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  • Everyone's Table by. Gregory Gourdet

    Gregory Gourdet

    $40.00

    Everyone’s Table features 200 mouth-watering, decadently flavorful recipes carefully designed to focus on superfoods—ingredients with the highest nutrient-density, the best fats, and the most minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants—that will delight and inspire home cooks. Gourdet’s dishes are inspired his deep affection for global ingredients and techniques--from his Haitian upbringing to his French culinary education, from his deep affection from the cuisines of Asia as well as those of North and West Africa. His unique culinary odyssey informs this one-of-a-kind cookbook, which features dynamic vegetable-forward dishes and savory meaty stews, umami-packed sauces and easy ferments, and endless clever ways to make both year-round and seasonal ingredients shine.

  • The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
    $17.00
    A community of Black faith healers witness an event that will change their lives forever in this “hard-nosed, wise, funny” novel (Los Angeles Times).

    Set in a fictional city in the American South, the novel also "inhabits the nonlinear, sacred space and sacred time of traditional African religion” (The New York Times Book Review).

    Though they all united in their search for the healing properties of salt, some of them are centered, some are off-balance; some are frightened, and some are daring. From the men who live off welfare women to the mud mothers who carry their children in their hides, the novel brilliantly explores the narcissistic aspect of despair and the tremendous responsibility that comes with physical, spiritual, and mental well-being.
  • Invisible Man

    by Ralph Ellison

    $17.00
    Both a deeply compelling bestselling novel and an epic milestone of American literature.

    Originally published in 1952 as the first novel by a then unknown author, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century.

    The book’s nameless narrator describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, before retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
  • Lullaby (For a Black Mother)

    by Langston Hughes

    $8.99
    This beloved poem by Langston Hughes, illustrated by the award-winning Sean Qualls, is an irresistible celebration of the love between mother and baby, now available in board book format.

    “My little dark baby, / My little earth-thing, / My little love-one, / What shall I sing / For your lullaby?" With gracefully chosen words as smooth as a song, the poet Langston Hughes celebrates the love between an African American mother and her baby. Award-winning illustrator Sean Qualls’s painted and collaged artwork captures universally powerful maternal moments with tenderness and whimsy. Like little love-ones, this beautiful book is a treasure. Now in board book format.

  • Burst of Light

    by Audre Lourde

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    "Lorde's words — on race, cancer, intersectionality, parenthood, injustice — burn with relevance 25 years after her death." — O, The Oprah Magazine

    Winner of the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation National Book Award, this path-breaking collection of essays is a clarion call to build communities that nurture our spirit. Lorde announces the need for a radical politics of intersectionality while struggling to maintain her own faith as she wages a battle against liver cancer. From reflections on her struggle with the disease to thoughts on lesbian sexuality and African-American identity in a straight white man's world, Lorde's voice remains enduringly relevant in today's political landscape.


    Those who practice and encourage social justice activism frequently quote her exhortation, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." In addition to the journal entries of "A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer," this edition includes an interview, "Sadomasochism: Not About Condemnation," and three essays, "I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities," "Apartheid U.S.A.," and "Turning the Beat Around: Lesbian Parenting 1986," as well as a new Foreword by Sonia Sanchez.

    "You don't read Audre Lorde, you feel her." — Essence

  • African American Folk Healing

    by Mireille Miller-Young

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    Cure a nosebleed by holding a silver quarter on the back of the neck. Treat an earache with sweet oil drops. Wear plant roots to keep from catching colds. Within many African American families, these kinds of practices continue today, woven into the fabric of black culture, often communicated through women. Such folk practices shape the concepts about healing that are diffused throughout African American communities and are expressed in myriad ways, from faith healing to making a mojo.
    Stephanie Y. Mitchem presents a fascinating study of African American healing. She sheds light on a variety of folk practices and traces their development from the time of slavery through the Great Migrations. She explores how they have continued into the present and their relationship with alternative medicines. Through conversations with black Americans, she demonstrates how herbs, charms, and rituals continue folk healing performances. Mitchem shows that these practices are not simply about healing; they are linked to expressions of faith, delineating aspects of a holistic epistemology and pointing to disjunctures between African American views of wellness and illness and those of the culture of institutional medicine.
  • Brown Baby Jesus: A Picture Book

    by Dorena Williamson

    $15.99

    Celebrate Christmas with this unique retelling of the Nativity story featuring Jesus as a melanated baby in a story that’s rich with Scripture, historical accuracy, and a multicultural weaving of love—from the author of Crowned with Glory.

    Like Moses, brown baby Jesus would be a deliverer. Like Rahab, brown baby Jesus would save His people from destruction. Like David, brown baby Jesus would rule as a great king. Like the colorful threads that make up a beautiful cloth, Brown Baby Jesus brings together the characters and stories leading to Jesus—showing how God included many races and nations in the story we celebrate each year.

    With an unconventional Christmas setting of Egypt and written in sweet, lyrical prose, Brown Baby Jesus is sure to become a holiday classic embraced by families of all races and backgrounds.

  • Wednesday and Woof #3: The Runaway Robot

    by Sherri Winston

    $6.99

    A double mystery means double the pressure for Wednesday and Woof when a robot and a hamster go missing right before the school science fair in this full-color, fully-illustrated HarperChapters series.

    Every HarperChapters early chapter book sets newly independent readers up for success with short chapters, art on every page, and interactive features that celebrate progress and effort!

    Detective Tip #3: Use your imagination and stay calm

    When a classmate’s DIY robot goes missing right before the school science fair, Detective Wednesday Nadir and her service dog, Woof, are sure they can find it…until the class hamster also disappears! Now the pressure is on! Can Wednesday and Woof use the scientific method to solve two cases at once—or will the stress cause a mess?

  • Temple Folk

    by Aaliyah Bilal

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    A groundbreaking debut collection portraying the lived experiences of Black Muslims grappling with faith, family, and freedom in America.

    In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.

    In “Due North,” an obedient daughter struggles to understand why she’s haunted by the spirit of her recently deceased father. In “Who’s Down?” a father, after a brief affair with vegetarianism, conspires with his daughter to order him a double cheeseburger. In “Candy for Hanif” a mother’s routine trip to the store for her disabled son takes an unlikely turn when she reflects on a near-death experience. In “Woman in Niqab,” a daughter’s suspicion of her father’s infidelity prompts her to wear her hair in public. In “New Mexico,” a federal agent tasked with spying on a high-ranking member of the Nation of Islam grapples with his responsibilities closer to home.

    With an unflinching eye for the contradictions between what these characters profess to believe and what they do, Temple Folk accomplishes the rare feat of presenting moral failures with compassion, nuance and humor to remind us that while perfection is what many of us strive for, it’s the errors that make us human.

  • The Secret to a Southern Wedding

    by Synithia Williams

    $18.99

    Filled with southern charm, good friends and bad decisions, the first book in Synithia Williams’s new Peachtree Cove series is perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory and Brenda Jackson, about a woman determined to stop her mother’s impulsive wedding to man she barely knows, only to find herself irresistibly drawn to the groom’s son.

    It was a spark neither were expecting…but will it burn them both?

    It’s been years since Dr. Imani Kemp has returned home to Peachtree Cove, Georgia. As Tallahassee’s most sought-after OB-GYN, she doesn’t have much time for anything else. But when her mom invites her to a surprise wedding to a man that she only just met on a dating app, the pragmatic Imani knows she has to put this to a stop. What she believes will be an easy task turns difficult when the handsome son of her potential stepfather insists on blocking her efforts to keep their parents apart.

    Cyril Dash and his father relocated to Peachtree Cove to escape the rumors and speculation surrounding his mother’s tragic death. Now, they’ve finally found peace and made a life in this quirky small town. Most importantly, after years of grief, his dad has finally found happiness again, and Cyril refuses to let Imani’s suspicions and skepticisms stand in the way. He aims to show her his dad’s feelings are real, but unexpectedly the attraction between him and Imani becomes something neither can deny.

    But when Cyril’s heartbreaking past collides with Imani’s doubts, overcoming the secrets between them threatens everything…

  • CROWNED: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora

    by Kahran Bethencourt & Regis Bethencourt

    $35.00

    From the New York Times bestselling authors of GLORY, Kahran and Regis Bethencourt of CreativeSoul Photography, comes CROWNED, a collection that completely reimagines how we see our favorite and most beloved childhood fairy and folk tales. Filled with the stunning photography that defines CreativeSoul Photography, this collection features classic fairy tales, African and African American folklore, and exciting new classics–brand new stories created by Kahran and Regis.

    Included in the collection:

    The Poisoned Apple; Asha the Little Cinder Girl; The Little Mermaid; Sleeping Beauty; Hansel and Gretel; Little Red Riding Hood; Anasi and the Three Trials; Aku The Sun Maker; How the Zebra Got His Stripes; The Legend of Princess Yennenga; John Henry, the Steel Driving Man; The Cloud Princess, and more!

    This collection is a must-have for children and parents everywhere and is a joyous celebration of Black beauty and imagination.

  • Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

    by Howard W. French

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    Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history.

    Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity?

    In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa.

    Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history.

    While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day.

    “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.

  • Dark Days: Fugitive Essays

    by Roger Reeves

    $18.00

    A crucial book that calls for community, solidarity, and joy, even in—especially in—these dark days

    In his debut work of nonfiction, award-winning poet Roger Reeves finds new meaning in silence, protest, fugitivity, freedom, and ecstasy. Braiding memoir, theory, and criticism, Reeves juxtaposes the images of an opera singer breaking the state-mandated silence curfew by singing out into the streets of Santiago, Chile, and a father teaching his daughter to laugh out loud at the planes dropping bombs on them in Aleppo, Syria. He describes the history of the hush harbor—places where enslaved people could steal away to find silence and court ecstasy, to the side of their impossible conditions. In other essays, Reeves highlights a chapter in Toni Morrison’s Beloved to locate common purpose between Black and Indigenous peoples; he visits the realities of enslaved people on McLeod Plantation, where some of the descendants of those formerly enslaved lived into the 1990s; and he explores his own family history, his learning to read closely through the Pentecostal church tradition, and his passing on of reading as a pleasure, freedom, and solace to his daughter, who is frightened the police will gun them down.


    Together, these groundbreaking essays build a profound vision for how to see and experience the world in our present moment, and how to strive toward an alternative existence in intentional community underground. “The peace we fight and search for,” Reeves writes, “begins and ends with being still.”

  • Hey, Baby Girl!

    by Andrea Davis Pinkney

    $8.99

    A beautiful ode to all bright brown baby girls and the fifth title in the acclaimed Bright Brown Baby series -- from New York Times bestselling and award-winning duo Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney!

    Hey, baby girl. Go change the world!

    Brimming with love and affirmation, this sweet board book shows bright brown baby girls and little ones everywhere that they can do anything. With bouncing, rhythmic text from New York Times bestselling author Andrea Davis Pinkney and tender, charming illustrations from Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator Brian Pinkney, this inspirational ode is the perfect way to offer confidence at the earliest stage and show all little girls that they can change the world!

    This board book is part of the Bright Brown Baby publishing program, a celebration of Black and brown joy, babies, and families. And if you're looking for a gift-able picture book, be sure to also check out the beautiful picture book treasury, Bright Brown Baby, to read "Hey, Baby Girl!" alongside four more poems. Just-right for new and expectant parents, baby showers, birthdays, graduations, and more! This is a perfect addition to every child's growing Bright Brown Baby bookshelf!

  • Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

    by Antonia Hylton

    $19.99

    In the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a page-turning 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, that New York Times bestselling author Clint Smith describes as “a book that left me breathless.”

    On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state’s Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum.
     
    In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. She blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth of investigative research and archival documents. Madness chronicles the stories of Black families whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity. Hylton also grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations.
     
    As Crownsville Hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America’s evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. During its peak years, the hospital’s wards were overflowing with almost 2,700 patients. By the end of the 20th-century, the asylum faded from view as prisons and jails became America’s new focus.
     
    In Madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.

  • Ty's Travels: Showtime! (My First I Can Read)

    by Kelly Starling Lyons

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    Ty rocks out with friends in this new book in the Geisel Honor-winning series!

    Join Ty on his imaginative adventures in Ty's Travels: Showtime, a My First I Can Read story by acclaimed author and illustrator team Kelly Starling Lyons and Niña Mata. Music, imagination, and play are highlighted, making this perfect for sharing with children ages 3 to 6.

    Rap-a-tap-tap!

    Thrum, thrum, thrum!

    Plink-a-plink-plink!

    Ty loves playing the instruments, but something’s missing—his friends! With the help of his vivid imagination, Ty and his friends are onstage in a band making great music together.

    With simple, rhythmic text and joyful, bright art, this My First series is perfect for shared reading with a child. Books at this level feature basic language, word repetition, and whimsical illustrations, ideal for sharing with emergent readers. The active, engaging stories have appealing plots and lovable characters, encouraging children to continue their reading journey.

    Author Kelly Starling Lyons was selected as the 2021 Piedmont Laureate!

  • Ruby René Had So Much to Say

    by Ashley Iman

    $18.99

    A debut picture book about a curious student who finds herself in trouble for talking in class—even though she just wants to share all that she’s learned.

    “Did you know that flamingos don’t have teeth?” Questions, facts, and dreams—Ruby René could talk for hours. Once she got going, it was hard for her to stop. It didn’t matter if it was history, science, or the lunch menu—Ruby René had so much to say! But when her teacher called home because she found her sharing distracting, Ruby vowed to keep quiet. Until . . . she finds the perfect outlet for her gift of gab.

    With charming text by debut author/educator Ashley Iman and colorful illustrations by Gladys Jose, Ruby René Had So Much to Say is a celebration of owning your voice, honing your skills, and turning challenges into opportunities.

  • Innocent Intent

    by K.C. Mills

    $17.95

    When a wife becomes the prime suspect in her husband’s murder, this criminal psychologist must forget everything she thought she knew in order to clear her name in this debut psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Shanora Williams’ The Wife Before.

    Cassidy Evans is the blueprint. As a Criminal Psychologist, Cassidy is a savant. She spent years solving groundbreaking cases by shifting through the minds and behaviors of those driven by the darkness that controls them. After years of dedicated field work, Cassidy decides to retire and share her expertise of killers’ mentalities as a novelist.

    As a published author, she’s now happily married and spends most of her time traveling the world and sharing with others how to understand the twisted minds that drive bad behaviors. Unfortunately, with all of the knowledge that Cassidy is armed with, she somehow overlooks the lies of the person closest to her. When she tags along to a crime scene with and old colleague, Cassidy is shocked to discover that the victim is her husband. If that’s not enough to send her world spiraling, she also finds out that the identity of the murdered victim, doesn’t match the name on their marriage license.

    Things quickly escalate when Cassidy becomes the main suspect. Not knowing the man she is married to is the least of Cassidy’s problems. Everyone believes she is a murderer, and none more than the lead detective on the case¾Nathanial Davis. He is determined to find the truth while proving to the world that Cassidy isn’t who she claims to be. In doing so, he decides to keep Cassidy close while digging through her past to uncover all of her untold truths.

    While she’s hiding secrets that could totally destroy the world she spent years building, Cassidy learns that things are never what they seem. With such an intricate familiarity of seeing through lies, how is it that Cassidy is happily married to a man who she loves and adores, but doesn’t truly know? Suddenly, losing her career is far less important than maintaining her freedom. In the end, she may lose both.

  • We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For (The W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures)
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    From the author of the New York Times bestseller Begin Again, a politically astute, lyrical meditation on how ordinary people can shake off their reliance on a small group of professional politicians and assume responsibility for what it takes to achieve a more just and perfect democracy.

    “Like attending a jazz concert with all of one’s favorite musicians…James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Ella Baker, Toni Morrison, and more…Glaude brilliantly takes us on an epic tour through their lives and work.”
    ―Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of The Black Box: Writing the Race

    We are more than the circumstances of our lives, and what we do matters. In We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For, one of the nation’s preeminent scholars and a New York Times bestselling author, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., makes the case that the hard work of becoming a better person should be a critical feature of Black politics. Through virtuoso interpretations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Ella Baker, Glaude shows how we have the power to be the heroes that our democracy so desperately requires.

    Based on the Du Bois Lectures delivered at Harvard University, the book begins with Glaude’s unease with the Obama years. He felt then, and does even more urgently now, that the excitement around the Obama presidency constrained our politics as we turned to yet another prophet-like figure. He examines his personal history and the traditions that both shape and overwhelm his own voice.

    Glaude weaves anecdotes about his evolving views on Black politics together with the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, encouraging us to reflect on the lessons of these great thinkers and address imaginatively the challenges of our day in voices uniquely our own.

    Narrated with passion and philosophical intensity, this book is a powerful reminder that if American democracy is to survive, we must step out from under the shadows of past giants to build a better society―one that derives its strength from the pew, not the pulpit.

  • Black Water Rising: A Novel (Jay Porter Series, 1)

    by Attica Locke

    $16.99

    Houston, Texas, 1981. Jay Porter is hardly the lawyer he set out to be. His most promising client is a low-rent call girl and he runs his fledgling law practice out of a dingy strip mall. But he’s long since made peace with not living the American Dream and carefully tucked away his darkest sins: the guns, the FBI file, the trial that nearly destroyed him.

    That is, until the night in a boat out on the bayou when he impulsively saves a woman from drowning—and opens a Pandora’s box. Her secrets put Jay in danger, ensnaring him in a murder investigation that could cost him his practice, his family, and even his life. But before he can get to the bottom of a tangled mystery that reaches into the upper echelons of Houston’s corporate power brokers, Jay must confront the demons of his past.

    With pacing that captures the reader from the first scene through an exhilarating climax, Black Water Rising is a compelling legal thriller that marks the arrival of an electrifying new talent.

  • Freedom Fire: Jax Freeman and the Phantom Shriek

    by Kwame Mbalia

    from $9.99

    Paperback Release- September 15, 2026

    The award-winning author of the best-selling Tristan Strong trilogy has created a secret world where kids can wield magic by summoning the power of their ancestors

    What do you get when you combine Kwame Mbalia's incredible imagination and world-building talent with trains, history, and ghosts? Nothing less than middle grade magic.

    On his twelfth birthday, Jackson "Jax" Freeman arrives at Chicago's Union Station alone, carrying nothing but the baggage of a scandal back in Raleigh. He's been sent away from home to live with relatives he barely knows. But even worse are the strangers who accost him at the train station, including a food vendor who throws dust in his face and a conductor who tries to steal his skin.

    At his new school, Jax is assigned to a special class for "summoners," even though he has no idea what those are . . . until he accidentally unleashes an angry spirit on school grounds. Soon Jax is embroiled in all kinds of trouble, from the disappearance of a new friend to full-out war between summoning families.

    When Jax learns that he isn't the first Freeman to be blamed for a tragedy he didn't create, he resolves to clear his own name and that of his great-grandfather, who was a porter back in the 1920's. By following clues, Jax and his schoolmates unlock the secrets of a powerful Praise House, evade vengeful ghosts, and discover that Jax may just be the most talented summoner of all.

    A unique magic-school fantasy from the best-selling and award-winning author of the Tristan Strong trilogy has just pulled into the station.

  • How to Listen

    by Thich Nhat Hanh

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    Listening with compassion can solve our most pressing issues—across global politics and interpersonal relationships and within our own hearts and minds.

    In How to Listen, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh demonstrates how deep listening is a fundamental building block of good communication. But perhaps more fundamentally, listening is central to our practice, a basic ingredient to strengthen our capacity for mindfulness, concentration, insight, and compassion. Learning how to listen with equanimity to life itself, we generate insight into the true nature of our deep connection to all things. And from this place of understanding—when we know that we aren’t separate—our capacity to listen deepens even further.

    With clear and gentle guidance from Thich Nhat Hanh, we learn how truly listening—to ourselves, to each other, to Mother Earth, and to the many “bells of mindfulness” that are available to us in each moment—is the foundation of our practice, an expression of love, and a solution to our deepest and most urgent large-scale conflicts.

    All Mindfulness Essentials books are illustrated with playful sumi-ink drawings by California artist Jason DeAntonis.

  • Church Girl

    by Naima Simone

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    She’s a preacher’s daughter, a runaway bride and now the (not quite) qualified nanny for a sexy tattoo artist with a beautiful daughter—and a dirty mouth.

    What’s a bad boy to do with a woman like her?

    Everything…

    Aaliyah Montgomery isn’t just ditching her wedding. She’s also fleeing her suffocating small town and her family’s expectations. She’s got plans—for college, for finding herself. But landing a job in Chicago that fits her schedule isn’t easy. Good thing Von Howard is desperate to find a live-in nanny. Bad thing that he’s a gritty, grumpy, gorgeous tattoo artist carrying as much baggage as he has ink.

    Von’s new hire is inexperienced and a fire hazard in the kitchen. She’s also all thick curls, thicker curves, and a distracting mix of innocence and sensuality. After the upheaval of a divorce, he just needs a nanny, not a sneaky link. Meanwhile, Aaliyah is bonding with his seven-year-old and showing an unexpected flair for tattoo art. Who could resist?

    Yet deep down, Aaliyah’s still running—from her feelings and her fear of losing herself to someone else’s expectations again. Even as their pasts return to haunt them, their undeniable heat says maybe it’s time to stand and fight for a love they didn’t see coming.

    From showing up to glowing up, the characters in Afterglow Books are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don’t miss any of these other fun titles…

    Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John

    Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

    Manila Takes Manhattan by Carla de Guzman

    Fake Flame by Adele Buck

  • What a Match (Lovestruck #2)

    by Mimi Grace

    $18.99

     Meticulous and driven Gwen Gilmore knows what she wants... especially in a man. She is newly single and doesn't have time for lackluster chemistry or mixed signals. But the dating scene proves to be slow and unserious, and she realizes she may need some help.

    Professional help.

    A matchmaker, to be more specific.

    Nothing will distract her from finding a man who checks all the boxes, except maybe her brother's grumpy best friend who's just moved into her home.

    Anthony Woods has had a crush on his best friend's sister since the day he met her, and he's managed the unfortunate affliction by keeping his distance. However, when apartment problems have him temporarily sleeping on her couch, Gwen is suddenly closer than ever. And as much as he tries, his scowls and frowns can't stop the sparks from flying.

     As they connect and get to know each other, Gwen can't help but notice when the perfect-on-paper boyfriend she has in mind starts to take an unexpected shape. Will she stick to the dating plan outlined by the professionals? Or admit when it comes to love, there's no right way to fall.

  • Wash Day with Mama

    Monica Mikai

    $18.99

    This stunning picture book takes a joyful look into the loving and long process of a hair wash day and the beautiful bond between a daughter and mother. Perfect for Mother’s Day or all year round!

    I love Sundays, because Sundays are wash days. And wash days are just for us.

    Filled with heartwarming illustrations, Wash Day with Mama centers on a little girl cherishing each step of their hair washing routine while Mama imparts her wisdom and stresses the importance of self-care, loving yourself, and being proud of who you are. The process of washing and taking care of Black hair takes time and effort, but this poignant story shows how it is an act of self-love and nurtures a special connection between mother and daughter.

    For the Black community, washing their hair can feel like an event in and of itself, and that's why it has been christened "wash day." For many, wash day isn't just a routine, but an intimate ritual that is a symbol of self-love and pride. This self-care practice, although individual to the person, can root them in their culture and allow them to embrace generations of hair traditions. This book shows the love and care of washing Black hair and compels us to reflect on shared moments that we may take for granted.

  • boy maybe: poems

    WJ Lofton

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    51 achingly eloquent poems from a young Cave Canem fellow: W. J. Lofton's verses explore Black queer Southern identity, grief, love, and intimacy while enduring and witnessing unfreedom in America

    W. J. Lofton writes vivid, accessible poems that channel the energy, urgency, ambitions, joys, and sorrows of a young Black queer artist. They are about love and flirtation, sweet tea and hot sauce, God and family, life and death, police brutality and extrajudicial killings. His verses honor some of the young lives extinguished by these killings—Breonna Taylor, Kendrick Johnson, Ahmaud Arbery. He also pays tribute to some of the towering figures of Black culture who have come before him—Richard Pryor, Assata Shakur. His style is endlessly propulsive, informed by some of the Harlem Renaissance greats—Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks—but also transforming that rich tradition for the present day.

  • Black Girls Gardening: Empowering Stories and Garden Wisdom for Healing and Flourishing in Nature

    Amber Grossman

    $26.95

    A visual celebration of Black women and their gardens, filled with inspiration, stories, and the healing magic of gardening, based on the popular Instagram account BlackGirlsGardening.

    Through first-person narratives and arresting photography, this unique gardening book profiles women who demonstrate how a gardening practice has the power to heal, empower, educate, and connect. Thirty-one compelling personal stories about creating backyard, flower, and vegetable gardens, participating in community gardens, and gardening with kids are included. Sidebars offer advice on composting, pest control, must-have tools, greenhouse gardens, and more.

    In a beautiful, chunky package that can be read cover to cover or displayed on a coffee table, Black Girls Gardening makes a lovely gift for aspiring and practicing Black women gardeners, first-time homeowners, parents who garden with their kids, and women of all ages who enjoy sinking their hands into the soil.

    GARDENING AS EMPOWERMENT: With stories on starting a garden from seed, building your own vegetable and flower beds, growing your own food, connecting with a community, and showing your kids the power and joy that come from these experiences, this uplifting book demonstrates how gardening empowers women and green thumbs of all ages and levels. 

    HEALTH BENEFITS: Gardening is good for you, and it’s a lifelong hobby! Spending time outside is an excellent way to relieve stress and anxiety, and gardening is an accessible and increasingly common pastime that provides respite from our indoor, online, sedentary lives. This book celebrates gardens as a sanctuary, a source of solace and joy, and a place for self-discovery and connection.

    CELEBRATES DIVERSITY: This uniquely inspiring nature and gardening book highlights stories from Black, biracial, and multiracial women, an underrepresented audience in mainstream gardening, nature, and outdoor media.

    Perfect for:
    * Self-care gift or self-purchase for Black women, ages 18 - 50+
    * Gift-giving for Mother’s Day, birthday, housewarming, or retirement
    * Women gardeners and aspiring green thumbs
    * Garden admirers and nature enthusiasts
    * First-time homeowners who want to plant a garden
    * Followers of @BlackGirlsGardening
    * Fans of Nature Swagger, Wild at Home, My Beautiful Black Hair, She Explores

  • Poetry Is Not a Luxury: Poems for All Seasons

    Anonymous

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    From the creator of the beloved @PoetryIsNotaLuxury Instagram account,a gorgeously wrought poetry anthology that is a gift and a guide for readers through every season of life.

    Inspired by writer and philosopher Audre Lorde’s famous claim: “Poetry is not a luxury,” this anthology proves the vitality of poetry as a crucial source of inspiration, comfort, and delight.

    In a first section, “Summer,” you’ll find lush landscapes and love poems for weddings and anniversaries, alongside poems on travel, protest, and expressions of sheer joy and exhilaration. “Autumn” ushers in nostalgic poems about home and family and friendship, fall leaves, nesting and gratitude. You may turn to “Winter” should you require a poem for mourning, some lyrics for loneliness, or an ode to comfort. Rounding out a year’s worth of verse is “Spring,” in which you’ll discover celebratory poems, in the form of praise for rain and flowers, new beginnings, and all that the future might hold.

    Each poem within has been chosen from centuries of verse from around the world, with an emphasis on living poets. Friends old and new await, with selections from Rita Dove, Victoria Chang, Ross Gay, Naomi Shihab Nye, C.D. Wright, Eileen Myles, Ada Limón,Ross Gay, Ilya Kaminsky, Jos Charles, and more.

    From love poems to elegies, from the heights of new love to the furrows of anxiety, from special occasions to a morning pick-me-up, there is something here for longtime poetry lovers and novices, in any season of need.

  • The Polished Hoe: A Novel

    Austin Clarke

    $13.99

    When Mary-Mathilda, one of the most respected women of the island of Bimshire (also known as Barbados) calls the police to confess to a crime, the result is a shattering all-night vigil that brings together elements of the island's African past and the tragic legacy of colonialism in one epic sweep.

    Set in the West Indies in the period following World War II, The Polished Hoe -- an Essence bestseller and a Washington Post Book World Most Worthy Book of 2003 -- unravels over the course of twenty-four hours but spans the collective experience of a society characterized by slavery.

  • The People Could Fly: The Picture Book

    Virginia Hamilton

    from $14.99

    “THE PEOPLE COULD FLY,” the title story in Virginia Hamilton’s prize-winning American Black folktale collection, is a fantasy tale of the slaves who possessed the ancient magic words that enabled them to literally fly away to freedom. And it is a moving tale of those who did not have the opportunity to “fly” away, who remained slaves with only their imaginations to set them free as they told and retold this tale.

    Leo and Diane Dillon have created powerful new illustrations in full color for every page of this picture book presentation of Virginia Hamilton’s most beloved tale. The author’s original historical note as well as her previously unpublished notes are included.

    Awards for The People Could Fly collection:

    A Coretta Scott King Award

    A Booklist Children’s Editors’ Choice

    A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

    A Horn Book Fanfare

    An ALA Notable Book

    An NCTE Teachers’ Choice

    A New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year

    A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of the Century

  • The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

    Stephen Graham Jones

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    In 1912 a strange confession is given, over several nights, to a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunted the fields of the Blackfeet reservation, looking for justice.

    A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran Pastor is discovered within a wall and what it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to two hundred and seventeen Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed confessions by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shared the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits, this is a bloody history of the American West that has remained untold until now.

  • Coloring with Coco: Passport to Paradise: Relaxing Bold and Easy Coloring Book for Adults and Teens
    $14.99

    Celebrate freedom and exploration with gorgeous illustrations of Black women traveling in style, from Andrea Ballo, the artist behind Coloring with Coco and Coco Michele Illustrations.

    Find joy and adventure with an elevated adult coloring book that's all about Black women and their love for travel! Each illustration was created by Andrea Ballo, the artist and influencer behind the popular TikTok account Coloring with Coco. On every page, you'll find spectacular images to color that encourage your love for travel and new experiences!

    Stunning illustrations―Color 36 gorgeous illustrations that capture the vibrancy and diversity of Black women.

    Get inspired―The artwork in this book is themed around exploration, vacation, and travel! It's an art piece and an experience you can create with your favorite art supplies.

    A beautiful gift for you or someone special―This high-quality coloring book for adults features heavy paper, perforated pages, and a thick card stock insert to block color bleed, making it a gorgeous and meaningful gift!

    Set off on your next adventure with the Coloring with Coco: Passport to Paradise coloring book.

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