All Books

  • Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power

    by Psyche A. Williams-Forson

    $39.95
    Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies with food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the "gospel bird." From personal interviews to the comedy of Chris Rock, from commercial advertisements to the art of Kara Walker, and from cookbooks to literature, Williams-Forson considers how black women defy conventional representations of blackness in relationship to these foods and exercise influence through food preparation and distribution.
    Chicken--both the bird and the food--has played multiple roles in the lives of African American women from the slavery era to the present. It has provided food and a source of income for their families, shaped a distinctive culture, and helped women define and exert themselves in racist and hostile environments. Psyche A. Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the "gospel bird."

    Exploring material ranging from personal interviews to the comedy of Chris Rock, from commercial advertisements to the art of Kara Walker, and from cookbooks to literature, Williams-Forson considers how black women arrive at degrees of self-definition and self-reliance using certain foods. She demonstrates how they defy conventional representations of blackness and exercise influence through food preparation and distribution. Understanding these complex relationships clarifies how present associations of blacks and chicken are rooted in a past that is fraught with both racism and agency. The traditions and practices of feminism, Williams-Forson argues, are inherent in the foods women prepare and serve.
  • What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation by Tom Finkelpearl
    $39.95
    What We Made presents a series of fifteen conversations in which contemporary artists who create activist, participatory work discuss the cooperative process. Colleagues from fields including architecture, art history, urban planning, and new media join the conversations.


    In What We Made, Tom Finkelpearl examines the activist, participatory, coauthored aesthetic experiences being created in contemporary art. He suggests social cooperation as a meaningful way to think about this work and provides a framework for understanding its emergence and acceptance. In a series of fifteen conversations, artists comment on their experiences working cooperatively, joined at times by colleagues from related fields, including social policy, architecture, art history, urban planning, and new media. Issues discussed include the experiences of working in public and of working with museums and libraries, opportunities for social change, the lines between education and art, spirituality, collaborative opportunities made available by new media, and the elusive criteria for evaluating cooperative art. Finkelpearl engages the art historians Grant Kester and Claire Bishop in conversation on the challenges of writing critically about this work and the aesthetic status of the dialogical encounter. He also interviews the often overlooked co-creators of cooperative art, "expert participants" who have worked with artists. In his conclusion, Finkelpearl argues that pragmatism offers a useful critical platform for understanding the experiential nature of social cooperation, and he brings pragmatism to bear in a discussion of Houston's Project Row Houses.
  • Wildseed Witch (Book 1)

    by Marti Dumas

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    A fun middle-grade contemporary fantasy with an all-BIPOC cast, about a social-media-loving tween who gets sent to an ultra-private witch camp

    Hasani’s post-seventh-grade summer to-do list is pretty simple: get a bigger following for her makeup YouTube channel and figure out how to get her parents back together. What she does NOT expect is that an emotional outburst will spark a latent magical ability in her. Or that the magic will be strong enough to attract the attention of witches. Or that before she can say #BlackGirlMagic, she’ll be shipped off on a scholarship to a fancy finishing school for talented young ladies.


    Les Belles Demoiselles is a literal charm school. Here, generations of young ladies from old-money witch families have learned to harness their magic, and alumnae grow to become some of the most powerful women across industries, including politicians, philanthropists, CEOs, entrepreneurs—and yes, even social media influencers. Needless to say, admission to the school is highly coveted, very exclusive . . . and Hasani sticks out like a weed in a rose bouquet.

    While the other girls have always known they were destined to be witches, Hasani is a Wildseed––a stray witch from a family of non-witches, with no background knowledge, no way to control her magic, and a lot to catch up on. "Wildseed" may be an insult that the other girls throw at her, but Wildseeds are more powerful than they know. And Hasani will learn that there are ways to use magic and thrive that can never be taught in a classroom.

  • Naming Ceremony

    by Seina Wedlick

    $18.99

    A sweet sibling story all about making family traditions your own—perfect for fans of Alma and How She Got Her Name and Welcome to the Party

    Today’s the day! It’s Baby Sister’s naming ceremony, and big sister Amira could not be more excited. She has the perfect name picked out . . . or, at least, she hopes it’s the perfect name.

    One by one, friends and family arrive. As Amira greets them, she asks what name they have brought to give to Baby Sister. Each is more beautiful than the last—ShakiraAkahanaUhwe. And each has its own special meaning—thankfulred flowermoonlight. Amira knows that Baby Sister will love these names. But will she love the name Amira has chosen? Is it special enough?

    A story about rich traditions and the unique bond between sisters, Naming Ceremony celebrates multigenerational family and Black joy.

  • The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories

    by Nella Larsen

    $27.00

    A Contemporary Classics hardcover omnibus of the complete fiction of one of the most gifted writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including her most famous novel, Passing

    Throughout her short but brilliant literary career, Nella Larsen wrote piercing dramas about the Black middle class that featured sensitive, spirited heroines struggling to find a place where they belonged. Passing, Larsen’s best-known work, is a disturbing story about the unraveling lives of two childhood friends, one of whom turns her back on her past and marries a white racist. Just as disquieting is the portrait in Quicksand of biracial Helga Crane, who is unable to escape her loneliness no matter where and with whom she lives. Race and marriage offer few securities here or in the other stories in this compulsively readable collection, rich in psychological complexity and imbued with a vibrant sense of place.

    Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

  • Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660

    by John K. Thornton & Linda M. Heywood

    $35.00

    This book shows that the first generation of Africans taken to English and Dutch colonies before 1660 were captured by pirates from these countries from slave ships coming from Kongo and Angola. This region had embraced Christianity and elements of Western culture, such as names and some material culture, the result of a long period of diplomatic, political, and military interaction with the Portuguese. This background gave them an important role in shaping the way slavery, racism, and African-American culture would develop in English and Dutch colonies throughout the Western Hemisphere.

  • Ideas in Unexpected Places : Reimagining Black Intellectual History

    by Leslie M. Alexander, Brandon R. Byrd & Russell Rickford

    $38.00
    This transformative collection advances new approaches to Black intellectual history by foregrounding the experiences and ideas of people who lacked access to more privileged mechanisms of public discourse and power. While the anthology highlights renowned intellectuals such as W. E. B. Du Bois, it also spotlights thinkers such as enslaved people in the antebellum United States, US Black expatriates in Guyana, and Black internationals in Liberia. The knowledge production of these men, women, and children has typically been situated outside the disciplinary and conceptual boundaries of intellectual history.
     
    The volume centers on the themes of slavery and sexuality; abolitionism; Black internationalism; Black protest, politics, and power; and the intersections of the digital humanities and Black intellectual history. The essays draw from diverse methodologies and fields to examine the ideas and actions of Black thinkers from the eighteenth century to the present, offering fresh insights while creating space for even more creative approaches within the field.
     
    Timely and incisive, Ideas in Unexpected Places encourages scholars to ask new questions through innovative interpretive lenses—and invites students, scholars, and other practitioners to push the boundaries of Black intellectual history even further.
  • Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity

    by E. Patrick Johnson

    $30.95
    Performance artist and scholar E. Patrick Johnson’s provocative study examines how blackness is appropriated and performed—toward widely divergent ends—both within and outside African American culture. Appropriating Blackness develops from the contention that blackness in the United States is necessarily a politicized identity—avowed and disavowed, attractive and repellent, fixed and malleable. Drawing on performance theory, queer studies, literary analysis, film criticism, and ethnographic fieldwork, Johnson describes how diverse constituencies persistently try to prescribe the boundaries of "authentic" blackness and how performance highlights the futility of such enterprises.

    Johnson looks at various sites of performed blackness, including Marlon Riggs’s influential documentary Black Is . . . Black Ain’t and comedic routines by Eddie Murphy, David Alan Grier, and Damon Wayans. He analyzes nationalist writings by Amiri Baraka and Eldridge Cleaver, the vernacular of black gay culture, an oral history of his grandmother’s experience as a domestic worker in the South, gospel music as performed by a white Australian choir, and pedagogy in a performance studies classroom. By exploring the divergent aims and effects of these performances—ranging from resisting racism, sexism, and homophobia to excluding sexual dissidents from the black community—Johnson deftly analyzes the multiple significations of blackness and their myriad political implications. His reflexive account considers his own complicity, as ethnographer and teacher, in authenticating narratives of blackness.

  • Adrienne Kennedy: Collected Plays & Other Writing

    edited by Marc Robinson

    $45.00

    Library of America presents the definitive edition of an essential figure in Black and American theater, spanning from the 1960s to the 2010s and including several works published for the first time

    Adrienne Kennedy has been a force on the American stage since the premiere of her groundbreaking, Obie Award–winning Funnyhouse of a Negro in 1964. Politically engaged, formally daring, and making provocative use of material from contemporary history and popular culture, Kennedy’s haunting stage works dramatize and project interior realities that are often marked by disappointment and trauma, madness and terror. Her understanding of the inner lives of African American women expresses a powerfully insightful feminism that has come to influence generations of playwrights and writers.

    Now, the Library of America presents, for the first time, a collected edition of Kennedy’s extraordinary and wide-ranging writings, spanning six decades and including ten unpublished works. Here are the early surrealistic one-acts A Lesson in Dead Language and A Rat’s Mass; works like A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White and Film Festival: The Day Jean Seberg Died that reveal Kennedy’s longstanding fascination with Hollywood and film culture; and Ohio State Murders, one of several plays featuring her protagonist Suzanne Alexander and the first of her plays to be staged—belatedly, in 2022—on Broadway. Sleep Deprivation Chamber is a searing indictment of racially motivated police violence based on real-life incidents involving her son, who co-wrote the play. Also included here are Kennedy’s adaptations of works by Euripides, Flaubert, and John Lennon, all brilliantly reimagined.

    Outside of playwriting Kennedy has made her mark as a fiction writer and memoirist, providing a rich portrait of her life and experience especially in her book People Who Led to My Plays but also in works from her later life such as the essay “Almost Eighty.” Taken together, the work gathered in Collected Plays & Other Writings is a celebration of Kennedy’s indispensable achievement on the stage and on the page alike.

  • Night of the Living Queers: 13 Tales of Terror & Delight

    edited by Shelly Page & Alex Brown

    $12.00

    Night of the Living Queers is a YA horror anthology that explores a night when anything is possible exclusively featuring queer authors of color putting fresh spins on classic horror tropes and tales.

    No matter its name or occasion, Halloween is more than a Hallmark holiday, it’s a symbol of transformation. NIGHT OF THE LIVING QUEERS is a YA horror anthology that explores how Halloween can be more than just candies and frights, but a night where anything is possible. Each short story will be told through the lens of a different BIPOC teen and the Halloween night that changes their lives forever. Creative, creepy, and queer, this collection will bring fresh terror, heart, and humor to young adult literature.

    Contributors include editors Alex Brown and Shelly Page, Kalynn Bayron, Ryan Douglass, Sara Farizan, Maya Gittelman, Kosoko Jackson, Em Liu, Vanessa Montalban, Ayida Shonibar, Tara Sim, Trang Thanh Tran, and Rebecca Kim Wells.

  • Echo Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas

    by Henry Dumas

    $19.95
    Gothic romance, ghost story, parable, psychological thriller, inner-space fiction—Dumas’s stories form a vivid, expansive portrait of African-American life.

     

    African futurism, gothic romance, ghost story, parable, psychological thriller, inner-space fiction—Dumas’s stories form a vivid, expansive portrait of Black life in America.

    Henry Dumas’s fabulist fiction is a masterful synthesis of myth and religion, culture and nature, mask and identity, the present and the ancestral. From the Deep South to the simmering streets of Harlem, his characters embark on real, magical, and mythic quests. Humming with life, Dumas’s stories create a collage of mid-twentieth-century Black experiences, interweaving religious metaphor, African cosmologies, diasporic folklore, and America’s history of slavery and systemic racism.

  • Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

    by Nur Masalha

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    Beginning with the late Bronze Age and moving through to the present day, this is the definitive history of Palestine and its people.

    This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history.

    Starting with the earliest references in Egyptian and Assyrian texts, Nur Masalha explores how Palestine and its Palestinian identity have evolved over thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. Drawing on a rich body of sources and the latest archaeological evidence, Masalha shows how Palestine’s multicultural past has been distorted and mythologised by Biblical lore and the Israel–Palestinian conflict.

    In the process, Masalha reveals that the concept of Palestine, contrary to accepted belief, is not a modern invention or one constructed in opposition to Israel, but rooted firmly in ancient past. Palestine represents the authoritative account of the country's history.

  • Peaches

    by Gabriele Davis

    $18.99

    In Peaches, a hopeful multigenerational story of love and healing from author Gabriele Davis and illustrator Kim Holt, a girl holds her mother’s memory close while carrying on an important family tradition: making peach cobbler together.
     
    Summer Sundays begin with picking.
    Rosy-ripe peaches dipping low to the ground,
    Sun-warmed and soft like Grandma’s lap.
     
    Side by side with Daddy and Grandma, a young girl is determined to take part in her family’s tradition of baking the perfect peach cobbler—just like her mama used to. From picking fruit to stirring and mixing to kneading the dough, it’s a little bit messy. But with sure hands to guide the girl step-by-step—and her mother’s memory hanging sweet in the air—she has the recipe for making Mama proud.
     
    This warmhearted and ultimately hopeful picture book shows that with a house full of love, everything can feel peach-perfect.

  • Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women's Humor
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    "Honey Hush!" is an exclamation used among black women, especially those from the South, as a friendly encouragement, a mild suggestion of playful disbelief, or a suggestion that one is telling truths that are prohibited. This anthology will make readers say "Honey, Hush!" many times. Often hard-hitting, sometimes risque', always dramatic and eloquent, the vibrant humor of African American women is celebrated in this bold, unique and comprehensive collection. Arising from the depth of black women's souls and the breadth of their lives, it reflects what the American experience has meant to them.

  • Black Pastoral: Poems

    Ariana Benson

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    Finalist 2023 National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize

    Black Pastoral explores the complex duality of Black peoples’ past and present relationship with nature. It surveys the ways in which our histories (both Black histories and natural/ecological histories), our suffering and our thriving, are forever wound around one another. They are painful at times and act as a salve at others. Ariana Benson’s poems meditate upon the violence and tenderness that simultaneously characterize the entangling of the two, taking the form of a series of ecopoetic musings that re-envision these confluences.

    Moreover, Benson’s poems illustrate the beauty inherent to Blackness, to nature, to the remarkable relationship they share, while also refusing its permission to collect idly, like an opaque skein of film obscuring uglier, necessary truths. Black Pastoral seeks to be both love letter and elegy, both flame to raze the field and flood to nourish the land anew.

  • Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940

    Maria Elna Ortiz

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    How modern and contemporary artists across the African and Caribbean diasporas transformed European Surrealism into a tool for Black expression

    On the centennial anniversary of André Breton’s first Surrealist Manifesto, Surrealism and Us shines new light on how Surrealism was consumed and transformed in the Caribbean and the United States. It brings together more than 50 works from the 1940s to the present that convey how Caribbean and African diasporic artists reclaimed a European avant-garde for their own purposes.
    Since its inception, the Surrealist movement―and many other European art movements of the early 20th century―embraced and transformed African art, poetry and music traditions. Concurrently, artists in the Americas proposed subsets of Surrealism more closely tied to African diasporic culture. In Martinique, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire proposed a Caribbean Surrealism that challenged principles of order and reason and embraced African spiritualities. Meanwhile, artists in the United States such as Romare Bearden and Ted Joans engaged deeply with Surrealist ideas. These trends lasted far beyond those of their European counterparts. Indeed, the term “Afro-surrealism” was created by poet Amiri Baraka in 1974; today the movement still flourishes in tandem with Afrofuturism. The Surrealism and Us catalog is divided into three themes: “To Dare,” “Invisibility” and “Super/Reality”. These sections, galvanized by scholarly essays, create transnational and multi-generational connections between Black life and artistic practice over the past 100 years.
    Artists include: Firelei Báez, Agustin Cárdenas, Myrlande Constant, Rafael Ferrer, Ja’Tovia Gary, Hector Hyppolite, Ted Joans, Wifredo Lam, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall.

  • Saturday Magic: A Hoodoo Story

    by Nyasha Williams

    $18.99

    An ode to the family, friendship, and the beautiful tradition of Hoodoo practice, this book celebrates the magic and symbolism to be found in every day, written by bestselling author Nyasha Williams.

    Dayo practices Hoodoo with her family. One Saturday, she wakes from an interesting dream about a yellow bird. What could it mean? She knows that it’s up to her to figure it out. Over the course of the day, as Dayo and her family move through their daily rituals (mantras and affirmations included), the message sent from her Ancestors through her dream reveals itself. This celebration of spirituality (and heritage) highlights the rich history of Hoodoo and the beauty we can find in everyday magic.

  • Power Moves : Ignite Your Confidence and Become a Force

    by Sarah Jakes Roberts

    $16.99

    Unleash the superpower of being yourself. Sarah Jakes Roberts, bestselling author of Woman Evolve, will help you craft a language toward your issues with intentionality.

    Stripping our minds of the expectations that inundate our world has never been more difficult. One quick scroll of our phones and we're consumed by other people's projections of how we should be feeling or responding.

    The ability to determine your truth without judgment is the beginning of harnessing authentic power in Christ. When we do the work of embracing where we are, we create space for God's love to meet us in our most raw form and then polish us to shine like never before. Power does not lie in success, achievement, or performance. Power rests in humility, honesty, and the commitment to continuous growth.

    Power Moves will help you to qualify whether you're living life authentically or if you've found a way to maintain status quo. It will reveal the principles required to tap into the most powerful version of who you are, then lead you in how to introduce your authentic self to the world around you. Sarah will help you

    • give language to your changing needs,
    • acknowledge and applaud your growth,
    • refuse to bear the weight all at once or all alone, and
    • release your power.

     Open your eyes to the way that God sees you and awaken your boldness to effect change in the world by living out the truth of who God says you are with confidence.

  • The Fire Between High & Lo

    by Brittainy Cherry

    $16.99

    Logan is haunted by a darkness that should scare her, not thrill her. It should push her away, not bring her closer. And above all, it should warn her to close her heart against the crash that will inevitably shatter them both… 

    There once was a boy, and I loved him.

    Logan Francis Silverstone and I were complete opposites. I danced, and he stood still. He was quiet, while I ran my mouth. He struggled to find a smile, and I refused to frown.

    The night I saw the darkness that truly lived inside of him, I couldn't look away.

    We were broken together, yet somehow whole. We were wrong together, but always right. We were the stars that burned across the night sky, searching for a wish, praying for better tomorrows.

    Until the day I lost him. He threw us away with one hasty decision―a decision that changed us forever.

    There once was a boy, and I loved him. And for a few breaths, a few whispers, a few moments, I think he loved me, too.

    Consistently topping BOOKTOK's "Books That Make You Ugly Cry" lists, The Fire Between High & Lo brings the angst, the spice, and the beautifully painful longing…

    THE ELEMENTS SERIES:

    The Air He Breathes, book 1

    The Fire Between High & Lo, book 2

    The Silent Waters, book 3

    The Gravity of Us, book 4

  • Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life

    by Sofia Samatar

    $15.95

    Opacities is a book about writing, publishing, and friendship. Rooted in an epistolary relationship between Sofia Samatar and a friend and fellow writer, this collection of meditations traces Samatar's attempt to rediscover the intimacy of writing

    In a series of compressed, dynamic prose pieces, Samatar blends letters from her friend with notes on literature, turning to Édouard Glissant to study the necessary opacity of identity, to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha for a model of literary kinship, and to a variety of others, including Clarice Lispector, Maurice Blanchot, and Rainer Maria Rilke, for insights on the experience and practice of writing.

    In so doing, Samatar addresses a number of questions about the writing life: Why does publishing feel like the opposite of writing? How can a black woman navigate interviews and writing conferences without being reduced to a symbol? Are writers located in their biographies or in their texts? And above all, how can the next book be written?

    Blurring the line between author and character and between correspondence and literary criticism, Opacities delivers a personal, contemplative exploration of writing where it lives, among impassioned conversations and the work of beloved writers.

  • The Sinister Sisters and Other Terrifying Tales (Are You Afraid of the Dark? Graphic Novel #2) (Volume 2)

    by Roseanne A. Brown, Shazleen Khan, Bill Masuku, and Gigi Murakami

    $14.99

    The second graphic novel in this original series inspired by the hit television show Are You Afraid of the Dark? features three chilling stories based on Ghanaian urban legends and folktales and written by New York Times bestselling author Roseanne A. Brown

    Izzy’s sister has been acting strange. Izzy knows that something is going on with her twin, Grace; hurrying off to hang with other kids, avoiding her at school, and going to bed earlier than usual. When Izzy learns that her twin sister has been sneaking off at night to hang out with the mysterious Midnight Society, she surprises them at their night of storytelling and threatens to tell their parents about Grace’s new hobby. But in order to prevent Izzy from telling on her, the Midnight Society proposes a scare-off! If Izzy wins, Grace is booted from the Midnight Society. If Grace wins, Izzy won’t tell anyone about the Midnight Society. What follows are three terrifying tales that may determine the fate of not only the Midnight Society, but also the twins’ relationship.

    In “The Tale of the Bushwalkers,” a girl who cheats in school discovers that monsters may be prowling her campus, ready to eat cheating students. In “The Tale of the Spirit Drum,” a young boy tests his luck when he comes into possession of a drum that can make his dreams come true. And in “The Tale of the Sinister Sisters,” two twins must survive the night by themselves as malignant spirits take their form to pit the twins agains each other.

    Drawing from urban legends, folklores, and stories rooted from Ghana, New York Times bestselling author Roseanne A. Brown crafts all new stories inspired by the hit television series, brought to life by artists Shazleen Khan, Bill Masuku, and Gigi Murakami!

  • How to Build a Fashion Icon: Notes on Confidence from the World’s Only Image Architect

    by Law Roach

    $28.00

    From Law Roach, award-winning celebrity stylist and the world’s only image architect, comes a groundbreaking guide to becoming your ultimate, confident self.

    Law Roach is the mastermind behind looks that have broken the Internet time and again—from Zendaya at the Met Gala to Anya Taylor-Joy at the Golden Globes, from Lewis Hamilton’s iconic streetwear to Céline Dion’s style renaissance. Nobody knows better than Law how to turn an outfit into a moment of fashion history.

    In a little over a decade, he’s gone from industry outsider to the most celebrated name in style, having been honored two consecutive years with the Hollywood Reporter’s prestigious Stylist of the Year award and receiving the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s inaugural Stylist Award in 2022.

    Now, for the first time ever, Law shares the secrets of his approach. With How to Build a Fashion Icon, he takes readers behind the scenes of his process and journey, revealing his tips, tricks, and most memorable styling moments to show readers how to live their most iconic and fashionable lives.

    Part self-help guide, part manifesto, this book guides readers step-by-step through that process, and along the way, Law weaves in personal anecdotes—from his childhood in the Southside of Chicago to the first time he styled Zendaya—with practical exercises to help readers cultivate the most essential feature of iconic style: confidence.

  • Be with Me (Strickland Sisters #3)

    by Alexandria House

    $24.99
    Former career student, Nicole Strickland, is smart, spoiled, loud, irreverent, and flagrantly promiscuous. Her greatest desire is to live a life of leisure, and Attorney Travis McClure is just the man to make her dreams come true.Entrepreneur Damon Davis is Nicole's best friend, has been since they crossed paths in second grade, and has loved her for as long as he's known her. And the truth of the matter is, Nicole cares for him, too. There's not much Damon doesn't know about Nicole and he accepts her, all of her, as is. The only thing keeping these two apart is a past hurt Nicole can't seem to let go of. Oh, and her engagement to Travis.Damon wants his rightful place in her heart.Nicole wants to protect her heart from the only man with the power to break it.In the end, will Nicole give Damon what he's craved his whole life, the chance to be with her?

    ***Note: Be with Me is an unconventional romance with an atypical hero and heroine. It contains acts of infidelity, profanity, and strong sexual content. If you do not like these elements included in your romantic reads, this is not the book for you.***
  • Negro Legislators Of Texas And Their Descendants: A History Of The Negro In Texas Politics From Reconstruction To Disfranchisement

    John Mason Brewer and Herbert P Gambrell

    $35.99

    ""Negro Legislators Of Texas And Their Descendants"" is a historical account of the role of African Americans in Texas politics during the period of Reconstruction to Disfranchisement. The book is written by John Mason Brewer and provides an in-depth look at the lives of prominent black legislators and their descendants who played a significant role in shaping Texas politics during this tumultuous period.The book begins by exploring the political landscape of Texas after the Civil War, where African Americans were granted the right to vote and hold public office for the first time. It then delves into the lives of notable black legislators, including Richard Allen, Norris Wright Cuney, and Matthew Gaines, who fought for civil rights and equality in a state that was still deeply divided by racial tensions.The book also examines the challenges faced by black legislators and their descendants, including the rise of Jim Crow laws and the eventual disenfranchisement of African American voters. Despite these obstacles, the book highlights the resilience and determination of black Texans who continued to fight for their rights and make significant contributions to Texas politics.Overall, ""Negro Legislators Of Texas And Their Descendants"" is a comprehensive and insightful account of the role of African Americans in Texas politics during a pivotal moment in the state's history.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

  • Everybody's Protest Novel: Essays

    James Baldwin

    $20.00

    *Use discount code SALE at checkout for 30% *

    “I am completely indebted to Jimmy Baldwin’s prose. It liberated me as a writer.”—Toni Morrison

    This collectible edition celebrates James Baldwin’s 100th-year anniversary, probing the shortcomings of the American protest novel and the harmful representations of Black identity in film and fiction

    Originally published in Notes of a Native Son, the essays “Autobiographical Notes,” “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” “Many Thousands Gone,” and “Carmen Jones: The Dark is Light Enough,” showcase Baldwin’s incisive voice as a social and literary critic.

    “Autobiographical Notes” outlines Baldwin’s journey as a Black writer and his hesitant transition from fiction to nonfiction. In the following essays, Baldwin explores the Black experience through the lens of popular media, critiquing the ways in which Black characters—in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, and the 1950s film Carmen Jones—are reduced to digestible caricatures.

    Everybody’s Protest Novel: Essays is the first of 3 special editions in the James Baldwin centennial anniversary series. Through this collection, Baldwin examines the façade of progress present in the novels of Black oppression. These essays showcase Baldwin’s profound ability to reveal the truth of the Black experience, exposing the failure of the protest novel, and the state of racial reckoning at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement.

  • Planted with Love: Growing into a Family

    Natasha Tripplett & Adriana Predoi

    $13.99

    A heartfelt picture book about one child's experience in foster care that reminds all kids that—just like a garden—love from the right source will help them bloom.

    Lamar has lived in seven homes in three years and has never stayed anywhere long enough to put down roots. As he watches his new foster mom tend to her garden each day, he soon joins her with cautious curiosity. Together, they plant, they weed, they water . . . until one day Lamar's anger and feelings of uncertainty lead him to destroy the garden.

    But through his foster mother's love and care, Lamar discovers that just like her garden, he is wanted, he is loved, he has been planted, and he will bloom.

    Written by a licensed social worker, Planted with Love illustrates that a loving home and a loving adult can provide a safe place for any child to grow and thrive.

  • Oshún and Me: A Story of Love and Braids

    Adiba Nelson and Alleanna Harris

    $18.99

    Tenderly illustrated by Alleanna Harris, Adiba Nelson's debut picture book Oshún and Me is a heartwarming ode to family, identity, and the beauty of braided hair. Also available in Spanish!

    It’s Sunday, and that means it’s Hair Day! As Mami weaves gold and cowrie shells into Yadira’s hair, she tells her the story of the goddess Oshún, showing Yadi how her Afro Latin heritage is lovingly tucked into each braid and shell.

    The next day, Yadi arrives for her first day at a new school. She's nervous about making friends, but with her beautiful braids, the click-clack of the cowrie shells, and a little guidance from Oshún, she finds she has everything she needs to be her best, most authentic self.

    A letter from the author and visual examples of different kinds of braided hairstyles are included in the back of the book.

  • Eggs, Please! (A to Z Foods of the World)

    Cheryl Yau Chepusova, Rebecca Hollingsworth

    $12.95

    From “Egg” to Z—crack open a global culinary adventure for babies and toddlers!

    This adorable, plate-shaped alphabet board book from the author of Noodles, Please! introduces your youngest reader to the alphabet in a delightful and tasty journey across 20 different countries and cultures.

    Eat the alphabet as you discover 26 egg-based dishes from countries around the world. From Nadan Mutta to Tunisian Shakshouka, this food board book will have young foodies and their grown-ups wowed by all the amazing ways you can use a simple egg.

    • As you read, look for the name of each dish in both English and the native language of the country it comes from.

    • This giftable die-cut alphabet book is shaped to mimic a dinner plate on each page.

    • Vibrant illustrations of 20 different egg dishes from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, India, Australia, and the Middle East

    Whether you’re a lifelong fan of frittata or a tiny emerging foodie, this children’s board book will have you screaming for more Eggs, Please!

  • The Forgotten Era: Nigeria Before British Rule

    Max Siollun

    $35.00

    Much is known about what Europeans did in Africa, yet very little is known about Africa's history before its colonisation. In this surprising exploration, Max Siollun uncovers societies that were not part of a backward 'Dark Continent', but which instead had rich lore to rival the ancient Greeks and Romans.

    Pre-colonial West Africa had a mesmerising cast of revolutionaries, intellectuals, innovators, and villainous assassins. These include the family that overthrew three different 1000-year-old empires, the royal court official who engineered the death of four kings, and the young enslaved boy who became the first Black bishop in history, befriending Queen Victoria along the way.

    This story of a dynamic and artistic people is a vital read for those who want to discover a forgotten era of West Africa.

    Max Siollun is a historian and author. He has written four acclaimed books on Nigeria’s history, most recently What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule,
    which was shortlisted in BBC History Magazine’s Books of the Year. He has written for the New York Times, Guardian, Independent and Foreign Policy.

  • Red Clay

    Charles B. Fancher

    $28.99

    An astounding multigenerational saga, Red Clay chronicles the interwoven lives of an enslaved Black family and their white owners as the Civil War ends and Reconstruction begins.

    In 1943, when a frail old white woman shows up in Red Clay, Alabama, at the home of a Black former slave--on the morning following his funeral--his family hardly knows what to expect after she utters the words "... a lifetime ago, my family owned yours." Adelaide Parker has a story to tell--one of ambition, betrayal, violence, and redemption--that shaped both the fate of her family and that of the late Felix H. Parker.

    But there are gaps in her knowledge, and she's come to Red Clay seeking answers from a family with whom she shares a name and a history that neither knows in full. In an epic saga that takes us from Red Clay to Paris, to the Côte d'Azur and New Orleans, human frailties are pushed to their limits as secrets are exposed and the line between good and evil becomes ever more difficult to discern. Red Clay is a tale that deftly lays bare the ugliness of slavery, the uncertainty of the final months of the Civil War, the optimism of Reconstruction, and the pain and frustration of Jim Crow.

    With a vivid sense of place and a cast of memorable characters, Charles B. Fancher draws upon his own family history to weave a riveting tale of triumph over adversity, set against a backdrop of societal change and racial animus that reverberates in contemporary America. Through seasons of joy and unspeakable pain, Fancher delivers rich moments as allies become enemies, and enemies--to their great surprise--find new respect for each other.

  • High And Rising: A Book About De La Soul

    Marcus J. Moore

    $29.99

    A stunning cultural biography of De La Soul, the era-defining hip-hop trio that touched millions of lives and changed rap forever.

    De La Soul burst onto the scene with the release of their groundbreaking 1989 album 3 Feet High & Rising, an “anything goes” hip-hop masterpiece hailed as a new masterwork from a bygone era of Black experimentation.

    Formed in Long Island in 1988 by Kelvin “Posdnuos” Mercer, Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur, and Vincent “Maseo” Mason, De La Soul rebuked classification and appealed to the Black alternative. Their music was positive and psychedelic, their imagery full of flowers and peace signs. It was rap with a broad sonic palette which set the blueprint for an entire generation of artists who followed. But as quickly as De La ascended, they were faced with the pressures of a changing industry and bitter legal battles.

    Completed in the wake of Dave’s passing and the group’s arrival on streaming platforms after years in digital purgatory, High and Rising tells the story of one of the most influential rap groups of all time. In the process, acclaimed music journalist Marcus J. Moore braids in a deeply personal coming-of-age story about his journey through life with De La as a backdrop.

    The first book about De La Soul, High and Rising shows that De La Soul is Black history, American history, world history, our history. This is a tale about staying the course, and how holding true to your virtue can lead to dynamic results.

  • GATHER: 100 Seasonal Recipes that Bring People Together

    Chris Viaud

    $29.99

    From James Beard nominee and Top Chef contestant Chef Chris Viaud comes GATHER, featuring recipes that not only bring friends and family together but keep them at the table. Whether you’re hosting a cookbook club night in, or offering a housewarming gift to new neighbors, this mouth-watering cookbook will satisfy all cravings.

    To Chef Chris Viaud, food is a shared language that allows us to communicate with complete strangers, create lasting memories with friends and family, and get in touch with ourselves. It is the best way to nourish and expand a community. GATHER is a celebration of food’s magical capacity to connect and transform. Featuring 100 recipes that focus on the innovative, accessible, and seasonal cuisine that earned Viaud a James Beard nomination and wowed the judges on Top Chef, this cookbook is centered around the incredible potential in gatherings of all sizes.

    Inside you’ll find:

    * 100 seasonal appetizers
    * Bold and wholesome family-style entrees
    * Unique, eye-catching cocktails perfect for entertaining
    * Elegant desserts for all cravings
    * Stunning original photography
    * Tips and techniques that promise to revolutionize your approach in the kitchen

    GATHER is perfect gift for:

    * Mother’s day or Father’s day for the chefs in your life
    * Host or hostess who enjoy entertaining
    * Housewarming or new homeowners
    * Christmas, birthdays, or other holidays

    Easy to assemble and satisfying to serve, this repertoire is made for the heart of your home. Foster a deeper appreciation for every aspect of a meal, from those who cultivated the ingredients to the ones who sit beside us at the table. Feel good about what you put on your plate with GATHER.

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