ELIZABETH GREGORY BOOK PARTY ONLY: This preorder is exclusively for the August 27 event. Preordered books will be available for pickup at the offsite event location on August 27.

An urgent and clear-eyed look at the battles over reproductive control and women’s work in our tipping-point moment—and how to forge a path forward.

Reliable birth control has enabled the rising percentage of planned births over the past 35 years,allowing women to enter the paid workforce and civic life in significant numbers for the first time in recorded history. While many Americans embrace these changes, those who see themselves as benefiting from the old hierarchies resist this progress with divisive rhetoric.

In The Real Domestic Product, fertility researcher Elizabeth Gregory argues that our battles over abortion and LGBTQ bans, pronatalism, and DEI are economic at base—that conservatives seek to push women out of civic life through forced childbearing. Their goal? To maintain their discount on domestic labor (getting the work of childrearing done for “free”) and a steady supply of low-wage workers (desperate parents who must take any job to feed the baby).

By connecting the dots among shifting fertility patterns, economics, climate change, equitable work, expanding longevity, and the rising status of formerly excluded groups, Gregory counters reactionary narratives. She demonstrates that a caring democracy and an end to systemic poverty can engender critical advantages for our economy and for our fragile planet.

Never more urgently needed, The Real Domestic Product envisions the way forward to an economy of care for our planet and its people.

One night of passion and possibly one more chance at love…

Determined, motivated, goal-driven, and eternally single, Dr. Taylor James is an accomplished university administrator in San Francisco determined to get his campus successfully through an upcoming accreditation process. The process could set him up for his ultimate career goal–to be one of the only Black and openly queer university presidents in the US. Taylor gives himself just one day a week to have fun and let loose with friends–a one and done Sunday Funday brunch in the Castro District.

Dustin McMillan is a consultant and project manager who reluctantly returns to the Bay Area, his hometown, for an assignment. The first in his family to finish college, earn a healthy six-figure income, and have choice and agency in his life’s direction, Dustin is fearful that returning home could mean falling back into roles that he’d thought he’d resolved by moving miles away…and equally fearful of falling back into bed with one sexy and toxic ex-boyfriend who still lingers in his memories.

One chance encounter. One night of passion. Will Taylor and Dustin leave it at one and done?

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Still, she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for their trip to Spain—and certainly can’t follow her dreams of working in a real kitchen someday.

But even with all the rules she has for her life—and all the rules everyone expects her to play by—once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

Three years ago, I decided to have my first one-night stand. The plan was simple: research how to do it and meet a man at the bar before nerves playing with my guts got the best of me. I wanted to ring in the new year between a stranger's legs. Someone with good hygiene and exceptional tensile strength to take the edge off of studying mechanical engineering.

Then he walked in.

I'd heard whispers about "a night with Knight," tales of toe cramps and matted hair. Antonio is the biggest player and not the man to relieve me of my pent-up tension. His thick thighs, veiny forearms, and charming smile promised a trip to the hospital.

I shouldn't have followed him back to his condo, but I did.

Dinner turned into a kiss, and that kiss led to accidental humping. That's how we ended up in the emergency room. He had a broken nose, and my wig was stuck on his watch.

Three years and a PhD later, Antonio has cemented himself in my life as my best friend. Moving to the city where my sister lives-and where he plays professional rugby-wasn't a big deal at first. But everything changed when we hugged. His cologne surrounded me, and his eyes stayed locked on mine.

Our friendship is platonic, ironclad after the one-night stand gone wrong. So why can't I shake the feeling that we've barely scratched the surface?

Yoshon Santana once ruled Brownsville, Brooklyn with an iron fist. When his fiancée fell ill, he stepped back and allowed his sister, Yolani, to take his place. After her death, the streets no longer fulfilled him. The same streets he gave everything to seemed to offer him nothing in return. From a distance, he now watches as Yolani runs things his way.

With a possible girlfriend on the horizon, Yoshon finds himself wanting something different. At thirty-eight, he is ready for a wife, children, and the white picket fence surrounding his mansion. Every woman he meets fails to hold his interest until one night during one of New York's infamous blizzards. He comes across a woman and her young son sleeping in a car. Offering his help to the beautiful stranger changes his life, though he does not realize it at the time.

Twenty-five-year-old Golden was once accustomed to cars, mansions, and money. That life came crashing down when her husband, Grand, decided she deserved bruises to match the luxury he provided. After packing up and disappearing with her son, Golden returns to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with the grandmother she left behind. When things do not go as planned, she finds herself working two jobs, washing up in public restrooms, and sleeping in her 2004 Nissan Maxima with her seven-year-old son, Gyan.

There is no such thing as a guardian angel, especially one wearing Timberlands and driving a Tesla. The question is, will Golden lower her guard and pride enough to accept Yoshon's help, or will she continue struggling on the same Brownsville streets she once escaped?

Hazel is married to Yolani and loves her wife deeply. What she cannot tolerate is the constant disrespect and Yolani's unwavering loyalty to the streets. Hazel is tired of coming second to the life Yolani refuses to leave behind. While running her nail shop, an old boyfriend resurfaces and begins to complicate things. Will Hazel turn back to her past, or will she fight for the marriage she vowed to protect?

Yolani stepped into her brother's size thirteen Timberlands and runs the streets the way she sees fit. With a frustrated wife at home, women constantly within reach, and more money than she can spend, settling down is the last thing on her mind. What she has yet to understand is that the same streets she controls are the same ones that can swallow you whole. With a secret weighing on her, will the truth finally come to light? And when it does, will Hazel remain by her side, or walk away in search of the love she truly deserves?

Calling all residents of GabbaLand! Dive into the world of Yo Gabba Gabba with this deluxe sticker and activity book!

Can you help Foofa create a silly story? How about using stickers to help Plex finish his machine? Are you up for counting leaves with Brobee? The opportunities are endless in this deluxe sticker & activity book. Featuring tons of activities & games, coloring pages, and 901 full-color Gabba-Tastic stickers, readers and fans can create fun and creative scenes throughout GabbaLand, solve simple puzzles with Kammy Kam, color all of their favorite Gabba friends and more!

Filled with your favorite friendly faces, places, moments, and objects, from the classic show and new hit Apple Original series!

For fans of Ryan Coogler's Sinners and readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.

**DELUXE PAPERBACK with stenciled edges and bonus content!**

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is to be hunted and killed—until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

“I'm obsessed.” —Ali Hazelwood

"I never wanted [it] to end...Stunning." —Lyla Sage

What my eyes are showing me can’t be possible. Can’t be real. Because if they are, then I have to accept that Julian Conrad has been alive for a very long time.

Too long to be human.

A stay-up-all-night, smart, spicy romance following a doctor who finds herself falling for an alluring, much-younger man with a deadly secret

Sean’s not in the market for love. The only female, let alone Black, interventional cardiologist at her hospital, she’s watched too many of her male colleagues divorce their first wives to marry younger models—and then there’s the abusive relationship she’s spent the better part of her early 30s healing from. Her passions are reserved for her best friend, her goddaughter, and her job.

Then she meets Julian. Brooding, beautiful and eleven years her junior. In short: A bad idea.

Julian pursues her in a way that sets off alarm bells in her mind, but she finds herself unable to resist their undeniable chemistry—even starts fantasizing about him in dreams that feel altogether too real. They also have a lot in common despite their age gap. So, to hell with it: If men can date younger, why can’t she? But the more Sean gets to know him, the more impossible Julian seems: He has a depth and sorrow to him that’s beyond his years, and sometimes there’s a look in his eyes that’s less than human, and leaves her feeling more like prey. Plus, Sean herself has been exhibiting odd symptoms—memory lapses, a lack of restraint that's unlike her, persistent exhaustion—that all trace back to Julian, making Sean feel more than a little afraid. Who—or what—is she falling, irrevocably, in love with?

Extraordinarily transfixing, suspenseful, and addictive, Die for Me is nothing short of a seduction.

From best-selling author B.B. Reid comes a sizzling romance set in shadows and glamour.

Ocean Kilpatrick has starred in many wet dreams.
As for best friends Hunter Parrish and Coby Perry, he's become their worst nightmare.
When Coby is sold to the mafia prince to settle her brother’s debt, Ocean vows to take what he's owed and then some.
Obviously, he's never heard that trouble comes in two because Hunter has made a vow of her own—to rescue her twin flame or die trying. She’ll burn down Ocean’s world and dance on the ashes before letting him take what’s hers.
But Ocean isn't just the heir to the Fola. He's a master manipulator.
Every move the friends make, he's two steps ahead, and the game won't end until he says so.

Say So is a standalone romance compiled from the original serial and revised to be enjoyed as a full-length novel.

Powerful self-transformation practices for navigating an increasingly uncertain world inspired by Malcolm X’s final years, written by his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz.

When Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, he did more than cross geographic borders–he transformed his vision of faith, justice, and freedom. In Malcolm in the Desert, his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz invites us to walk beside him on that journey of spiritual transformation. In retracing his steps, she helps us see how the work of changing the world so often begins within. 

In Malcolm in the Desert, Shabazz reframes pilgrimage as a modern practice. She extracts keen lessons from her father’s life and legacy that show us the value of slowing down, listening deeply, and remembering who we truly are. Shabazz calls us to respond to crisis with courage, to meet grief with love, to rediscover faith as a creative force for change, and to dream in more revolutionary colors. These pages paint a new picture of Malcolm X through compassionate prose and galvanizing historical insight that shine alongside Jungian, Buddhist, and Islamic principles and wisdom from leading poets and scholars. Shabazz ties it all together  with simple practices to help us answer three central questions: Who are you? What do you care about? What is yours to do?

Malcolm in the Desert reveals the human heart of a legend. It is a reminder of the outer challenges we all face and the inner work it takes to be a light in an unstable world.  It is both a daughter’s offering to her father’s legacy and a compassionate guide for anyone seeking direction through the deserts of their own becoming.

In the first major Jamaican cookbook of its kind, Kingston-born chef Andre Fowles presents modern and classic recipes for the best of Jamaican food capturing the tastes and traditions of the island, with a foreword from Bruce Springsteen.

Jamaican cuisine is the result of a rich blend of cultural influences: Indigenous, African, Indian, Chinese, and European. Each dish tells a story of resilience and adaptation and reveals the culinary identity of Jamaica itself-dynamic, colorful, and always evolving. Chef Andre Fowles brings this food to life through more than 100 classic and traditional recipes. There are iconic Jamaican dishes like Jerk BBQ Pork Ribs, Pepper Shrimp, or Ackee and Saltfish that tell the stories of the island's culture and history, but also new spins like Sweet Jerk Crispy Cauliflower, a fish-and-chips-inspired Escovitch Fish Sandwich, and Rum Cake Tiramisu that showcase Jamaica's modern sensibility. Fresh coconut, plantains, and rice and peas are some of the key ingredients, alongside Scotch Bonnet peppers and herbs like thyme, scallion, and garlic.

From Saturday soups like Pepper Pot and Red Peas Soup to braises like Brown Stew Chicken and even desserts and drinks incorporating Jamaica's beloved rum, the book will bring a taste of Jamaican to home kitchens everywhere. The beautiful photos serve as armchair travel to entice even those you've never been to island. My Jamaican Table is a culinary journey as told by one of Jamaica's most dynamic chefs.

Before Buffy, before Twilight, before Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, there was The Gilda Stories, now as a new Penguin Classics hardcover, a Penguin Speculative Fiction Special

A Penguin Classic Hardcover

First published in 1991, The Gilda Stories is a groundbreaking speculative fiction vampire novel that begins in 1850s Louisiana, where a young Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who “shares the blood” by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. Taking only blood as sustenance, killing as a last resort, Gilda moves through the centuries up to the dystopian future of 2050. Gomez’s classic, with a Black lesbian heroine, has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of Blackness, radical ecology, redefinitions of family, and the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Penguin Speculative Fiction Special is a hardcover series of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and more published by Penguin Classics. Featuring custom endpapers, specially commissioned cover art, and introductions by scholars and notable figures, these collectible editions celebrate classics that invite us to ask, “What if?” and that, through bold imagination, alternative visions, and magical realms, transform our perception of our world.

A boundary-breaking astrophysicist reimagines the universe—and our place within it—in this audacious journey through the Nine Realms of the cosmos.

The universe gave rise to everything: stars and cells, minds and memories, purpose and pain. But it doesn’t care about us. It follows its own rules. And now, according to Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, we finally understand enough about those rules to ask the big questions like we mean it: Why do we exist? Are we alone? How did we get here? What comes next? And—perhaps most urgently—is there reason to hope?

Heck yeah, there is!

Dr. Oluseyi is no ordinary scientist. A former street kid turned world-renowned cosmologist, he realized something bold: The story of existence can be told as a passage through nine interwoven realms—each revealing a new layer of cosmic truth.

There’s the Middle Realm, where we live; the Realm of Life, where organisms flourish across the vastness of space; the Cosmological Realm, where galaxies dance and collide; the Dark Realm, dominated by unseen energy and invisible forces; the Quantum Realm, where reality defies intuition; the Temporal Realm, where time begins, flows, and perhaps ends; the Multiverse Realm, where our universe may be one among many; the Realm Beyond Horizons, where observation breaks down; and the Realm of Imagination, where insight, curiosity, and creativity shape our understanding of it all.

In Why Do We Exist?, Dr. Oluseyi cracks open these realms with clarity, humor, and radical honesty, bridging cutting-edge physics, personal narrative, and philosophy. The result is a blueprint for understanding reality itself and a surprising case for human potential in an indifferent cosmos.

This isn’t just a science book. It’s a survival manual for the universally curious.

Saylor Ford and Heaven Goo-Campbell could not be more different. Saylor is bubbly, popular, athletic, and always coupled up. Meanwhile, Heaven is grumpy and artistic, prefers her skateboard to people, and is perpetually single. So obviously, sparks fly when they must spend the entire summer together.

When Saylor, distracted by her mom’s viral video about Saylor’s coming out, breaks her arm at basketball camp, she becomes determined not to spend the summer stuck at home with the social media star. Her best escape is the girl she’s pretty sure can’t stand her but whom she finds absolutely irresistible, Heaven. Thankfully, Heaven is willing to let Saylor in on her summer plans, but for a price. Saylor has to help Heaven establish her social media presence, showcasing her art for her future career as a tattoo artist.

They didn’t anticipate the intimacy of spending each day together and the deepening feelings that followed. And their bingo scavenger hunt is now less a shared project and more a skate ramp to romance. But do the girls have a future together if Saylor is wary of bringing a relationship out into the open—too afraid that her mom’s influencer status will attract more attention than Saylor and timid Heaven can handle?

Afro Samurai meets The Sword of Kaigen in this anime-inspired novella

This is no revenge story. I ain’t got time for that. I’ve got errands to run and things to do and barely enough time to make it home before sundown. I don’t care why folks are going around stealing ink. I don’t care why the monks are acting kinda strange. I don’t care that everybody is expecting me to save them. I might be a Sistah Samurai but those days playing hero were back when my knees didn’t ache, and I wasn’t the only one left. So leave me alone.

All I want to do is get home, drink some green tea lemonade, and enjoy my peace. I’m not asking for much, so why are all these demons daring to get in my way?

I am not the one. Not today.

Sistah Samurai is an Action Fantasy novella that is an homage to the anime, Afro Samurai. Both works feature a feudal Japan-inspired setting that is rife with anachronisms. In the words of Samuel L. Jackson, “Is that a motherf—ing RPG?”

A young girl finds her voice—and discovers the power of speaking up for herself and her community—in this sweet and humorous chapter book by award-winning and #1 bestselling author Kwame Alexander, perfect for fans of Ivy + Bean and Ruby and the Booker Boys.

When Macy gets book one of The Mighty Zora series for her birthday, she stays up until 11:34pm finishing the book. But the next day, when Macy gets to her school library, eager to check out book two, she finds the door locked with a sign explaining that the library will now only be open a few days a week due to budget cuts. Even worse, she finds out her father won't be home to help her figure out what to do, as he will be traveling to a museum in Montgomery, Alabama to read a poem about civil rights. With help from her fellow third graders, support from her mom, and encouragement from poems written and hidden for her by her father, Macy must find her voice and learn the power of advocating for herself and her community.

Can Macy learn to be Mighty?

A young boy learns that he is walking in the footsteps of greatness through a vibrant, lyrical retelling of Black history—both a love letter to Black children and an anthem empowering them to know their God-given worth.

“A reminder to Black children that they are capable of greatness.”—Kirkus Reviews

You came bustling into the world,
a mighty bundle of energy, ready to do great things.
And no wonder.
You stand on the shoulders of those who came before,
and you, too, were born to shine.

Starting with his birth, the boy’s father lays out the history of his son’s ancestry: from the love and warmth of a big family, to the change makers and status shakers, the inventors and engineers, the astronomers, philosophers, and storytellers, the leaders and the doctors. The father details the legacy and impact of Black ancestors whose determination, strength, dedication, creativity, and leadership contributed to making the world better.

Throughout the story, the boy discovers the rich heritage of those that have gone before him and learns how he embodies that same greatness. He, too, has the power to change the world by embracing exactly who God made him to be.

You Come from Greatness includes illustrations of Black historical figures such as Wangari Muta Maathai, Ellie Mannette, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and more, with twenty short biographies at the end of the book.

A joyful debut picture book ode to the music, games, food, and fun a young girl encounters at her family's annual summer cookout at Grandma's house.

CiCi just can't wait to get to her Grandma's house for the family's first big cookout of the summer. There's plenty to look forward to: the food, the games, the music, and seeing all her aunties and uncles. But most of all, Cici is excited to catch up with her big cousin Chase.

There's just one problem: she can't seem to find him anywhere! CiCi searches all over the party, asking everyone she meets if they've seen Chase, until she finally thinks to look for him in the most unexpected of places . . .

From the cousins playing Double Dutch, to the uncles throwing horseshoes, to the savory smells of Grandma's cooking, this is a love letter to family, summer, and the magic that happens when we all get together.

For fans of Sinners and Immortal Dark, a teen girl must uncover her family’s deadly secrets in order to save her best friend and her island in this heart-pounding YA debut.

Addae has spent her whole life on the Golden Isle, a private island off the coast of South Carolina that has been in her family for centuries. Island residents don’t really fraternize with mainlanders, and for good reason. Golden Isle was founded by the Kinfolk, descendants―including Addae and her Nana Ama, the island matriarch―of escaped enslaved Black people.

But the Isle and the Kinfolk have secrets that must be protected from the outside world. Secrets of spirituality, mythology that are deeply rooted in their West African culture, beliefs, and traditions. The Kin are bound to protect the Golden Isle and, in turn, it protects them.

When Addae’s best friend Naria goes missing and one of the Kin turns up drained of blood, Addae's way of life is threatened. It looks like the work of the Adze, West African supernatural beings that drink human blood in order to survive―also known as vampires.

Believing Naira is alive, Addae travels to the mainland. But as Addae gets closer to finding Naria, she uncovers deep secrets about Nana Ama’s past, and about her own… secrets that could change how she feels about the Golden Isle and her lineage.

Torn between two worlds, Addae will have to decide how far she is willing to go―and who she is willing to cross―to save her best friend, and even herself.

Set in what may be the future, and centered on six women sharing a space in some sort of crumbling apartment tower, Ruins, Child is remarkable for its irresistible sweep, wit, and prickly splintered truth. Like a precious old mirror that's been dropped, it's a book that is looking up at you, flashing light and bits of the undeniable. With the pulsating sway of its liquid mosaic narrative, the novel may recall Virginia Woolf's The Waves, but is entirely its own animal: kaleidoscopic, pointedly disorienting in its looseness, and powered along by snatches of speech from its compelling ensemble cast, often vernacular, often overheard: "The woman is old, I hear children saying nearby, not in the way we consider all adults to be old, but really old, ancient, she is endless." It's a book seemingly drawn from deep wells of Black American reality: her female protagonists push back against authority in the very vivacity of their telling, setting afoot a freeing-up and a mysterious inversion of marginalization. "Looseness, that is the thing people fear in a person (in women) and in objects." A surreal musing, Ruins, Child uses the lens of urban infrastructure, botany, social commentary, folklore, choreography, and collective listening to create an ethnography of place and an ode to communal ruins.

A celebration of the beguiling power of literature, from one of the world’s greatest storytellers
 
At the Pigeon Book Club, a circle of readers gathers for exhilarating meetings to discuss literature. The only requirements for entry are an all-encompassing love of books and the intuition that to read is to love and to love is to read. Xiao Sang, a department store clerk, wonders if life can ever be as captivating as a novel. Newlyweds Fei and Han Ma struggle to build a marriage as Han Ma discovers a surprising gift for storytelling. Xiao Ma, a hopeful dreamer, explores the possibility of romance with an older man. Bound by a shared passion for fiction, each book club member seeks to understand the relationship between the stories they read and the lives they lead, reveling in both the quotidian details and the ecstasy of aesthetics.

This is the most accessible work yet from the celebrated writer Can Xue: a utopian comedy and a work of profound joy, a love song to literary inspiration and the remarkable beauty of the ordinary. The Enchanting Lives of Others explores what it means to know and be known to others through the transformative power of reading.

A fierce exposé of the resistance to believing Black people and its devastating effects throughout American history.

From Reconstruction to Redemption, from the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation to the execution of the Southern strategy, from 2020’s multiracial protests to the swift elimination of policies etching out a more inclusive society, Americans regularly experience periods of racial reckoning followed by walloping retrenchment.

In Black Evidence, political scientist Candis Watts Smith shows that this pattern is the result of an American habit: denying the truths about our society that Black people experience and remember. Smith then delivers a warning: the effects of this habit ripple out, dulling our ability to identify the signs of authoritarianism and heightening our tolerance for cruelty. Still, she shows how these same truths offer models to overcome our repeated predicament.

Through a curation of critical moments across four centuries, Smith invites us to review the evidence that has been obscured, distorted, and denied. She rigorously investigates the practices that turn Black witnesses into liars in the court room, Black patients into superbodies that don’t feel pain in health care settings, Black people into subhumans in scientific experiments, and Black children into superpredators. She reveals what happens when Black voices are subject to exclusion―their communities are terrorized, their memories are refuted, and their resistance is pathologized.

Written with compassion and tempered optimism, Black Evidence prescribes a cure and encourages readers to practice the skills needed to build a truly multiracial democracy: confront our past, acknowledge the damage of inequality in our present, and listen to the voices of those who experience the problems we wish to solve for an equitable future.

A centennial celebration of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and its vital role in the development of Black Studies

In 1926, the Afro-Puerto Rican bibliophile Arturo Schomburg's collection of four thousand books, pamphlets, papers, and prints arrived at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. The collection contained works in many languages and formats, offering an unparalleled look into the richness and global reach of Black history. One hundred years later, Schomburg's collection remains a central feature of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, now the world's premier archive for study of the African diaspora, housing more than 11 million items, and a vibrant site of Black intellectual life.

This volume not only contextualizes the life and work of Schomburg and chronicles the history of the institution that bears his name but also includes a list of books and pamphlets in Schomburg's initial "seed collection," the fruit of a multiyear research effort to reconstruct this early Black Studies archive. Framing this list are essays and reflections written by an interdisciplinary group of scholars on the development of the Black intellectual tradition, both in Schomburg's time and today.

From the author of the acclaimed The World Wasn’t Ready for You comes a thrilling first novel, set in a near future where artificial intelligence runs the world, involving a young medical student who must unravel family secrets to uncover the truth of his father’s mysterious death.

In a time not so far from our own, society is run by a global AI system controlled by an all powerful corporation. The Shepherd Organization oversees every medical school in the country save one in New Orleans, the renegade Hippocrates which still insists on human-led medicine. It is the last choice school for an ambitious young New Yorker named Pok. But after his father—himself a physician—dies under mysterious circumstance that seems connected to “the shepherds” and their megalomaniacal young CEO, Pok finds himself on a quest for answers that leads right to Hippocrates. Once enrolled, he stumbles upon a further mystery: a strange illness is plaguing newcomers to New Orleans who grew up under shepherd rule. What is causing this fatal anomaly?  And how does it relate to the mystery of Pok’s father’s death and his own mysterious past?

An exuberant debut picture book about a little girl trying to outmaneuver her mama to avoid wash day for her hair—and all the laughs and love her antics inspire—illustrated by Coretta Scott King Honor winner Kaylani Juanita. The perfect next read for fans of Hair Love and Don’t Touch My Hair.

Nina Belle loves everything about her hair. Everything . . . except wash day.

Wash day is painful! Wash day is boring! She won’t do it this week . . . no way!

Nina Belle has plans to get out of the weekly routine, but Mama knows her way around wash day too—and maybe even the secret to enjoying it. 

No Way, Wash Day is a cheeky and heartfelt look at a cultural touchstone and the time-honored tradition of trying and failing to thwart it.

The author of It’s Me They Follow chronicles the improbable true story of how she left an abusive past to build a bookshop that survived the Covid pandemic and become an international sensation.

Jeannine Cook always thought she’d open a bookshop in her old age. Raised by a blind librarian, books were integral to her life, and she expected she would eventually write one as well. Instead, Jeannine found herself a burnt-out workaholic with three jobs and no time to read or write, feeling like she hadn't fulfilled her purpose.

In her journal, Jeannine began an imaginary dialogue with Harriet Tubman, “Q&As” she dubbed Conversations with Harriett. Jeannine wondered how Harriet became a “wade through waist-high water in the winter: type of woman—and how she could become one too.

On February 1, 2020, Jeannine fulfilled her dream and opened a bookstore in Philadelphia which she named after her hero and inspiration, Harriet Tubman. Harriett’s Bookshop would be a place to celebrate women authors, artists, and activists. While the name was ironic—Harriet could neither read nor write—it was also fitting. The City of Brotherly love was one of Harriet's first stops to freedom on the Underground Railroad. But in only six weeks, Jeannine would be forced to shut the shop’s doors when Covid turned the world upside down—not knowing whether her dream would survive.

Five years later, this small independent bookshop is thriving, with satellite stores in unconventional places, from movie theaters to horse trailers. Despite global death and destruction, book bans, the downward spiral in readership, the lack of physical customers, AI, and more, Jeannine's shops have survived. Shut Up & Read is her story—the story of the little bookseller who could, and of the woman who has been the driving force behind it all.

Winner of a 2005 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award (Honorable Mention)The Mexican Revolution was a defining moment in the history of race relations, impacting both Mexican and African Americans. For black Westerners, 1910-1920 did not represent the clear-cut promise of populist power, but a reordering of the complex social hierarchy which had, since the nineteenth century, granted them greater freedom in the borderlands than in the rest of the United States. Despite its lasting significance, the story of black Americans along the Mexican border has been sorely underreported in the annals of U.S. history. Gerald Horne brings the tale to life in Black and Brown. Drawing on archives on both sides of the border, a host of cutting-edge studies and oral histories, Horne chronicles the political currents which created and then undermined the Mexican border as a relative safe haven for African Americans. His account addresses blacks' role as 'Indian fighters' the relationship between African Americans and immigrants, and the U.S. government's growing fear of black disloyalty, among other essential concerns of the period: the heavy reliance of the U.S. on black soldiers along the border placed white supremacy and national security on a collision course that was ultimately resolved in favor of the latter. Mining a forgotten chapter in American history, Black and Brown offers tremendous insight into the past and future of race relations along the Mexican border.

The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Age of Fascism and Genocide is Boston Review’s 50th anniversary issue. This milestone issue features many of our longtime contributors, including Robin D. G. Kelley, Vivian Gornick, and Elaine Scarry, and celebrates classics from our archive.  In this issue, historian and Boston Review contributing editor Robin D. G. Kelley revisits Noam Chomsky’s landmark 1967 essay, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,” published near the height of the Vietnam War. The essay’s dissident injunction―that those in privileged positions have a duty to “speak the truth and expose lies”―remains a powerful call to conscience, Kelley argues, but the anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggles of even earlier decades reveal its limits, and they show how to refuse and resist complicity in our own age of fascism and genocide. Political philosopher Martin O’Neill, Palestinian human rights lawyer Jennifer Zacharia, and historian David Waldstreicher expand on what this moment requires―of intellectuals, of journalists, and of us all.

Also in the issue, Vivian Gornick reviews Shulamith Firestone’s Airless Spaces, Elaine Scarry challenges the wisdom that Plato banished the poets, Brandon M. Terry interviews political scientist Cathy Cohen about social movements and the future of Black politics, Joelle M. Abi-Rached exposes the contradictions of the liberal international order over Gaza, Samuel Hayim Brody reviews three memoirs on the Arab Jewish world destroyed by colonialism, David Austin Walsh explains what Zohran Mamdani’s triumph means for the future of the Democratic Party, and Sandeep Vaheesan looks to the New Deal to assess the “abundance” agenda.

Plus, seven writers reflect on notable essays from our archive in a special anniversary feature:

* Susan Faludi on Vivian Gornick and anti-feminism
* Naomi Klein on William Callison + Quinn Slobodian and the global right
* Jay Caspian Kang on Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò and identity politics
* Ryu Spaeth on Merve Emre and the personal essay
* Lea Ypi on Joseph Carens and amnesty
* Nathan J. Robinson on Noam Chomsky and U.S. foreign policy
* Rick Perlstein on Elaine Scarry and democracy after 9/11

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series.

“Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again

“Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review

From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box,and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America.

For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues.

In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion.

But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

A groundbreaking history that puts early and medieval West Africa in a global context

Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. This pioneering book, the first on this period of the region’s history in a generation, tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, including Arabic manuscripts, oral histories, and recent archaeological findings, Michael Gomez unveils a new vision of how categories of ethnicity, race, gender, and caste emerged in Africa and in global history more generally. Scholars have long held that such distinctions arose during the colonial period, but Gomez shows they developed much earlier.

Focusing on the Savannah and Sahel region, Gomez traces the exchange of ideas and influences with North Africa and the Central Islamic Lands by way of merchants, scholars, and pilgrims. Islam’s growth in West Africa, in tandem with intensifying commerce that included slaves, resulted in a series of political experiments unique to the region, culminating in the rise of empire. A major preoccupation was the question of who could be legally enslaved, which together with other factors led to the construction of new ideas about ethnicity, race, gender, and caste―long before colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

Telling a radically new story about early Africa in global history, African Dominion is set to be the standard work on the subject for many years to come.

British Fantasy and Bram Stoker-nominated author Gemma Amor brings together a unique line-up of 13 authors to explore heritage and horror, featuring stories from Gabino Iglesias, Erika T. Wurth and many more

It’s a bedtime story, ancient family lore, a secret passed down from generation to generation. Stories that have deep dark roots, ever-growing, ever-creeping.

This anthology explores stories of heritage and horror. The tales we grew up on, hometown rumours and legends.

The things we pass down through our bloodlines.

Featuring stories from:
Erika Wurth
Ai Jiang
Usman T Malik
Adam Nevill
Nuzo Onoh
Premee Mohamed
Gabino Iglesias
Nadia El-Fassi
Ramsey Campbell
V Castro
Hailey Piper
Elena Sichrovsky
Caleb Weinhardt
Sarah Deacon