of modernity.

    As the title suggests, the book spans and swirls together autobiography, mythology, biography, history (shared and personal), and geography. Amidst myriad speakers in the collection, there is a prominent speaker who, in search of his self/voice, tries on multiple voices—including Frederick Lugard’s—and other personas: some closer to who/what he is, whatever that is, and others diametrically opposite. 

    Tangentially, this is a book about a son's relationship with his father. Poem after poem, the speakers interrogate the perceptions of identity, reality, and ownership, and in the pursuit of Truth they erode the boundaries between fact and fiction to show us the fragility of the lines we draw in service to these abstractions, of the beliefs we hold about them, of the acts we perform in service to them.

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