Co-founder of the Women's March makes her YA debut in a near future dystopian where a young girl and her brother must escape a xenophobic government to find sanctuary.

It's 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens are chipped and everyone is tracked--from buses to grocery stores. It's almost impossible to survive as an undocumented immigrant, but that's exactly what sixteen-year-old Vali is doing. She and her family have carved out a stable, happy life in small-town Vermont, but when Vali's mother's counterfeit chip starts malfunctioning and the Deportation Forces raid their town, they are forced to flee.

Now on the run, Vali and her family are desperately trying to make it to her tía Luna's in California, a sanctuary state that is currently being walled off from the rest of the country. But when Vali's mother is detained before their journey even really begins, Vali must carry on with her younger brother across the country to make it to safety before it's too late.

Gripping and urgent, co-authors Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher have crafted a narrative that is as haunting as it is hopeful in envisioning a future where everyone can find sanctuary.

Stop People-Pleasing and Start Setting Healthier Boundaries Now

Do you feel resentful because you didn’t speak up? Do find yourself saying yes when you really mean no, only to burn out later? Or maybe frustration builds, leading to blowups that push people away? In Communication Skills for Healthier Boundaries, licensed psychotherapist Dr. LaToya S. Gilmore addresses the struggles many face when they can’t express their needs, often resorting to either giving in or losing control.

This book provides essential tools to break free from these patterns and communicate with clarity and confidence. Learn how to set firm, healthy boundaries without guilt and honor yourself without fear of conflict. Tackling either people-pleasing or explosive reactions, Dr. Gilmore’s practical guidance will help you build and maintain fulfilling relationships without compromising your well-being.

Communication Skills for Healthier Boundaries includes:

* Verbal and nonverbal communication skills and activities. Attain lifelong skill sets to build assertiveness, confidence, and self-awareness.
* Real-life dialogue scripts. Practice setting and asserting boundaries at your own pace while finding your communication style.
* Easy implementation in two parts. Learn core communication skills in the first part of the book, and then apply these skills in the second part, which features common scenarios where boundaries are challenged in everyday life, relationships, and at work.

The billion-dollar Hollywood producer provides a master mentorship by sharing secrets to success honed from working with the biggest stars in the world. As Kevin Hart says of working with Will Packer: “I became a student and learned from the way he was moving. The man helped me grow and gave me the knowledge.”

Whether you’re just starting out or ready to make a major move, Who Better Than You? is a wildly entertaining roadmap to being successful in an unpredictable world, featuring behind-the-scenes Hollywood lessons, empowering guidance, and indispensable encouragement.

From Stomp the Yard to Ride Along to Girls Trip and many more, Will Packer’s films have collectively grossed more than $1 billion at the box office, with ten opening at number one! To outsiders, the unabashed confidence that has driven him since his college days—when he was trying to sell a micro-budget indie film—may look like arrogance. To Packer, that’s just what it took to make it on his own terms.

With Who Better Than You?, Packer has created the success toolkit he wished he’d had back then, filled with illuminating and laugh-out-loud stories as well as practical advice, such as:

1. Be arrogant! The highest-achieving people have “healthy arrogance”: Superior confidence not only in themselves and their abilities but also in their predestined success. You too can unlock this level of confidence.

2. Convince people your goals are essential and vital. It is crucial to assure others that your success benefits both you and them.

3. It’s the work you put in when nobody’s watching that makes everyone pay attention later. No single person on the planet is more deserving of achieving their wildest dreams than you. But it will never happen until you act accordingly in every aspect of your life.

It’s time for you to start producing your own blockbuster life—by first believing there is no one more worthy of it than you.

There’s more than one way to love and more than one place to call home in this rousing small-town romantic comedy that’s sure to charm fans of Hannah Bonam-Young’s Next to You and Ashley Herring Blake’s Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date

There’s no fix for a lonely heart like a little TLC…

Jessica Jae-un Miller came to Peach Blossom, Georgia, for a visit, not a breakdown. But when her rental car dies on the outskirts of town, mechanic Lavenia “Vini” Williams provides a tow—and a very welcome jump start to Jessica’s heart. It’s been a minute since Jessica’s last fling—her relationship specialty—and Vini checks all the right boxes. If only the sexy car whisperer seemed interested…

Vini knows herself and what she wants. She loves her job, her family, her hometown—but she’d love to fall in love. Jessica stirs up all the right feelings, but the city girl has no intention of staying in Peach Blossom. Why sign up for a broken heart?

But the temptation is real as Vini goes out of her way to drive a carless Jessica around town. The pair can’t seem to keep their distance—or their hands to themselves. With only six weeks to figure out where their red-hot chemistry might lead, Vini and Jessica will have to decide if home can be where the heart is when the heart only knows how to run.

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…

Peach Blossom

Book 1: The 7-10 Split
Book 2: The Relationship Mechanic
Book 3: The Secret Crush Book Club

2019, Texas Library Association's Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List
Amazon Book Review's Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2018
NPR's Best Books of 2018
Newsweek's Best Comic Books of 2018
The Advocate's Best LGBTQ Graphic Novels of 2018
Book Riot's Best Comics of 2018
Autostraddle's 50 of the Best LGBT Books of 2018

When Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray met at church bingo in 1963, it was love at first sight. Forced apart by their families and society, Hazel and Mari both married young men and had families. Decades later, now in their mid-'60s, Hazel and Mari reunite again at a church bingo hall. Realizing their love for each other is still alive, what these grandmothers do next takes absolute strength and courage.

This Jackpot Edition contains over SIXTY PAGES of bonus material, including the talents of MARGUERITE BENNETT (Batwoman) and newcomer BEVERLY JOHNSON, SHAWN PRYOR (Cash and Carrie) and PAULINA GANUCHEAU (Zodiac Starforce), award-winning historical romance author ALYSSA COLE's comics writing debut with SHAE BEAGLE (MOONSTRUCK), GAIL SIMONE (CROSSWIND) and MARGAUX SALTEL (Superfreaks), and AMANDA DEIBERT (Wonder Woman '77) and CAT STAGGS (CROSSWIND), with illustrations from MEGAN HUTCHINSON (ROCKSTARS) and ARIELA KRISTANTINA (InSeXts). Plus a sneak peek of BINGO LOVE, VOL. 2: DEAR DIARY, with an afterword from GABBY RIVERA (America).

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, OPRAH DAILY, THE WASHINGTON POST, BUZZFEED AND VULTURE

“Erudite, intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth’s promise, of the quest to find one’s tribe and one’s calling.” —Leigh Haber, Oprah Daily

The Booker Prize finalist and widely acclaimed author of Real Life and Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads

In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.

A novel of friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans asks fresh questions about love and sex, ambition and precarity, and about how human beings can bruise one another while trying to find themselves. It is Brandon Taylor’s richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life.

A twisty and prescient new thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Avery Keene series, by nationally renowned author and leader Stacey Abrams, Coded Justice follows Avery down a dark rabbit hole into the breathtaking—and dangerous—use of AI in the medical industry.

Avery Keene is back! The fan-favorite former Supreme Court clerk has finally gone out on her own, securing a prestigious position at a high-end law firm in Washington, D.C., where she is about to earn real money and get her life in order after a tumultuous run working as a clerk on the Supreme Court. With her reputation preceding her, Avery is quickly tasked at her new job with becoming a corporate internal investigator. Her new client is Camasca—a mega-tech firm that's on the forefront of developing a new integrated AI system poised to revolutionize the medical industry, particularly by delivering vastly improved health care to veterans. The AI potential is breathtaking, but some disturbing anomalies have plagued Camasca in early testing—including the mysterious death of a Camasca engineer. Avery and her colleagues, Jared, Ling, and Noah, find themselves on a journey to determine whether the anomalies are mere technical glitches, or something much more concerning. Full of twists, behind-the-scenes financial machinations, and the continued blossoming of Avery and her vibrant cast of friends, Coded Justice finds Stacey Abrams' riveting series to be in full swing.

Every first-generation immigrant has a unique story to tell – and is part of a large community that knows just what it’s like, too.

This is a kids’ book about first-generation immigrants. When you're a first-generation immigrant, a lot of things feel different from what you know: a new place to live, a new school, new foods, new smells, new noises.

This book was made to help kids aged 5-9 understand that they’re thankfully not alone in this experience. This author immigrated to a new country with his family when he was a kid. He has been there, understands, and wants you to know that all the experiences that make you who you are…are amazing!

A Kids Book About First Generation Immigrants features:
* A large and bold, yet minimalist font design that allows kids freedom to imagine themselves in the words on the pages.
* A friendly, approachable, empowering, and child-appropriate tone throughout.
* An incredible and diverse group of authors in the series who are experts or have first-hand experience of the topic.

Tackling important discourse together!

The A Kids Book About titles are best used when read together. Helping to kickstart important, challenging, and empowering conversations for kids and their grown-ups through beautiful and thought-provoking pages. The series supports an incredible and diverse group of authors, who are either experts in their field, or have first-hand experience on the topic.

A Kids Co. is a new kind of media company enabling kids to explore big topics in a new and engaging way, with a growing series of books, podcasts, and blogs made to empower. Learn more about us online by searching for A Kids Co.

A young adventurer must test their skills as a hero while navigating new challenges, friendships, and rivalries in the next blockbuster Minecraft novel. Welcome to Adventure School!

Hero Crowe’s Adventure School is the stuff of legends. Every year, aspiring heroes across the Overworld wait to see where the mysterious school will pop up this time. But before students can even make it to the front steps, they must pass a dangerous admissions test.

Belinda knows she can pass. She has to pass. She needs to prove to everyone (most of all herself) that she’s not a coward, and she is certain that winning the school’s glorious chest of rare, valuable items is the way to do it. She just needs to make sure she wins without revealing too much about her past.

Belinda has competition, though. She and countless other students are up against hair-raising mobs, secret rooms, and saboteurs, facing challenge after challenge as they battle their way through Hero Crowe’s unusual “lessons.” While some students think working together is the best strategy, others prefer the whole lone wolf thing. After all, Hero said there could be only one victor.

Navigating new friendships, rivalries, and plenty of danger, Belinda discovers just what it takes to be a hero. But in the end, will she win the prize and become the school’s one true hero?

From the author of Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller Nightcrawling, here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.

Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.

The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.

Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.

The remarkable story of Edward McCabe, a Black man who tried to establish a Black state within the United States.

In this paradigm-shattering work of American history, Caleb Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who championed the audacious idea to create a state within the Union governed by and for Black people — and the racism, politics, and greed that thwarted him.
 
As the sweeping changes and brief glimpses of hope brought by the Civil War and Reconstruction began to wither, anger at the opportunities available to newly freed Black people were on the rise. As a result, both Blacks and whites searched for new places to settle. That was when Edward McCabe, a Black businessman and a rising political star in the American West, set in motion his plans to found a state within the Union for Black people to live in and govern. His chosen site: Oklahoma, a place that the U.S. government had deeded to Indigenous people in the 1830s when it forced thousands of them to leave their homes under Indian Removal, which became known as the Trail of Tears.
 
McCabe lobbied politicians in Washington, D.C., Kansas, and elsewhere as he exhorted Black people to move to Oklahoma to achieve their dreams of self-determination and land ownership. His rising profile as a leader and spokesman for Black people as well as his willingness to confront white politicians led him to become known as Black Moses. And like his biblical counterpart, McCabe nearly made it to the promised land but was ultimately foiled by politics, business interests, and the growing ambitions of white settlers who also wanted the land.
 
In Black Moses, Gayle brings to vivid life the world of Edward McCabe: the Black people who believed in his dream of a Black state, the white politicians who didn't, and the larger challenges of confronting the racism and exclusion that bedeviled Black people's attempts to carve a place in America for themselves. Gayle draws from extraordinary research and reporting to reveal an America that almost was.

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

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

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

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

A brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua--by the author of Annie John

"If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the Prime Minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a Prime Minister would want an airport named after him--why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument. You are a tourist and you have not yet seen . . ."

So begins Jamaica Kincaid's expansive essay, which shows us what we have not yet seen of the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up.

Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright by turns, in a Swiftian mode, A Small Place cannot help but amplify our vision of one small place and all that it signifies.

Paperback Release - April 14, 2026

A mesmerizing spin through the high-rolling high times of 1970s New York and Detroit, Nettie Jones’s Fish Tales is a lost classic taking its rightful place in the spotlight.

Lewis Jones is a party girl for the ages. Confident and cavalier, she seeks freedom and a good time, leaving mayhem in her wake. Strutting between the bohemian demimonde of New York City and the affluent Black community of Detroit, she is supported in her adventures by her husband, Woody, and accompanied by her friend Kitty-Kat, a gay hustler with impeccable style and a knack for finding all the best spots. She guzzles champagne, snorts piles of cocaine, wakes up on silk sheets with a variety of lovers. And then she is upended by the handsome, erudite, often cruel Brook―a man who has his own bevy of admirers. Soon, Lewis and Brook are ensnared in a struggle for dominance that launches them into a shock of violence.

A bold exploration of the blurred line between love and control, pleasure and addiction, Fish Tales offers a glittering, devastating portrait of a woman’s pursuit of her own kind of freedom. It is a striking deluge of longing, anxiety, ego, identity, and love. As provocative as it is moving, as profane as it is artful, Nettie Jones’s Fish Tales illuminates the warring forces of power, desire, intimacy, and fear, and exposes the raw nerve of our yearning to be loved on our own terms.

One summer bound them. One secret divided them. One reunion could change everything.

As teenagers, Summer Knight and Echo Abara spent one unforgettable summer as camp counselors. Beneath sun-soaked days and starry nights, their bond deepened from easy friendship into something more—an unspoken love neither dared confess. Life pulled them in different directions, yet their souls remained tethered by time, distance, and a shared secret.

Neither has forgotten their connection—nor the secret they swore to keep. When a reunion brings them back together, their lives collide once more, stirring long-buried emotions and unanswered questions. Summer and Echo must confront not only their unvoiced feelings but also the burden of their shared secret—one that could shatter everything they believed about their friendship and the summer that shaped them.

Will they find the courage to embrace what's always been between them? Or will the truth they've guarded destroy their second chance?

Julie Murphy's If the Shoe Fits meets Talia Hibbert's Take a Hint, Dani Brown―USA Today bestselling author Danielle Allen brings another steamy, witty novel about finding the perfect partner―and how sometimes what you're looking for is right in front of you.

“I only spend time with people I enjoy. I only do things I want to do. I only have sex with people who get me off. So, my time is never wasted and my energy stays high.”

Nina Ford doesn’t like to put all her eggs in one basket. She works multiple jobs, she enjoys multiple hobbies, she dates multiple men.

In her thirty years of life, Nina has never come across a man who has all the things she’s looking for.

She loves fun and excitement―and she has a man for that.

She loves confidence and humor―and she has a man for that.

She loves intelligence and ambition―and she has a man for that.

She loves passion and romance―and she has a man for that.

She’s always been content rotating a few men in and out of her life to get her needs met. But when an opportunity presents itself, Nina finds herself in a bit of a predicament. Because if everything she’s ever wanted in a partner collides with everything she’s ever wanted in a career, her eggs are bound to get cracked.

Like her back.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In his final years, one of America’s greatest writers envisioned a book about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. His deeply personal notes for the project had never been published before acclaimed filmmaker Raoul Peck mined them to compose his Academy Award-nominated documentary.

“Thrilling…. A portrait of one man’s confrontation with a country that, murder by murder, as he once put it, ‘devastated my universe.’” —The New York Times

Peck weaves these texts together, brilliantly imagining the book that Baldwin never wrote with selected published and unpublished passages, essays, letters, notes, and interviews that are every bit as incisive and pertinent now as they have ever been. Peck’s film uses them to jump through time, juxtaposing Baldwin’s private words with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.

This edition contains more than 40 black-and-white images from the film.

Award-winning novelist Bernice McFadden's highly anticipated new historical novel set amidst the Harlem Renaissance.

―Glorious was a finalist for the 2011 NAACP Image Award for Fiction.

“McFadden’s lively and loving rendering of New York hews closely to the jazz-inflected city of myth. . . . McFadden has a wonderful ear for dialogue, and her entertaining prose equally accommodates humor and pathos.” ―New York Times Book Review

“Bernice L. McFadden’s novel Glorious, which starts with a bang-up prologue, has a strong main character (based in part on Zora Neale Hurston), hard-driving prose, and historic sweep of several decades, including the years of the Harlem Renaissance, which has always fascinated me.” ―Jane Ciabattari, National Book Critics Circle President

Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era. Blending fact and fiction, Glorious is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and ultimately revival offers a candid and true portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.

It is a novel informed by the question that is the title of Langston Hughes’s famous poem Harlem: "What happens to a dream deferred?" Based on years of research, this heart-wrenching fictional account is given added resonance by factual events coupled with real and imagined larger-than-life characters. Glorious is an audacious exploration into the nature of self-hatred, love, possession, ego, betrayal, and, finally, redemption.

New York Times bestselling author and BookTok star Kennedy Ryan concludes the Skyland trilogy with an unapologetically ambitious businesswoman finally finding a soft place to land with a soulmate who wants nothing more than to make all her dreams come true...if she would only let him.

Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry's rarefied air. Your vision board? She’s probably living it.

She’s a woman with goals, dreams, ambitions—always striving upward. And in the midst of everything, she's facing her toughest challenge yet: caring for an aging parent. Who has time for romance? From her experience, there's a low ROI on relationships. Anyway, she hasn't met the man who can keep up with her. Until...him.

Tech mogul Maverick Bell is a dilemma wrapped in an exquisitely tailored suit and knee-melting charm. From their first charged glance at the summer's hottest party, Hendrix feels like she’s met her match. Only he can’t be. Mav may be the first to make her feel this seen and desired, but he’s the last one she can have. Forbidden fruit is the juiciest, and this man is off limits if she plans to stay the course she’s set for herself.

But when Maverick gives chase—pursuing her, spoiling her, understanding her—is it time to let herself have something more?

This powerful sequel to Bernice L. McFadden’s bestselling debut Sugar follows a young African-American woman back to her Arkansas hometown, where she must confront difficult truths about her parentage and a curse in her family’s past.

When Sugar Lacey returns to Short Junction to find the aunts who raised her, she hopes they will be able to tell her the truth about her parents. What she discovers is not just a terrible story of unrequited love, but also a tale of black magic that has cursed generations of Lacey women.
 
Armed with newfound knowledge and strength in the face of adversity, Sugar must push through the pain to find her absent father and discover the truth about the curse that has befallen her family line in hopes of breaking it before she passes it on to her own child.
 
A powerfully realized novel that brings back the unforgettable characters from Sugar, This Bitter Earth is a testament to the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

From the author of Race After Technology, an inspiring vision of how we can build a more just world—one small change at a time

“A true gift to our movements for justice.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.

Vividly recounting her personal experiences and those of her family, Benjamin shows how seemingly minor decisions and habits could spread virally and have exponentially positive effects. She recounts her father’s premature death, illuminating the devastating impact of the chronic stress of racism, but she also introduces us to community organizers who are fostering mutual aid and collective healing. Through her brother’s experience with the criminal justice system, we see the trauma caused by policing practices and mass imprisonment, but we also witness family members finding strength as they come together to demand justice for their loved ones. And while her own challenges as a young mother reveal the vast inequities of our healthcare system, Benjamin also describes how the support of doulas and midwives can keep Black mothers and babies alive and well.

Born of a stubborn hopefulness, Viral Justice offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones, transforming our relationships and communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world.

A collectible hardcover edition of our greatest African American poet's award-winning first novel, about a black boy's coming-of-age in a largely white Kansas town, featuring an introduction by National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy

A Penguin Vitae Edition

When first published in 1930, Not Without Laughter established Langston Hughes as not only a brilliant poet and leading light of the Harlem Renaissance but also a gifted novelist. In telling the story of Sandy Rogers, a young African American boy in small-town Kansas, and of his family--his mother, Annjee, a housekeeper for a wealthy white family; his irresponsible father, Jimboy, who plays the guitar and travels the country in search of employment; his strong-willed grandmother Hager, who clings to her faith; his Aunt Tempy, who marries a rich man; and his Aunt Harriet, who struggles to make it as a blues singer--Hughes gives the longings and lineaments of black life in the early twentieth century an important place in the history of racially divided America.

Penguin Vitae--loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life”--is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

Raised in Appalachia, native daughter Ashleigh Shanti, a queer Black woman and acclaimed chef, knows Southern Black cooking means more than we’ve come to believe. While hot buttered cast-iron-pan cornbread and crunchy, juicy, lard-fried chicken have their roles to play, they are far from the entire story. 

The key to understanding how Black influence has defined foodways and cultures in the South is to explore its microregions, each with its own distinct flora and fauna, dialects, traditions, and dishes. In Our South, Ashleigh takes you through the five regions closest to her heart, beginning with a glimpse of mountain life in the Backcountry through recipes like Fish Camp Hush Puppies and quail spiked with black pepper. A swing over to the coastal Lowcountry fills your plate with smoky grilled oysters and benne seed–topped crab toasts. Seasonal produce shines in the Midlands, where bountiful stone fruits enrich dishes from shortcakes to salads. Lowlands nods to the diversity of food cultures that meet in the region, where Ashleigh grew up eating noodle dishes like Virginia yock alongside Southern classics like Brunswick stew. The book culminates in Homeland, with foods that share what it’s like to cook—and live—as a Black Southern chef now.

Long before competing on Top Chef and earning a coveted James Beard Award Rising Star Chef nomination for her cooking at Asheville, North Carolina’s Benne on Eagle, Ashleigh shelled boiled peanuts and coveted the jars of pickles in her great-aunt Hattie Mae’s larder. In high school, she pored over food and travel magazines and marveled at how her mother never failed to put a hot meal on the table, whether instant grits or slowly cooked celebration dishes. After spending a gap year in Nairobi and graduating from culinary school, Ashleigh entered the restaurant world, bartending, catering, teaching, and staging. She rekindled her connection to the cuisine of her roots before opening her own restaurant, Good Hot Fish, named for a phrase her ancestors would shout to draw in customers.

Our South takes readers on a mouthwatering journey through Appalachia and beyond, revealing the depth and diversity of Southern cooking through the eyes of a rising culinary star. Perfect for fans of other regional Southern cookbooks like the Mosquito Supper Club cookbook or soul food cookbooks like Jubilee, Our South stands as a testament to the rich tapestry of Black culinary traditions, offering a contemporary exploration of Black Southern foodways that's both personal and universal.

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

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

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

Claudia Jones stood at many crossroads. Her world was one of heated battles for Black liberation, of anti-fascism in the build-up to World War II, of national liberation struggles across the Global South, of the US government persecuting her and her comrades for their activism and membership in the Communist Party. And as a Black woman, she was also determined to bring to light how race and gender are embedded in and essential to the struggles of the working class.

At a time when the hegemony of imperialism and capitalism remain strong while new contradictions and signs of struggle arise, Jones' political writings are a lesson in identifying the most urgent tasks for moving socialism, the political project of the working class, forward. From her poetry, to newspaper articles, to pamphlets, to speeches, A Fighting Dream: The Political Writings of Claudia Jones brings her to us as she was: unrelenting, fearless, and a Communist.

Claudia Jones challenges us all to stand with our principles, to build organization, and to clearly see how understanding the intersectional aspects of our struggle is crucial for the liberation of humanity and the planet.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Embark on a captivating journey with Love & Whiskey. New York Times bestselling author Fawn Weaver unveils the hidden narrative behind one of America’s most iconic whiskey brands. This book is a vibrant exploration set in the present day, delving into the life and legacy of Nearest Green, the African American distilling genius who played a pivotal role in the creation of the whiskey that bears Jack Daniel's name.

Set against the backdrop of Lynchburg, Tennessee, this narrative weaves together a thrilling blend of personal discovery, historical investigation, and the revelation of a story long overshadowed by time. Through extensive research, personal interviews, and the uncovering of long-buried documents, Weaver brings to light not only the remarkable bond between Nearest Green and Jack Daniel but also Daniel’s concerted efforts during his lifetime to ensure Green’s legacy would not be forgotten. This deep respect for his teacher, mentor, and friend was mirrored in Jack's dedication to ensuring that the stories and achievements of Nearest Green's descendants, who continued the tradition of working side by side with Jack and his descendants, would also not be forgotten.

Love & Whiskey is more than just a recounting of historical facts; it's a live journey into the heart of storytelling, where every discovery adds a layer to the rich tapestry of American history. Weaver's pursuit highlights the importance of acknowledging those who have shaped our cultural landscape; yet remained in the shadows.

As Weaver intertwines her present-day quest with the historical threads of Green and Daniel's lives, she not only pays homage to their legacy but also spearheads the creation of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. This endeavor has not only brought Nearest Green's name to the forefront of the whiskey industry but has also set new records, symbolizing a step forward in recognizing and celebrating African American contributions to the spirit world.

Love & Whiskey invites readers to witness a story of enduring friendship, resilience, and the impact of giving credit where it’s long overdue. It's an inspiring tale of how uncovering the past can forge new paths and how the spirit of whiskey has connected lives across generations. Join Fawn Weaver on this extraordinary adventure, as she navigates through the layers of history, friendship, and the unbreakable bonds formed by the legacy of America's native spirit, ensuring the stories of Nearest Green and his descendants live on in the heart of American culture.

In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand Black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate. Marxist analyses tend to presuppose European models of history and experience that downplay the significance of Black people and Black communities as agents of change and resistance. Black radicalism, Robinson argues, must be linked to the traditions of Africa and the unique experiences of Blacks on Western continents, and any analyses of African American history need to acknowledge this.

To illustrate his argument, Robinson traces the emergence of Marxist ideology in Europe, the resistance by Blacks in historically oppressive environments, and the influence of both of these traditions on such important twentieth-century Black radical thinkers as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Richard Wright. This revised and updated third edition includes a new preface by Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, and a new foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley.

This book unearths a food story buried deep within the soil of American civil rights history. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and oral histories, Bobby J. Smith II re-examines the Mississippi civil rights movement as a period when activists expanded the meaning of civil rights to address food as integral to sociopolitical and economic conditions. For decades, white economic and political actors used food as a weapon against Black sharecropping communities in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, but members of these communities collaborated with activists to transform food into a tool of resistance. Today, Black youth are building a food justice movement in the Delta to continue this story, grappling with inequalities that continue to shape their lives.

Drawing on multiple disciplines including critical food studies, Black studies, history, sociology, and southern studies, Smith makes critical connections between civil rights activism and present-day food justice activism in Black communities, revealing how power struggles over food empower them to envision Black food futures in which communities have the full autonomy and capacity to imagine, design, create, and sustain a self-sufficient local food system.

Black Gurl Reliable does the original work of curating Black girls’ and women’s experiences and experiential knowledge, indexing sociocultural tactics (schooling) that foreclose Black girl aliveness, while advancing embodiment as a key ingredient of Black mattering. Elevating Black Girlhood Studies as an ethos, narratives presented offer redress to inequities and hauntings of race-gender structures of dominance and position Black girls and girlhood as more than lamentation and what happens to the body. Hill solicits the strength and utility of arts-based methods in capturing identity, performance, and experimental design for ephemerality and improvisation. Hill makes clear Black feminism’s insistence that knowledge and possibility are produced through the body.

As a means of mitigating the deleterious effects of schooling on Black girls’ and women’s bodies and making legible the insights and knowledge produced from schooling experiences, Hill introduces the concept of Transgressngroove. This living feminist practice explores the relationships between Black girlhood, education, and the body, as researched for over a decade through workshops, consulting, classrooms, personal development, and other teaching/learning spaces.

From hip-hop moguls and political candidates to talk radio and critically acclaimed films, society communicates that Black girls don’t matter and their girlhood is not safe. Alarming statistics on physical and sexual abuse, for instance, reveal the harm Black girls face, yet Black girls’ representation in media still heavily relies on our seeing their abuse as an important factor in others’ development. In this provocative new book, Aria S. Halliday asserts that the growth of diverse representation in media since 2008 has coincided with an increase in the hatred of Black girls.

Halliday uses her astute expertise as a scholar of popular culture, feminist theory, and Black girlhood to expose how we have been complicit in the depiction of Black girls as unwanted and disposable while letting Black girls fend for themselves. She indicts the way media mistreats celebrity Black girls like Malia and Sasha Obama as well as fictional Black girls in popular shows and films like A Wrinkle in Time. Our society’s inability to see or understand Black girls as girls makes us culpable in their abuse. In Black Girls and How We Fail Them, a revelatory book for political analysts, hip-hop lovers, pop culture junkies, and parents, Halliday provides the critical perspective we need to create a world that supports, affirms, and loves Black girls. Our future depends on it.

The Water Cries represents an ambitious search for the location of the slave auction houses in one of America’s most storied cities. The author plumbs historical documentation, sifting historical advertisements and archiving familial connections.

The book is a history told by grandmothers and grandfathers. It addresses a history previously told under a different light or never told at all. These are the tales of an heir of the previously enslaved, tales of images seen and unseen, the voices of the mystical. The Water Cries represents a contribution to the telling of the long-ignored truths of Galveston’s central role in the untenable trade of human souls, slavery.

The book is divided into three sections: before Emancipation (1840–1865); after Emancipation (1865–1940); and concrete suggestions for Galveston moving forward. This latter section involves giving faces and names to the voices we hear, the creation of a historical district, and the borrowing of other communities’ progress.

The Water Cries is a contribution to the rest of us also, particularly as we continue to grapple with what W. E. B. Du Bois described as America’s unique problem, the color line.