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  • The Cutting Season: A Novel

    by Attica Locke

    $17.99
    Caren Gray manages Belle Vie, a sprawling antebellum plantation that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the past and the present coexist uneasily. The estate's owners have turned the place into an eerie tourist attraction, complete with full-dress re-enactments and carefully restored slave quarters. Outside the gates, an ambitious corporation snaps up sugar cane fields from struggling families, replacing local employees with illegal laborers. Tensions mount when the body of a female migrant worker is found in a shallow grave on the edge of the property, her throat cut clean.

    As the investigation gets under way, the list of suspects grows. But when fresh evidence comes to light and the sheriff's department zeros in on a person of interest, Caren has a bad feeling that the police are chasing the wrong leads. Putting herself at risk, she ventures into dangerous territory as she unearths startling new facts about a very old mystery—the long-ago disappearance of a former slave—that has unsettling ties to the current murder. In pursuit of the truth about Belle Vie's history and her own, Caren discovers secrets about both cases—ones that an increasingly desperate killer will stop at nothing to keep buried.

    Taut, hauntingly resonant, and beautifully written, The Cutting Season is at once a thoughtful meditation on how America reckons its past with its future, and a high-octane page-turner that unfolds with tremendous skill and vision.
  • This Year You Write Your Novel

    Walter Mosley

    $18.99

    "Let the lawn get shaggy and the paint peel from the walls," bestselling novelist Walter Mosley advises. In this invaluable book of tips, practical advice, and wisdom, Mosley promises that the writer-in-waiting can finish their novel in one year.

    Intended as both inspiration and instruction, this book provides the tools to turn out a first draft painlessly and then revise it into something finer. Mosley teaches you how to:

    • Create a daily writing regimen to fit any writer's needs -- and how to stick to it.
    • Determine the narrative voice that's right for every writer's style.
    • Hook readers with dynamic characters.
    • Get past those first challenging sentences and into the heart of a story.
    • And much more.
  • Ghana to the World: Recipes and Stories That Look Forward While Honoring the Past

    by Eric Adjepong and Korsha Wilson

    $40.00

    A transportive, highly personal cookbook of 100 West African-influenced recipes and stories from Top Chef finalist Eric Adjepong.

    “Sankofa” is a Ghanaian Twi word that roughly translates to the idea that we must look back in order to move forward. In his moving debut cookbook, chef Eric Adjepong practices sankofa by showcasing the beauty and depth of West African food through the lens of his own culinary journey.

    With 100 soul-satisfying recipes and narrative essays, Ghana to the World reflects Eric’s journey to understand his identity and unique culinary perspective as a first-generation Ghanaian American. The recipes in this book look forward and backward in time, balancing the traditional and the modern and exploring the lineage of West African cooking while embracing new elements. Eric includes traditional home-cooked meals from his mother, like a deeply flavorful jollof rice and a smoky, savory kontomire stew thick with leafy greens, alongside creative dishes influenced by his culinary education, like a sweet summer curried corn bisque and sticky tamarind-glazed duck legs.

    Full of stunning photography shot in Ghana and remembrances rooted in family, tradition, and love, Ghana to the World shows readers how the unsung story of a continent’s cuisine can shine a powerful light on one person’s exploration of who he is as a chef and a man.

  • Brown Girl, Brown Girl

    by Leslé Honoré

    Sold out

    This powerful and hopeful picture book—inspired by the historic election of Vice President Kamala Harris—celebrates brown and Black girls and is magnificently illustrated by a Caldecott Honor-winning artist.

    Brown girl, brown girl, what did you see? 
    A world that sees my skin before it sees me. 

    Based on a viral poem by Blaxican poet and activist Leslé Honoré, and illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Cozbi A. Cabrera, this moving journey through the past, present, and future of brown and Black girls is a celebration of community, creativity, and joy—and offers a reminder of the history that inspires hope, and the hope that inspires activism.

    Praise for Brown Girl, Brown Girl:

    ✭ "Warmly, brilliantly welcoming—and not to be missed." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  • Not Sure Who Needs to Hear This, But . . .: 100 Postcards with Beautiful Reminders for the Soul

    Wille Greene

    $20.00

    A vibrant collection of 100 postcards featuring affirmations on self-love, inner peace, and healing, from WE THE URBAN founder Willie Greene.

    A platform that celebrates self-love, inclusivity, and empowerment, WE THE URBAN shares signature affirmations that have resonated with millions of people, many of whom share posts with friends on social media and use them to guide their personal journeys.

    Now, fans can share WE THE URBAN’s magic with this collection of 100 postcards that bring to life the powerful quotes the platform is famous for. Exploring inner peace, self-love, healing, growth, and more, these colorful postcards feature 50 original affirmations, each repeating once, that capture and validate our shared humanity. Whether you’re mailing a postcard to lift the spirits of a loved one or framing one for a daily dose of empowerment, these postcards offer 100 vibrant opportunities to share joy and positivity with someone who needs it.

  • Sweet Potato Soul Vegan Vibes: 100 Soulful Plant-Based Recipes for Healthy Everyday Meals; A Cookbook

    Jenné Claiborne

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    100 vegan recipes that bring plant-based fun to the plate for every meal of the day, from the beloved author of Sweet Potato Soul.

    “Jenné Claiborne transforms divine soul food favorites into nourishing, delicious, and approachable plant-based dishes you’ll want to make on repeat.”—Carleigh Bodrug, New York Times bestselling author of PlantYou

    Jenné Claiborne knows that vegans have more fun. She’s been enjoying the vibrant health, energy, and joy from eating plants—vegan vibes—for more than a decade. In that time, the vegan space has exploded, with fake meats and cheeses, fast foods, and processed treats galore. While exciting, these options don’t tap into the vibrancy of the vegetable world. 

    In Vegan Vibes, Jenné invites you to fall in love with cooking and eating plants, in their delicious diversity. After stints in New York City and Los Angeles, she’s returned to her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, where she is freshly inspired in her vegan kitchen by the city’s multicultural influences: collard green soup mellowed by miso, sweet potatoes crisped in the air fryer and heated with jerk seasoning, and corn ribs kissed by Korean gochujang sauce. 

    Jenné has transformed her favorite veggies into crowd-pleasing meals that are quick and easy enough for even the most hectic schedule. Vegan Vibes offers 100 dishes that are almost as much fun to make as they are to eat. That means laid-back whole food-based ingredient lists plus straightforward, no-fail techniques. And her unique flair for flavor elevates the simplest dish: a citrus spin on Mushroom Carnitas Tacos, Watermelon Gazpacho for the ultimate refreshing soup, and Magical Hummus packed with umami mushroom flavor. 

    With gorgeous photography for each recipe, Vegan Vibes includes:

    • Super yummy breakfasts: Indian Tofu Scramble, Rose Tahini Granola
    • Killer apps, snacks, and salads: Beet Latkes, Bali Shaved Brussels Salad
    • Comforting soups: Sweet Potato Bisque
    • Hearty entrees: Curried Red Bean Tacos, Korean Pulled Shroom Sandwiches, Black Bean Pizza
    • Perfect beverages: Dirty Candy Sour, Pineapple Rose Sangria
    • Drool-worthy desserts: Miso Caramel Banana Pudding, Cardamom Brown Sugar Pound Cake

    Brimming with unexpected, flavorful dishes, Vegan Vibes is the cookbook that will inspire everyone, vegan or not, to crave more plants.

  • Autistic and Black

    Kala Allen Omeiza

    Sold out

    "It's time we bring forward Black autistic pain points and celebrate the triumphs of ourselves, family members, and organizations that care for these individuals. Through following the real stories of others from around the world, I hope fellow Black and autistic individuals will be empowered to realize that being Black and autistic is enough."

    In this powerful insight into the lives of Black autistic people, Kala Allen Omeiza brings together a community of voices from across the world, spanning religions, sexuality and social economic status to provide a deep and rich understanding of what it means to be autistic and Black.

    Exploring everything from self-love and appreciation, to the harsh realities of police brutality, anti-Black racism, and barriers to care, as well as amplifying the voices of the inspiring advocates who actively work towards change, protection, and acceptance for themselves and others, this book is an empowering force, reminding you that as a Black autistic person, you are enough.

  • This Could Be Forever

    Ebony LaDelle

    Sold out

    Deja’s got a plan. The first in her large family to go to college, she wants to study chemistry and sell natural skin care products, like the ones she already creates from plants grown on her family’s North Carolina farm. It all starts with the Onward Bound summer program at the University of Maryland, the summer before school officially starts.

    Raja’s got a dream. His traditional Nepali parents want him to study engineering and settle down in an arranged marriage, but his passion is art, and he wants to open his own tattoo parlor one day. In the meantime, he’s apprenticing at a tattoo shop in College Park, Maryland.

    When Deja walks into the shop where Raja’s working, they both start crushing hard—over the course of the summer, they fall more and more deeply for one another. But the closer they get and the more their lives entwine, the more they find that dating someone who doesn’t match your parents’ expectations is harder than they ever imagined.

    Can they bridge the divide between the vision their families have for their futures and the lives—and love—that are starting to feel like destiny?

  • History Lessons

    Zoe B. Wallbrook

    $25.95

    A college history professor must solve her superstar colleague's murder before she becomes the next target in this funny, romantic debut mystery, perfect for readers of Janet Evanovich, Kellye Garrett, and Ali Hazelwood.

    As a newly minted junior professor, Daphne Ouverture spends her days giving lectures on French colonialism, working on her next academic book, and going on atrocious dates. Her small world suits her just fine. Until Sam Taylor dies.

    The rising star of Harrison University’s anthropology department was never one of Daphne’s favorites, despite his popularity. But that doesn’t prevent Sam’s killer from believing Daphne has something that belonged to Sam—something the killer will stop at nothing to get.

    Between grading papers and navigating her disastrous love life, Daphne embarks on her own investigation to find out what connects her to Sam’s murder. With the help of an alluring former-detective-turned-bookseller, she unravels a deadly cover-up on campus.

    This well-crafted, voice-driven mystery introduces an unforgettable crime fiction heroine.

  • Where We Found Our Passion (Lost & Found Series)

    Natasha Bishop

    from $24.99

    Kai

    How long do you have to be apart from someone before you can say you don’t know them anymore?

    How long does someone have to be out of your life before your every waking thought doesn’t revolve around them?

    Olivia Harding bulldozed her way into my life at twelve years old. She broke my heart at nineteen and I haven’t seen her once in the thirteen years since.

    She chose her career over me. And now, because life is a cruel and coldhearted bitch, I’m praying that she gives me a chance to help her save it.

    The smart thing to do would be to keep my distance, to keep it strictly professional.

    But I’ve never been smart when it comes to her.

    Olivia

    Soccer is all I ever wanted in life.

    And then I met Kai Morris.

    He turned my life upside down in the best way possible. He was there when those that I needed weren’t and how did I repay him? I broke his heart.

    He should hate me after what I did and he definitely shouldn’t be willing to help me get my career back on track.

    Now, for the next year I’ll have to feel his touch, smell his intoxicating scent, and look into his devastatingly beautiful eyes. He makes me want things I haven’t thought about in so long.

    But I can’t have him.

    There’s too much at risk. Too much truth I’ve tried to protect him from all these years.

    When the truth comes out, will he be able to forgive me? Because I don’t think I’m strong enough to walk away from him a second time.

  • I Accidentaly Hooked up with a Vampire (Accidents Happen)

    Jessica Cage

    $24.99

    Who needs a job when you just signed a new mortgage?

    When Whitney Harris loses her dream job as an art broker, she drowns her sorrows in a few too many cocktails. But her night takes a turn for the bizarre when she accidentally hooks up with Domino, a drop-dead gorgeous vampire with a flair for the dramatic and a taste for trouble.

    Now, instead of just worrying about her next paycheck, Whitney finds herself in a world where Domino's vampire affiliates have their sights set on her-because she's special. Duh!

    As she navigates this unexpected romance, she discovers her friends have their own supernatural secrets: spells and daggers anyone?

    With danger lurking in every shadow, Whitney must figure out how to survive this new chaotic reality. Can she embrace her wild side, save her heart (and neck), and turn the tables on fate before she becomes a vampire's main course?

    Get ready for a laugh-out-loud adventure filled with love, friendship, and a whole lot of supernatural shenanigans!

  • Main Street: A Community Story About Redlining
    $18.99

    A girl learns how the history of redlining has affected her neighborhood in this intergenerational picture book about racism, community action, and resilience by two New York Times bestselling authors.

    Olivia can’t wait to invite her friends to the 62nd annual Main Street Block Party. But when she does, Alison says that Main Street isn’t safe. Olivia’s eyes fill with tears, and she begins to wish that she didn’t live on Main Street at all.

    Then, Olivia learns what happened when her neighbor Ms. Effie was about her age: Ms. Effie's family was also told that Main Street wasn’t good enough. The bank wouldn’t give them a loan to buy their house based on where it fell on a color-coded map: Mostly Black people lived near Main Street, so the neighborhood was colored red on the map. To fight back against this practice called redlining, Ms. Effie’s family became friends with their neighbors and got organized.

    With vibrant illustrations by David Wilkerson and engaging text by Britt Hawthorne and Tiffany Jewell, Main Street celebrates what might happen when neighbors come together for a common goal and everybody pitches in.

    Features backmatter with an author's note about the full history of redlining and ideas for further engagement with your community!

  • The House Guests: A Novel

    Amber and Danielle Brown

    $18.99

    NO ONE’S AROUND FOR MILES…

    One year ago, Iris’s world turned upside down. Haunted by nightmares of her mother’s traumatic death, Iris has become a sleep-deprived, jittery version of herself who she hardly recognizes anymore. So when she’s given the opportunity to get away from the crushing grind of reality for a relaxing week with her partner and his close-knit group of friends, she jumps at the chance.

    But after she arrives early to the remote lake house in the Catskills, things take a dark turn. Alone in the cabin in the middle of the night, Iris sees a blood-covered man burying something—or someone—in the mud behind the deck before entering the house. But the daylight reveals nothing, the dirt unturned and the house pristine.

    As strange and increasingly disturbing discoveries begin to stack up, her fellow house guests refuse to take anything Iris has to say seriously, and she begins to suspect that someone might be gaslighting her. If the stress hasn’t finally gotten to her, that is. Determined to uncover the truth, Iris finds herself drawn into a terrifying game of cat and mouse. Is it all in her head, or is there really a killer among them? Can she trust anyone…even herself?

  • Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History

    by Vashti Harrison

    $16.99

    Featuring 18 trailblazing black women in American history, Dream Big, Little One is the irresistible board book adaptation of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History.

    Among these women, you’ll find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things – bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn’t always accept them.

    The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come.

  • All the Things We Never Knew

    by Liara Tamani

    $13.99

    A glance was all it took. That kind of connection, the immediate understanding of another person, just doesn’t come along very often. And as rising stars on their Texas high schools’ respective basketball teams, destined for futures in professional leagues, it seems like a match made in heaven. But Carli and Rex both have secrets.

    Carli hates basketball and, in the wake of her parents’ crumbling marriage, uses Rex as a crutch—someone to cling to while her life falls apart.

    Rex comes home to an empty house and an absent father. He’s hardened himself against the lack of affection, but now he has Carli. But how much love can you give another person when you don’t love yourself?

    Liara Tamani’s sophomore novel follows two Black teenagers as they discover how first love, heartbreak, betrayal, and family can shape you. Literary and commercial, this is for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jenny Han.

  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker
    $18.00

    A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia.

    Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.

    The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker’s epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

  • Shake Loose My Skin

    Sonia Sanchez

    $16.99
    An extraordinary retrospective covering over thirty years of work, From a leading writer of the Black Arts Movement and the American Poetry Society’s 2018 Wallace Stevens Award–winner.

    Shake Loose My Skin
     is a stunning testament to the literary, sensual, and political powers of the award-winning Sonia Sanchez.
  • Collected Poems

    Sonia Sanchez

    $19.95
    A representative collection of the life work of the much-honored poet and a founder of the Black Arts movement, spanning the 4 decades of her literary career.

    Gathering highlights from all of Sonia Sanchez’s poetry, this compilation is sure to inspire love and community engagement among her legions of fans. Beginning with her earliest work, including poems from her first volume, Homecoming (1969), through to 2019, the poet has collected her favorite work in all forms of verse, from Haiku to excerpts from book-length narratives. Her lifelong dedication to the causes of Black liberation, social equality, and women’s rights is evident throughout, as is her special attention to youth in poems addressed to children and young adults.

    As Maya Angelou so aptly put it: “Sonia Sanchez is a lion in literature’s forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly.”
  • We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
    Sold out

    “Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring out who your targets are, always being concerned about power, always being concerned about how you’re going to actually build power in order to be able to push your issues, in order to be able to get the target to actually move in the way that you want to.”

    What if social transformation and liberation isn’t about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle. With a foreword by Naomi Murakawa and chapters on seeking justice beyond the punishment system, transforming how we deal with harm and accountability, and finding hope in collective struggle for abolition, Kaba’s work is deeply rooted in the relentless belief that we can fundamentally change the world. As Kaba writes, “Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone.”
  • Cinderella Is Dead

    by Kalynn Bayron

    $12.99
    Black, queer girls team up to overthrow the kingdom in this fresh retelling of Cinderella—perfect for A Curse So Dark and Lonely fans.

    It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Young girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men select wives based on the level of finery a girl displays. If a suitable match is not found, the girls left behind are forfeited—never to be heard from again.
    Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. When she flees the ball in a moment of desperation, she begins a journey that reveals the dark secrets of Cinderella’s tale and leads her to a love she never expected. Her only hope is to destroy the king once and for all.
    This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

  • The Trees

    by Percival Everett

    Sold out

    An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone

    Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

    The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.

     

  • Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators

    by The Education for Liberation Network & Critical Resistance Editorial Collective

    Sold out

    A political vision for a future ripe with alternatives to imprisonment and punishment.

    Born from sustained organizing, and rooted in Black and women of color feminisms, disability justice, and other movements, abolition calls for an end to our reliance on imprisonment, policing and surveillance, and to imagine a safer future for our communities.

    Lessons in Liberation: An Abolitionist Toolkit for Educators offers entry points to build critical and intentional bridges between educational practice and the growing movement for abolition. Designed for educators, parents, and young people, this toolkit shines a light on innovative abolitionist projects, particularly in pre-K–12 learning contexts.

    Sections are dedicated to entry points into Prison Industrial Complex abolition and education; the application of the lessons and principles of abolition; and stories about growing abolition outside of school settings. Topics addressed throughout include student organizing, immigrant justice in the face of ICE, approaches to sex education, arts-based curriculum, and building abolitionist skills and thinking in lesson plans.

    The result of patient and urgent work, and more than five years in the making, Lessons in Liberation invites educators into the work of abolition.

    Contributors include Black Organizing Project, Chicago Women’s Health Center, Mariame Kaba and Project NIA, Bettina L. Love, the MILPA Collective, and artists from the Justseeds Collective, among others.

  • Gordon Parks: Segregation Story
    Sold out

    An expanded edition of Parks’ classic account of race relations in America, with previously unpublished images and texts

    This expanded edition of Gordon Parks: Segregation Story includes around 30 previously unpublished photographs, as well as enhanced reproductions created from Parks’ original color transparencies; newly discovered descriptions Parks wrote for the photographs; a manuscript of film-developing instructions and captions Parks authored with Samuel F. Yette; previously published texts by the late art historian Maurice Berger and the esteemed journalist and civil rights activist Charlayne Hunter-Gault; and a new essay by artist Dawoud Bey.
    After the photographs were first presented in a 1956 issue of Life magazine, the bulk of Parks’ assignment was thought to be lost. In 2011, five years after Parks’ death, the Gordon Parks Foundation found more than 200 color transparencies belonging to the series. In 2014 the series was first published as a book, and since then new photographs have been uncovered.
    In the summer of 1956, Life magazine sent Gordon Parks to Alabama to document the daily realities of African Americans living under Jim Crow laws in the rural South. The resulting color photographs are among Parks’ most powerful images, and, in the decades since, have become emblematic representations of race relations in America. Pursued at grave danger to the photographer himself, the project was an important chapter in Parks’ career-long endeavor to use the camera as a weapon for social change.
    Gordon Parks (1912–2006) was born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912. An itinerant laborer, he worked as a brothel pianist and railcar porter, among other jobs, before buying a camera at a pawnshop, training himself and becoming a photographer. He evolved into a modern-day Renaissance man, finding success as a film director, writer and composer. The first African American director to helm a major motion picture, he helped launch the blaxploitation genre with his film Shaft (1971). Parks died in 2006.

  • BLK ART: The Audacious Legacy of Black Artists and Models in Western Art

    by Zaria Ware

    $34.99

    A fun and fact-filled introduction to the dismissed Black art masters and models who shook up the world.

    Elegant. Refined. Exclusionary. Interrupted. The foundations of the fine art world are shaking. Beyoncé and Jay-Z break the internet by blending modern Black culture with fine art in their iconic music video filmed in the Louvre. Kehinde Wiley powerfully subverts European masterworks. Calls resonate for diversity in museums and the resignations of leaders of the old guard. It’s clear that modern day museums can no longer exist without change—and without recognizing that Black people have been a part of the Western art world since its beginnings. Quietly held within museum and private collections around the world are hundreds of faces of Black men and women, many of their stories unknown. From paintings of majestic kings to a portrait of a young girl named Isabella in Amsterdam, these models lived diverse lives while helping shape the art world along the way. Then, after hundreds of years of Black faces cast as only the subject of the white gaze, a small group of trailblazing Black American painters and sculptors reached national and international fame, setting the stage for the flourishing of Black art in the 1920s and beyond. Captivating and informative, BLK ART is an essential work that elevates a globally dismissed legacy to its proper place in the mainstream art canon. From the hushed corridors of royal palaces to the bustling streets of 1920s Paris—this is Black history like never seen before.

  • Black American Portraits: From the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

    edited by Christine Kim

    $49.95

    A celebratory visual chronicle of the many ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves

    Spanning over two centuries from around 1800 to the present day, Black American Portraits chronicles the ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Remembering Two Centuries of Black American Art, curated by David C. Driskell at LACMA 45 years ago, this book is a companion to the exhibition of the same name that reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters and spaces. This selection of approximately 140 works from LACMA’s permanent collection highlights emancipation, scenes from the Harlem Renaissance, portraits from the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, multiculturalism of the 1990s and the spirit of Black Lives Matter.
    Countering a visual culture that often demonizes Blackness and fetishizes the spectacle of Black pain, these images center love, abundance, family, community and exuberance. Black American Portraits depicts Black figures in a range of mediums such as painting, drawing, prints, photography, sculpture, mixed media and time-based media. In addition to work by artists of African descent, Black American Portraits includes several works by artists of other backgrounds who have exemplified a thoughtfulness about, sensitivity toward and commitment to Black artists, communities, histories and subjects.
    Artists include: Alvin Baltrop, Edward Biberman, Bisa Butler, Jordan Casteel, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Bruce Davidson, Stan Douglas, rafa esparza, Shepard Fairey, Charles Gaines, Sargent Claude Johnson, Deana Lawson, Kerry James Marshall, Alice Neel, Lorraine O'Grady, Catherine Opie, Amy Sherald, Ming Smith, Henry Taylor, Tourmaline, Mickalene Thomas, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems, Charles White, Kehinde Wiley and Deborah Willis.

  • The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

    edited by Roxane Gay

    $16.95
    A definitive selection of Audre Lorde’s "intelligent, fierce, powerful, sensual, provocative, indelible" (Roxane Gay) prose and poetry, for a new generation of readers.

    Self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, and one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. This essential reader showcases her indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies in twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems—selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender, Roxane Gay.

    Among the essays included here are:

    • "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"
    • "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House"
    • "I Am Your Sister"
    • Excerpts from the American Book Award–winning A Burst of Light

    The poems are drawn from Lorde’s nine volumes, including The Black Unicorn and National Book Award finalist From a Land Where Other People Live. Among them are:

    • "Martha"
    • "A Litany for Survival"
    • "Sister Outsider"
    • "Making Love to Concrete"
  • Big Red Fire Truck

    Ken Winslow-Max

    $12.99
    An interactive re-imagining of a 1990s classic!

    The bell rings in the fire house, there is a fire somewhere! Someone needs help. Open the doors and drive the big red fire truck across town. Put up the long ladder and aim the water hose at the flames to put them out. Jo Lodge has given new life to this classic picture book, by simplifying the story and introducing paper engineering. Toddlers will love to drive the fire truck through the city to save the day!

  • Big Silver Spaceship

    by Ken Winslow-Max

    $12.99

    An interactive re-imagining of a 1990s classic!

    With tabs to pull and slide, this fun book invites preschoolers to launch, fly, and land their own space shuttle on a mission to space. Jo Lodge has given new life to this classic picture book, by simplifying the story and introducing paper engineering. Toddlers will love to launch the big silver spaceship into space!

  • I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive

    by Zora Neale Hurston

    $19.95

    A collection of essays, fiction, journalism, folklore, and autobiography, preserving the legacy of one of the Harlem Renaissance’s greatest writers.

    The foundational, classic anthology that revived interest in the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God—"one of the greatest writers of our time"—and made her work widely available for a new generation of readers (Toni Morrison).

    During her lifetime, Zora Neale Hurston was praised for her writing but condemned for her independence and audacity. Her work fell into obscurity until the 1970s, when Alice Walker rediscovered Hurston's unmarked grave and anthologized her writing in this groundbreaking collection for the Feminist Press. 

    I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive established Hurston as an intellectual leader for future generations of black writers. A testament to the power and breadth of Hurston's oeuvre, this edition—newly reissued for the Feminist Press's fiftieth anniversary—features a new preface by Walker.

    "Through Hurston, the soul of the black South gained one of its most articulate interpreters." —The New York Times

  • The Making of Butterflies

    by Zora Neale Hurston and Ibram X. Kendi

    $9.99
    A board book reimagination of a story featured in beloved African American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston's Mules & Men. Adapted by National Book Award winner and #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby Ibram X. Kendi, The Making of Butterflies follows the Creator as they make butterflies to keep the flowers company. Illustrated by mixed-media artist, Kah Yangni.
  • Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism

    by Jenn M. Jackson

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    Fearless essays that reclaim the work and words of Black women activists, abolitionists, and movement makers who have long fought for liberation and justice—from a beloved Teen Vogue columnist and an essential new voice in Black feminism.

    Jenn M. Jackson has been known to bring deep historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women's freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost in the meantime? A love letter to those who have been minimized and forgotten, this collection repositions Black women’s intellectual and political work at the center of today’s liberation movements.

    Across thirteen original essays that explore the legacy and work of Black women writers and leaders—from Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells to the Combahee River Collective and Audre Lorde—Jackson sets the record straight about Black women’s longtime movement organizing, theorizing, and coalition building in the name of racial, gender, and sexual justice in the United States and abroad. These essays show, in both critical and deeply personal terms, how Black women have been at the center of modern liberation movements, despite the erasure and misrecognition of their efforts. Jackson illustrates how Black women have frequently done the work of liberation at great risk to their lives and livelihoods.

    For a new generation of movement organizers and potential co-strugglers, Black Women Taught Us serves as a reminder that Black women were the first ones to teach us how to fight racism, how to name that fight, and how to imagine a more just world for all of us. A reclamation of an essential history, and a hopeful gesture towards a better political future, this is what listening to Black women looks like.

  • An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children
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    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.

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