All Books
- Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity)
Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity)
Michael R. Fischbach
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The 1967 Arab–Israeli War rocketed the question of Israel and Palestine onto the front pages of American newspapers. Black Power activists saw Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. Soon concerns over the Arab–Israeli conflict spread across mainstream black politics and into the heart of the civil rights movement itself. Black Power and Palestine uncovers why so many African Americans―notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others―came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did.
Americans first heard pro-Palestinian sentiments in public through the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Michael R. Fischbach uncovers this hidden history of the Arab–Israeli conflict's role in African American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power's transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected U.S. black politics, animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today.
In chronicling this story, Fischbach reveals much about how American peoples of color create political strategies, a sense of self, and a place within U.S. and global communities. The shadow cast by events of the 1960s and 1970s continues to affect the United States in deep, structural ways. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement.
- Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women's Humor
Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women's Humor
Sold out"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.
- Run, Run, Run!
Run, Run, Run!
Taro Gomi
Sold outRun, Run, Run! is a fun, fun, fun board book for on-the-go toddlers!
It's time to run a race like no other! Finish line? Winning? None of that matters here. Exploring is the goal! In this colorful board book by bestselling author-illustrator Taro Gomi, follow the racer as he runs far past the finish line and through fields, a farm, a forest, and more. Toddlers will delight in turning the pages to find out where he will run, run, run to next!
Ideal for fans of Taro Gomi and his popular children's books, including the classic Everyone Poops, My Friends, Little Truck, and Little Chicks, this board book combines irresistibly expressive artwork and energetic text to create a read-along story parents and kids will not walk but run to read again and again.
PERFECT FOR ACTIVE TODDLERS: Not only do toddlers love to run—they love to run everywhere! This spirited board book gives little ones a glimpse of what it's like to run in cities, farms, forests, and more, letting them live out their dreams of running free with the whole world at their feet. It's the ultimate board book adventure!
CELEBRATES THE POWER OF IMAGINATION: It's a toddler's dream come true: running (and running) everywhere! The youngest readers will delight in exploring a variety of scenes and reveling in the little racer's ideal race.
A GREAT GIFT: This colorful, detail-rich board book is the perfect present for young ones just starting to walk and run. Not only will it inspire them, but it will help to redefine what winning means when experience is the goal! Great for baby shower, new baby, or child's birthday gift giving.Perfect for:
* Fans of Taro Gomi and Everyone Poops
* Gift-givers seeking a sweet and engaging board book
* Parents, grandparents, caregivers, and storytime leaders who love sharing fun stories and vibrant art with babies and toddlers
* Runners and joggers who want to share their outdoor hobby with the kids in their lives - Taro Gomi's Big Book of Words
Taro Gomi's Big Book of Words
Taro Gomi
Sold outLearning new words and phrases has never been so fun—and funny!
Taro Gomi introduces toddlers to first words in unforgettable ways: From flowers to a face, to greetings and games, this one-of-a-kind collection not only provides first-word basics but a fresh and fun-filled approach all while letting the youngest of readers “travel” to Japan through its pages. At once a first word and phrases primer and an introduction to new people and places, this content-rich collection will be treasured by kids and caregivers alike.
A STAND-OUT GIFT: Just right for birthdays, baby showers, and any giving occasion! A one-of-a-kind art style and unique take on a first-words book for toddlers and babies make this collection a must-have as well as a treasured keepsake.
TARO IS THE BEST TEACHER: From Everyone Poops to I Know Numbers!, kids love learning from Taro Gomi! With quirky and expressive illustrations paired with first words and phrases, young children will build their vocabulary while learning about the exciting world around them.
PACKED WITH HUMOR: With Taro Gomi's attention to detail, each page captures countless laugh-out-loud moments sure to make this book a fan favorite.
FOCUS ON FIRST WORDS AND FEELINGS: This book is a powerful and important springboard, modeling first words and providing important social-emotional learning by allowing kids to talk about their emotions and inner life.
Perfect for:
* Fans of Taro Gomi's Everyone Poops and other bestselling children's books
* Gift givers seeking a book for babies and toddlers who are starting to learn new words
* Teachers and librarians looking for fun, engaging books that teach children a wide variety of words
* Readers of Richard Scarry books, First 100 Words, and other popular alphabet and early learning books for kids - Erasure
Erasure
by Percival Everett
$17.00Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross
Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies―his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer's, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father's suicide seven years before.
In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins's bestseller. He doesn't intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is―under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh―and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel.
- Lovely One: A Memoir
Lovely One: A Memoir
by Ketanji Brown Jackson
$35.00In this inspiring, intimate memoir, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court chronicles her extraordinary life story.
With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji BrownJackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.
Named “Ketanji Onyika,” meaning “Lovely One,” based on a suggestion from her aunt, a Peace Corps worker stationed in West Africa, Justice Jackson learned from her educator parents to take pride in her heritage since birth. She describes her resolve as a young girl to honor this legacy and realize her dreams: from hearing stories of her grandparents and parents breaking barriers in the segregated South, to honing her voice in high school as an oratory champion and student body president, to graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where she performed in musical theater and improv and participated in pivotal student organizations.
Here, Justice Jackson pulls back the curtain, marrying the public record of her life with what is less known. She reveals what it takes to advance in the legal profession when most people in power don’t look like you, and to reconcile a demanding career with the joys and sacrifices of marriage and motherhood.
Through trials and triumphs, Justice Jackson’s journey will resonate with dreamers everywhere, especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and refuse to be turned aside. This moving, open-hearted tale will spread hope for a more just world, for generations to come. - Sellout
Sellout
by Paul Beatty
$18.00Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize
Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction
Named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
- That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human
That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Human
Kimberly Lemming
Sold out*Ships in 7-10 business days*
When a spirited young woman with a penchant for adventure finds herself locked away in a dragon’s tower, she realizes that fate has a peculiar sense of humor when it comes to her romantic prospects, in this laugh-out-loud fantasy rom-com.
All children are told fairytales. Some are epic adventures with high stakes and exciting twists, while others are tales of pitiful princesses trapped in boring towers pining for their Prince Charmings to come and rescue them. Growing up, Cherry always hated those stories. Why didn’t the princesses just get up and rescue themselves? Little did she know that her own fate would take an ironically similar turn. Because now, here she is. Stuck. In a tower. Turns out, when a dragon holds you hostage, he doesn’t just let you get up and leave.
Who knew?
And just when Cherry thinks she sees hope on the horizon, that hope is smashed to bits by—you guessed it—another damn dragon. - Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System
Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System
Katrina Hazzard-Donald
$30.00A bold reconsideration of Hoodoo belief and practice
Katrina Hazzard-Donald explores African Americans' experience and practice of the herbal, healing folk belief tradition known as Hoodoo. She examines Hoodoo culture and history by tracing its emergence from African traditions to religious practices in the Americas. Working against conventional scholarship, Hazzard-Donald argues that Hoodoo emerged first in three distinct regions she calls "regional Hoodoo clusters" and that after the turn of the nineteenth century, Hoodoo took on a national rather than regional profile. The spread came about through the mechanism of the "African Religion Complex," eight distinct cultural characteristics familiar to all the African ethnic groups in the United States.
The first interdisciplinary examination to incorporate a full glossary of Hoodoo culture, Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System lays out the movement of Hoodoo against a series of watershed changes in the American cultural landscape. Hazzard-Donald examines Hoodoo material culture, particularly the "High John the Conquer" root, which practitioners employ for a variety of spiritual uses. She also examines other facets of Hoodoo, including rituals of divination such as the "walking boy" and the "Ring Shout," a sacred dance of Hoodoo tradition that bears its corollaries today in the American Baptist churches. Throughout, Hazzard-Donald distinguishes between "Old tradition Black Belt Hoodoo" and commercially marketed forms that have been controlled, modified, and often fabricated by outsiders; this study focuses on the hidden system operating almost exclusively among African Americans in the Black spiritual underground.
- We Cast a Shadow: A Novel
We Cast a Shadow: A Novel
by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
$17.00“You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before.” This is the seductive promise of Dr. Nzinga’s clinic, where anyone can get their lips thinned, their skin bleached, and their nose narrowed. A complete demelanization will liberate you from the confines of being born in a black body—if you can afford it.
In this near-future Southern city plagued by fenced-in ghettos and police violence, more and more residents are turning to this experimental medical procedure. Like any father, our narrator just wants the best for his son, Nigel, a biracial boy whose black birthmark is getting bigger by the day. The darker Nigel becomes, the more frightened his father feels. But how far will he go to protect his son? And will he destroy his family in the process?
This electrifying, hallucinatory novel is at once a keen satire of surviving racism in America and a profoundly moving family story. At its center is a father who just wants his son to thrive in a broken world. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love.
- The Women
The Women
Hilton Als
$17.00*ships in 7 - 10 business days*
A New York Times Notable Book
Daring and fiercely original, The Women is at once a memoir, a psychological study, a sociopolitical manifesto, and an incisive adventure in literary criticism. It is conceived as a series of portraits analyzing the role that sexual and racial identity played in the lives and work of the writer's subjects: his mother, a self-described "Negress," who would not be defined by the limitations of race and gender; the mother of Malcolm X, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's misogyny and racism; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who rarely identified with other blacks or women, but deeply empathized with white gay men; and the late Owen Dodson, a poet and dramatist who was female-identified and who played an important role in the author's own social and intellectual formation.
Hilton Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to his inimitable scrutiny with relentless humor and sympathy. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.
- Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad
Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad
Tamara J. Walker
$28.00*ships in 7-10 business days*
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • An award-winning author charts the poignant global journeys of African Americans as she explores her own transatlantic family odyssey in Beyond the Shores, a powerful history of living abroad while Black.
“By exploring the life of Black expats, creatives, and activists, Beyond the Shores enhances the stories of migration to reveal how race is lived in the United States and abroad.”—Marcia Chatelain, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of South Side GirlsPart historical exploration, part travel memoir, Beyond the Shores reveals poignant histories of a diverse group of African Americans who have left the United States over the course of the past century. Together, the interwoven stories highlight African Americans’ complicated relationship to the United States and the world at large.
Beyond the Shores is not just about where African Americans stayed or where they ate when they traveled but also about why they left in the first place and how they were treated once they reached their destinations. Drawing on years of research, Dr. Tamara J. Walker chronicles their experiences in atmospheric detail, taking readers from well-known capital cities to more unusual destinations like Yangiyul, Uzbekistan, and Kabondo, Kenya. She follows Florence Mills, the would-be Josephine Baker of her day, in Paris, and Richard Wright, the author turned actor and filmmaker, in Buenos Aires. Throughout Beyond the Shores, she relays tender stories of adventurous travelers, including a group of gifted Black crop scientists in the 1930s, a housewife searching for purpose in the 1950s, a Peace Corps volunteer discovering his identity in the 1970s, and her own grandfather, who, after losing his eye fighting in World War II and returning to a country that showed no signs of honoring his sacrifice, set out with his wife and children on a circuitous journey that sent them back and forth across the Atlantic. Tying these tales together is Walker’s personal account of her family’s, and her own, experiences abroad—in France, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, and beyond.
By sharing the accounts of those who escaped the racism of the United States to try their hands at life abroad, Beyond the Shores shines a light on the meaning of home and the search for a better life. - Neighbors and Other Stories
Neighbors and Other Stories
by Diane Oliver
Sold outA bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature, with an introduction by Tayari Jones
A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver’s insightful stories reverberate into the present day.
There’s the nightmarish “The Closet on the Top Floor” in which Winifred, the first Black student at her newly integrated college, starts to physically disappear; “Mint Juleps not Served Here” where a couple living deep in a forest with their son go to bloody lengths to protect him; “Spiders Cry without Tears,” in which a couple, Meg and Walt, are confronted by prejudices and strains of interracial and extramarital love; and the high tension titular story that follows a nervous older sister the night before her little brother is set to desegregate his school.
These are incisive and intimate portraits of African American families in everyday moments of anxiety and crisis that look at how they use agency to navigate their predicaments. As much a social and historical document as it is a taut, engrossing collection, Neighbors is an exceptional literary feat from a crucial once-lost figure of letters.
- Thirsty: A Novel
Thirsty: A Novel
by Jas Hammonds
$19.99*ships in 7 - 10 business days*
From Jas Hammonds, award-winning author of We Deserve Monuments, comes an unflinching novel about addiction that Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie and I’m the Girl, called “sensitively wrought and gorgeously written.”
It’s the summer before college and eighteen-year-old Blake Brenner and her girlfriend, Ella, have one goal: join the mysterious and exclusive Serena Society. The sorority promises status and lifelong connections to a network of powerful, trailblazing women of color. Ella’s acceptance is a sure thing―she’s the daughter of a Serena alum. Blake, however, has a lot more to prove.
As a former loner from a working-class background, Blake lacks Ella’s pedigree and confidence. Luckily, she finds courage at the bottom of a liquor bottle. When she drinks, she’s bold, funny, and unstoppable―and the Serenas love it. But as pledging intensifies, so does Blake’s drinking, until it’s seeping into every corner of her life. Ella assures Blake that she’s fine; partying hard is what it takes to make the cut . . .
But success has never felt so much like drowning. With her future hanging in the balance and her past dragging her down, Blake must decide how far she’s willing to go to achieve her glittering dreams of success―and how much of herself she’s willing to lose in the process.
- Homemade Love: A Short Story Collection
Homemade Love: A Short Story Collection
by J. California Cooper
$19.00In one of the best-loved volumes of her work, J. California Cooper tells exuberant tales full of wonder at the mystery of life and the hardness of fate. Awed, bedeviled, bemused, all of Cooper's characters are borne up by the sheer power of life itself.
- Bluff: Poems
Bluff: Poems
by Danez Smith
$18.00Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith’s powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown of the Twin Cities. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures.
Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, a deep self-scrutiny, and virtuosic textual shapes. A series of ars poetica gives way to “anti poetica” and “ars america” to implicate poetry’s collusions with unchecked capitalism. A photographic collage accrues across a sequence to make clear the consequences of America's acceptance of mass shootings. A brilliant long poem―part map, part annotation, part visual argument―offers the history of Saint Paul’s vibrant Rondo neighborhood before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it.
Bluff is a kind of manifesto about artistic resilience, even when time and will can seem fleeting, when the places we most love―those given and made―are burning. In this soaring collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage, and imagination to envision futures that seem possible.
- Masquerade
Masquerade
by O.O. Sangoyomi
$18.99Set in a wonderfully reimagined 15th century West Africa, Masquerade is a dazzling, lyrical tale exploring the true cost of one woman’s fight for freedom and self-discovery, and the lengths she’ll go to secure her future.
“Sangoyomi delivers an incisive examination of gender, temptation, and the lengths people will go to hold power―a magnificent debut!” ―Vaishnavi Patel, New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi
Òdòdó’s hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the warrior king of Yorùbáland. Already shunned as social pariahs, living conditions for Òdòdó and the other women in her blacksmith guild grow even worse under Yorùbá rule.
Then Òdòdó is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of Ṣàngótẹ̀, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, Òdòdó realizes he is not a vagrant at all; he is the warrior king, and he has chosen her to be his wife.
In a sudden change of fortune, Òdòdó soars to the very heights of society. But after a lifetime of subjugation, the power that saturates this world of battle and political savvy becomes too enticing to resist. As tensions with rival states grow, revealing elaborate schemes and enemies hidden in plain sight, Òdòdó must defy the cruel king she has been forced to wed by re-forging the shaky loyalties of the court in her favor, or risk losing everything―including her life.
Loosely based on the myth of Persephone, O.O. Sangoyomi’s Masquerade takes you on a journey of epic power struggles and political intrigue which turn an entire region on its head.
- The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power
The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power
edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker
$20.9913 SCARY STORIES. 13 AUTHORS OF COLOR. 13 TIMES WE SURVIVED... THE FIRST KILL.
The White Guy Dies First includes thirteen scary stories by all-star contributors and this time, the white guy dies first.
Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead....
A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever....
These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.
Edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker, including stories from bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming contributors: Adiba Jaigirdar, Alexis Henderson, Chloe Gong, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, H. E. Edgmon, Kalynn Bayron, Karen Strong, Kendare Blake, Lamar Giles, Mark Oshiro, Naseem Jamnia, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Terry J. Benton-Walker.
A collection you’ll be dying to talk about… if you survive it.
- Sing Me to Sleep
Sing Me to Sleep
by Gabi Burton
$12.99In this dark and seductive YA fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Fourth Wing and These Violent Delights, a siren assassin falls for a forbidden man.
Killer. Liar. Soldier. Spy.
Saoirse is a killer: Her ability to sing men to an early death makes her the top assassin in the kingdom.
Saoirse is a liar: If the royal family ever finds out she's a siren, she'll be executed immediately.
Saoirse is a soldier: As the top student at the most prestigious training academy in Kierdre, Saoirse has spent years honing herself into the perfect killing machine.
Saoirse is a spy: When her little sister is blackmailed, Saoirse takes a dangerous job to protect her-personal bodyguard to the crown prince. One misstep, and Saoirse will lose her life.
But the biggest threat of all is to her heart. Prince Hayes would call for her death in an instant if he knew the truth. But the closer Saoirse gets to Hayes, the harder it gets to resist him.
- Some Soul to Keep: A Short Story Collection
Some Soul to Keep: A Short Story Collection
by J. California Cooper
Sold outExuberant and heart-warming, J. California Cooper is the embodiment of the simple folk tradition in black writing associated most often with Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes. The author of seventeen plays and two novels, it is her stories of black family life in rural and small town America that have achieved the most acclaim and the broadest audience. SOME SOUL TO KEEP is amongst the finest and most enduring of her work.
Cooper writes with a transparent clarity and such high-spirited energy that her characters leap off the page, bursting with the stories they've got to tell--stories of simple people, stories of families and fate, of love and marriage, of death and the triumph of the human spirit. Cooper is that most rare and wondrous thing: a true storyteller whose tales trace the energies of life itself.
- Curvy Girl Summer
Curvy Girl Summer
by Danielle Allen
Sold outBridget Jones’s Diary meets Survival of the Thickest in Danielle Allen’s CURVY GIRL SUMMER, a smoking-hot, hilarious novel about the perils of online dating.
“There’s got to be an easier way than dating. I want the shortcut. I just want to find my person and start our lives together.”
After a one-night stand with her clingy ex, Aaliyah James has an epiphany: this ain’t it. She knows what she wants, and she’s ready to move past casual hookups, flings, and situationships.But for her family, the clock is ticking―after all, she’s almost thirty. And when they imply that her personality (and her body) might be too big to land a man, she lets them know they’ve gone too far―and her (nonexistent) man loves her curves, thank you very much. Now, she has seven weeks to find the perfect boyfriend to rub in their faces at the big, fancy birthday celebration she’s been planning.
After her first blind date goes wrong, charming local bartender Ahmad Williamson consoles her with a drink and some playful banter. Aaliyah takes him up on his suggestion to use a dating app―but the more she sees of his warm, funny, and easygoing nature, the less she wants to check her DMs. Will her next swipe bring her closer to true love―or is her real match closer than she thinks?
- Hip-Hop Is History
Hip-Hop Is History
$20.00Hip-Hop Is History is a book only Questlove could have written: a perceptive and personal reflection on the first half-century of hip-hop.
When hip-hop first emerged in the 1970s, it wasn’t expected to become the cultural force it is today. But for a young Black kid growing up in a musical family in Philadelphia, it was everything. He stayed up late to hear the newest songs on the radio. He saved his money to buy vinyl as soon as it landed. He even started to try to make his own songs. That kid was Questlove, and decades later, he is a six-time Grammy Award–winning musician, an Academy Award–winning filmmaker, a New York Times bestselling author, a producer, an entrepreneur, a cofounder of one of hip-hop’s defining acts (the Roots), and the genre’s unofficial in-house historian.
In this landmark book, Hip-Hop Is History, Questlove skillfully traces the creative and cultural forces that made and shaped hip-hop, highlighting both the forgotten but influential gems and the undeniable chart-topping hits—and weaves it all together with the stories no one else knows. It is at once an intimate, sharply observed story of a cultural revolution and a sweeping, grand theory of the evolution of the great artistic movement of our time. And Questlove, of course, approaches it with not only the encyclopedic fluency and passion of an obsessive fan but also the expertise and originality of an innovative participant.
Hip-hop is history, and also his history. - May You Love and Be Loved: Wishes for Your Life
May You Love and Be Loved: Wishes for Your Life
Sold outMay you know fear but not be driven by it
May you know joy and follow it everywhere
May you know light and shine it every chance you getFrom the bestselling author of What the Road Said, Cleo Wade’s next heartfelt and lyrical picture book is a love letter to the infinite potential of the future, expressing the many hopes and dreams we hold for our children and ourselves. Gorgeously illustrated by the author and filled to the brim with her signature big-hearted emotions, this book is an important reminder that, above all, what we wish for everyone’s precious life is that they can love and be loved.
- Mr. Potter: A Novel
Mr. Potter: A Novel
by Jamaica Kincaid
$18.00*ships in 7 - 10 business days*
The “revelatory” (The New York Review of Books) story of an ordinary man, his century, and his home.
Jamaica Kincaid’s first obsession, the island of Antigua, comes vibrantly to life under the gaze of Mr. Potter, an illiterate chauffeur who makes his living along the wide, open roads that pass the only towns he has ever seen. The sun shines squarely overhead, the ocean lies on every side, and suppressed passion fills the air.
As Mr. Potter’s narrative unfolds in linked vignettes, his story becomes the story of a vital, damaged community. Amid his surroundings, he struggles to live at ease: to purchase a car, to have girlfriends, and to shake off the encumbrance of his daughters―one of whom will return to Antigua after he dies and tell his story with equal measures of distance and sympathy.
In Mr. Potter, Kincaid breathes life into a figure unlike any other in contemporary fiction, an individual consciousness emerging gloriously out of an unexamined life.
- An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children
An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children
$27.00A unique collaboration from two of America’s leading artists that explores the fascinating and hidden history of the plant world.
In this witty, deeply original book, the renowned novelist Jamaica Kincaid offers an ABC of the plants that define our world and reveals the often brutal history behind them.
Kara Walker, one of America’s greatest visual artists, illustrates each entry with provocative, brilliant, enthralling, many-layered watercolors.
There has never been a book like An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children―so inventive, surprising, and telling about what our gardens reveal.
- It's Pride, Baby!
It's Pride, Baby!
$18.99*ships in 7 - 10 business days*
A joyful picture book debut that encourages kids to take pride in themselves and know that they are loved no matter what.
Just as the stars light the entire world―
You shine.Join a queer family as they celebrate Black Pride in Washington, D.C. From painting posters to walking in a Pride Parade with neighbors to watching fireworks, this special day is packed with fun.
Allen R. Wells’s poetic text perfectly captures the expansiveness of a parent’s love, while Dia Valle’s joyful art bursts off the page. Here are words that children in every family―no matter its color, size, or shape―need to hear.
We are so proud of you!
- Rise of a Killah
Rise of a Killah
$35.00*ships in 7 - 10 business days*
The story of the celebrated rapper and the iconic Wu-Tang Clan, told by one of its founding members
Dennis Coles―aka Ghostface Killah―is a co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, a legendary hip hop group who established themselves by breaking all the rules, taking their music to the streets during hip hop’s golden era on a decade-long wave of releasing anthem after classic anthem, and serving as the foundation of modern hip hop. An all-star cast who formed like Voltron to establish the pillars that serve as the foundation of modern hip hop and released seminal albums that have stood the test of time.
Rise of a Killah is Ghost’s autobiography, focusing on the people, places and events that mean the most to him as he enters his fourth decade writing and performing. It’s a beautiful and intense book, going back to the creative ferment that led to Ghost’s first handwritten rhymes. Dive into Ghost’s defining personal moments, his battles with his personal demons, his journey to Africa, his religious viewpoints, his childhood in Staten Island, and his commitment to his family (including his two brothers with muscular dystrophy), from the Clan’s early successes to the pinnacle of Ghost’s career touring and spreading his wings as a solo artist, fashion icon, and trendsetter.
Exclusive photos and memorabilia, as well as graphic art commissioned for this book, make Rise of a Killah both a memoir and a unique visual record, a “real feel” narrative of Ghost’s life as he sees it, a one of a kind holy grail for Wu-Tang and Ghost fans alike.
- Full Moon Over Freedom
Full Moon Over Freedom
$18.99*ships in 7- 10 business days*
"Angelina Lopez is the new queen of small-town romance—and of our hearts!" —SIERRA SIMONE, USA TODAY bestselling author of A Merry Little Meet Cute
Gillian Armstead-Bancroft—Pride of the East Side and once-perfect bruja, wife, and mother—is going to spend her summer getting good at being bad.
The first time she left Freedom, Kansas, behind, she did it by doing everything right.
This time, she’ll hide from the large Mexican American family welcoming her home and work in secret to break the curse that’s erased her magical life. Only by doing it all wrong can Gillian get herself and her two children away from the ghosts of her hometown by summer’s end.
Nicky Mendoza is an answer to her prayers. He was the practical solution to the problem of her virginity when they were younger, and now, as a gorgeous artist in town for only a weekend, he’s the ideal man to launch her down the path of ruination.
But Gillian isn’t the only one who’s cursed.
Nicky has been plagued by his furtive, enduring love for her as long as he’s been haunted by his cadejo, the phantom black dog that stalks his psyche. He’ll stick around to be whatever Gillian needs him to be this summer—but he won't touch her. Touching her, then watching her leave again, would ruin him for good.
Milagro Street
Book 1: After Hours on Milagro Street
Book 2: Full Moon Over Freedom - Ain't I a Woman?
Ain't I a Woman?
$13.00A collection of Sojourner Truth's iconic words, including her famous speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio
A former slave and one of the most powerful orators of her time, Sojourner Truth fought for the equal rights of black women throughout her life. This selection of her impassioned speeches is accompanied by the words of other inspiring African-American female campaigners from the nineteenth century.
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives--and upended them. Now Penguin brings you a new set of the acclaimed Great Ideas, a curated library of selections from the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
- Bruised Hibiscus
Bruised Hibiscus
by Elizabeth Nunez
$20.00The year is 1954. A white woman’s body, stuffed in a coconut bag, has washed ashore in Otatiti, Trinidad, and the British colony is rife with rumors. In two homes, one in a distant shantytown, the other on the outskirts of a former sugar cane estate, two women hear the news and their blood runs cold. Rosa, the white daughter of a landowner, and Zuela, the adopted “daughter” of a Chinese shop owner used to play together as girls—and witnessed something terrible behind a hibiscus bush many years ago.
- Don't Call Us Dead: Poems
Don't Call Us Dead: Poems
Danez Smith
$16.00Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry
Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection“[Smith's] poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy.”―The New Yorker
Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality―the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood―and a diagnosis of HIV positive. “Some of us are killed / in pieces,” Smith writes, “some of us all at once.” Don’t Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America―“Dear White America”―where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.
- Stokely: A Life
Stokely: A Life
Peniel E. Joseph
Sold outFrom the author of The Sword and the Shield, this definitive biography of the Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael offers "an unflinching look at an unflinching man" (Daily Beast).
Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial Black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for "Black Power" during a speech one Mississippi night in 1966. A firebrand who straddled both the American civil rights and Black Power movements, Carmichael would stand for the rest of his life at the center of the storm he had unleashed. In Stokely, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph presents a groundbreaking biography of Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century.
A nuanced and authoritative portrait, Stokely captures the life of the man whose uncompromising vision defined political radicalism and provoked a national reckoning on race and democracy.
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