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  • APRIL 2024: Young Adult Book Club for Adults - April 23 @ 6:30 PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting will take place on April 23, 2024 at 6:30 PM in the Kindred Stories' Reading Garden. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read). You are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    From the New York Times bestselling author of the Brown Sisters trilogy, comes a laugh-out-loud story about a quirky content creator and a clean-cut athlete testing their abilities to survive the great outdoors—and each other.

    Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine.
     
    Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. Social media followers eat up her takes on everything from UFOs to holiday overconsumption—yet, she’s still not cool enough for the popular kids’ table. Which is why Brad abandoned her for the in-crowd years ago. (At least, that’s how Celine sees it.)

    These days, there’s nothing between them other than petty insults and academic rivalry. So when Celine signs up for a survival course in the woods, she’s surprised to find Brad right beside her.

    Forced to work as a team for the chance to win a grand prize, these two teens must trudge through not just mud and dirt but their messy past. And as this adventure brings them closer together, they begin to remember the good bits of their history. But has too much time passed . . . or just enough to spark a whole new kind of relationship?

  • APRIL 2025: Fiction Book Club - April 23 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    We're meeting to discuss Skin & Bones by Renee Watson!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Wednesday, April 23 @ 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Fiction Book Club!

    ABOUT SKIN & BONES

    From the acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a soulful and lyrical novel exploring sisterhood, motherhood, faith, love, and ultimately what gets passed down from one generation to the next
     
    At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life—between wine nights with her two best friends and her wedding just weeks away, she’s happy in love and in friendship until a confession on her wedding day shifts her world.

    Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love while struggling to do so herself. Lena questions everything she’s learned about dating, friendship, and motherhood, and through it all, she works tirelessly to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, sidestepping her well-meaning co-workers that don’t understand that their good intentions are often offensive and hurtful.

    Through Watson’s poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.

  • APRIL 2025: Mystery & Thriller Book Club - April 22 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    We're meeting to discuss The Night of The Storm by Nishita Parekh!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Tuesday, April 22 @ 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Mystery & Thriller Book Club!

    ABOUT The Night of the Storm 

    Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Houston. Meanwhile, single mom Jia Shah is already having a rough week: her twelve-year-old son, Ishaan, has just been suspended from school for getting in a fight. Still reeling from the fallout of her divorce-their move to Houston, her family's disapproval, the struggle to make ends meet on her own-now Jia is worried about Ishaan's future, too. Will her solo parenting be enough? Doesn't a boy need a father? And now their apartment complex is under a mandatory evacuation order. Jia's sister, Seema, has invited them to hunker down in her fancy house in Sugar Land, and despite Jia's misgivings-Seema's husband Vipul has been just a little too friendly with her lately-Jia concedes it's probably the best place to keep Ishaan safe during the hurricane. With Jia's philandering ex scrutinizing her every move, all too eager to snatch back custody of Ishaan, she can't afford to make a mistake. When Vipul's brother and his wife show up at Seema's doorstep, too, it's a recipe for disaster. Grandma, the family matriarch, has never been shy about playing favorites among her sons and their wives. As the storm escalates, tensions rise quickly, and soon, someone's dead. Was it a horrible accident or is there a murderer in their midst? With no help available until the floodwaters recede in the morning, Jia must protect her son and identify the culprit before she goes down for a crime she didn't commit-or becomes the next victim. . .

  • APRIL 2025: NO NAME BOOK CLUB - May 4 @ 1 PM CST
    Sold out
    No Name is a Black-owned worker cooperative connecting community members both inside and outside carceral facilities with radical books. Each month, No Name uplifts two books written by Black, indigenous, and other people of color. No Name believes building community through political education is crucial for our liberation and should be accessible to everyone—which is why all programming is free. 

    MEETING DEETS

    When: Sunday, May 4 @ 1 PM

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP to let us know you're coming! RSVP WITH BOOK to pick up your book in store or have it shipped to you before the meeting. 

    ABOUT A SMALL PLACE

    Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright, A Small Place magnifies our vision of one small place with Swiftian wit and precision. Jamaica Kincaid’s expansive essay candidly appraises the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up, Antigua, and makes palpable the impact of European colonialism and tourism.

    This book is a missive to the traveler, whether American or European, who wants to escape the banality and corruption of some large place. Kincaid, powerful and resolute, reminds us that the Antiguan people, formerly British subjects, are unable to escape the same drawbacks of their own tiny realm—that behind the benevolent Caribbean scenery are human lives, always complex and often fraught with injustice.
  • APRIL 2025: Non Fiction Book Club - April 15 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    We're meeting to discuss Black In Blues by Imani Perry!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Tuesday, April 15 @ 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Fiction Book Club!

    ABOUT BLACK IN BLUES 

    A surprising, beautiful meditation on the color blue—and its fascinating role in Black history and culture—from National Book Award winner Imani Perry

    Throughout history, Black life has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways, from the hopefulness of a blue sky to the deep melancholy of Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.

    Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as from art and history: the dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the sixteenth century; the fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure; the blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one, gone too soon.

    Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers. 

  • APRIL 2025: Romance Book Club - April 17 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    We're meeting to discuss Behind The Scenes by Christina C. Jones!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Thursday, April 17 @ 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Romance Book Club!

    ABOUT BEHIND THE SCENES

    Perfect.

    Privileged.

    Strong.

    Spoiled.

    Uptight.

    Useless.

    If there's any one thing Pierre and Logan have in common, it's their ability to invite snap judgements based on shallow views of who they are.

    Logan is the privileged only daughter of a respected family whose legacy runs long and deep.

    Pierre is the moody, orphaned son of big screen royalty who couldn't possibly live up to the prestige of his pedigree.

    Or maybe not.

    Perhaps they're just two people trying to navigate the pressures of a world hellbent on telling them what they should be, and eschewing the limits of other people's expectations.

    Maybe what they need most is somebody who can see beyond the shallow first impressions - just one person they can allow to see behind the scenes of who they are.

    Maybe they have more in common than it seems.

     

  • Archive of Desire: A poem in four parts for C. P. Cavafy

    Robin Coste Lewis

    $27.00

    The National Book Award, PEN/Voelcker Award, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.

    In her first book, Robin Coste Lewis’s poems exploded the imagery of the Black female figure from antiquity through the present day. Her second book was an expansive hybrid photographic and poetic study of human migration and the human family. Now she delivers a “poem in four parts,” which originated as a musical, visual, and lyrical collaboration with the composer Vijay Iyer, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and visual artist Julie Mehretu, with Lewis on the microphone offering a live reading of this sequence. Ignited by their encounters with Cavafy’s archive, in the heart of Athens, the multimedia quartet exalted the liminal spaces where desire and diaspora meet—where art often asserts itself most forcefully. In this volume, Lewis brings this performance to life on the page, where the poem weaves in and out of Cavafy’s bedrooms, notebooks, and the suppressed erotic excavation underpinning all of his work. Lewis converses directly with Mr. Cavafy: “often you / reminded us that // the only true / barbarians are the ones / raging in silence inside // of our own / minds.” But she also brings equal parts of herself to this study of artistry and sensuality, as in the short, tender section entitled “Cavafy in Compton/Closet Anthem: Self-Portrait at Sixteen, 1979.”

    As in all Lewis’s works, here she reaches across centuries to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give-and-take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, and the unfolding journey of being human, whose contours become clear only with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.

  • Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems

    Cheryl Clarke

    $29.00

    A new retrospective of a titan of LGBTQ literature, activism, and Black feminism

    Award-winning poet and essayist Cheryl Clarke’s illustrious career has spanned more than four decades and culminates in Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems, a long-awaited retrospective of the indelible work of a Black feminist, community and LGBTQ activist, and educator. This collection features carefully curated poems from Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1982), Living as a Lesbian (1986), The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry 1980-2005 (2006), By My Precise Haircut (2016), and Targets (2019). Together these works show a brilliant thinker who has profoundly impacted generations of writers and activists.

    Clarke’s poetry and essays, centered around the Black, lesbian, feminist experience, have attracted an audience around the world. Her essays, “Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance” and “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community” revolutionized the thinking about lesbians of color and the struggle against homophobia. Her poetry and non-fiction have been reprinted in numerous anthologies and assigned in women and sexuality courses globally. Having published since 1977, Clarke and her work have become a foundational part of LGBTQ literature and activism. Archive of Style is a celebration and homage to one of American literature’s Black Women literary warriors.

  • Archive of Unknown Universes : A Novel

    Ruben Reyes Jr.

    $28.00

    Cambridge, 2018. Ana and Luis’s relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including their mothers who both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, and against her best judgement, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know, eager to learn if what might have been could fix what is.

    Havana, 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing, and Neto, a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers, meets Rafael at a meeting for the People's Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love, shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of their activism. When their work separates them, they begin to exchange weekly letters, but soon, as the devastating war rages on, forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart forever.

    Ruben Reyes Jr.’s debut novel is an epic, genre-bending journey through inverted worlds—one where war ends with a peace treaty, and one where it ends with a decisive victory by the Salvadoran government. What unfolds is a stunning story of displacement and belonging, of loss and love. It’s both a daring imagining of what might have been and a powerful reckoning of our past.

  • Are Prisons Obsolete?

    by Angela Y. Davis

    $15.95

    With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable.

    For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage from custom. The brutal, exploitative (dare one say lucrative?) convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions (and untold miseries for tens of thousands of men, and women). Few predicted its passing from the American penal landscape. Davis expertly argues how social movements transformed these social, political and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable.
    In Are Prisons Obsolete?, Professor Davis seeks to illustrate that the time for the prison is approaching an end. She argues forthrightly for “decarceration”, and argues for the transformation of the society as a whole.

  • Around the Spider-Verse (Original Spider-Man Graphic Novel Anthology)

    Pablo Leon

    $12.99

    Beloved Marvel characters Spider-Man, Ghost-Spider, and Araña star in three original Spider-verse stories! Don't miss this collection from bestselling authors Justin A. Reynolds, Roseanne A. Brown, and Eisner nominee Pablo Leon!

    Take a trip around the Spider-Verse (and New York City) in three comic adventures! The tour guide on his field trip to the Museum of Natural History has Miles Morales's Spidey Sense tingling... Gwen Stacy's punk band's concert at the Central Park Bandshell is interrupted by the Jackal ... and Anya Corazón must save her father from a trap laid by Kraven the Hunter at the Bronx Zoo. Filled with tons of action and laughs, this graphic novel is perfect for young readers in search of more spider-thrills!

  • Arsenic and Adobo (A Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery)

    Mia P. Manansala

    $18.00

    A RUSA Award-winning novel!

    The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes—one that might just be killer....

    When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She's tasked with saving her Tita Rosie's failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.

    With the cops treating her like she's the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila's left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longanisa, Lila takes on this tasty, twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block…

  • Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art

    by Gregory Sholette, Chloë Bass. & Social Practice Queens

    Sold out

    "Art as Social Action . . . is an essential guide to deepening social art practices and teaching them to students." —Laura Raicovich, president and executive director, Queens Museum

    Art as Social Action is both a general introduction to and an illustrated, practical textbook for the field of social practice, an art medium that has been gaining popularity in the public sphere. With content arranged thematically around such topics as direct action, alternative organizing, urban imaginaries, anti-bias work, and collective learning, among others, Art as Social Action is a comprehensive manual for teachers about how to teach art as social practice.

    Along with a series of introductions by leading social practice artists in the field, valuable lesson plans offer examples of pedagogical projects for instructors at both college and high school levels with contributions written by prominent social practice artists, teachers, and thinkers, including:

    • Mary Jane Jacob
    • Maureen Connor
    • Brian Rosa
    • Pablo Helguera
    • Jen de los Reyes
    • Jeanne van Heeswick
    • Jaishri Abichandani
    • Loraine Leeson
    • Ala Plastica
    • Daniel Tucker
    • Fiona Whelan
    • Bo Zheng
    • Dipti Desai
    • Noah Fischer


    Lesson plans also reflect the ongoing pedagogical and art action work of Social Practice Queens (SPQ), a unique partnership between Queens College CUNY and the Queens Museum.

  • Art on My Mind: Visual Politics

    by bell hooks

    Sold out
    “As erudite and sophisticated as hooks is, she is also eminently readable, even exhilarating.” —Booklist

    In Art on My Mind, bell hooks, a leading cultural critic, responds to the ongoing dialogues about producing, exhibiting, and criticizing art and aesthetics in an art world increasingly concerned with identity politics. Always concerned with the liberatory black struggle, hooks positions her writings on visual politics within the ever-present question of how art can be an empowering and revolutionary force within the black community.
  • Arthur Jafa. Live Evil (English): LUMA

    Flora Katz

    $59.95

    Richly illustrated catalogue of the works of one of the most significant contemporary artists practicing today. In his both powerful and lyrical works, Jafa consistently reflects on the ontology of race and of blackness. Over several decades, Arthur Jafa has constructed a compelling body of work that defies categorization. Both powerful and lyrical, his practice combines a profoundly unsettling blend of images and histories. Bringing together affective memories that touch on the history of the United States of America, violence, repression, modalities of survival, and how these exist in the production and dissemination of images, music, sound, and time-based media, Jafa reflects on the ontology of race and of blackness. The catalogue explores the philosophical, historical, and artistic implications of Jafa’s work, featuring essays and a series of conversations between Jafa and key practitioners working in the fields of cinema, arts, and theory. Text: Norman Ajari, Tina M. Campt, Liam Gillick, Ernest Hardy, Saidiya Hartman, R.A. Judy, Nathaniel Mackey, Fred Moten, Julian Myers, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Peter Saville, James A. Snead, Greg Tate, and Peter Watts.

  • As Long as You're Mine: A Novel

    Nekesa Afia

    Sold out

    Beneath the glitter of 1930s Hollywood, dangerous secrets connect two generations of women in this atmospheric dual-timeline mystery about identity, sacrifice, and survival.

    Professional ballerina Thea Ross’s world shatters when her screen-legend father commits suicide, leaving behind a shocking confession to a decades-old murder. Determined to uncover the truth, Thea teams up with a relentless journalist, following a trail of clues that leads her back to the glittering yet treacherous world of 1930s Hollywood.

    There, she discovers the story of Lorelei Davies, a struggling actress willing to endure anything for her family’s sake. As Thea peels back the layers of Lorelei’s life―her dreams, fears, and dangerous secrets―the connection between Lorelei’s past and Thea’s present challenges everything she believes about her family history. But as she untangles all the lies, she comes to know herself more truly than ever before.

    As Thea navigates the glamorous facade of Old Hollywood, she must decide whether uncovering the truth about her father is worth sacrificing the life she planned―and whether some secrets are better left buried in Hollywood’s golden age.

  • As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories

    Terese Mason Pierre

    $19.99

    A ground-breaking anthology of haunting speculative stories by contemporary Black Canadian writers that explore growth, futurity, and joy.

    Edited by esteemed poet Terese Mason Pierre, this bold and innovative anthology of speculative short fiction reveals and uplifts the spectacular imaginings, reveries, reflections, experiments, and hopes of Black writers in Canada. A masseuse attends her mother’s fourth funeral, only to encounter family she’s never met. A postdoc instructor navigates an almost-life in an Elsewhere realm of safety and comfort. After societal collapse, an immigrant leaves her precarious station, and her memories, behind. A woman isolating from a new virus starts hallucinating. A young nanny accepts a job with a peculiar employer in search of immortality. A medium is tasked with summoning a spirit that hits too close to home. And two teenagers test a friendship over magic carpet flying practice.

    These ten breathtaking stories explore natural and urban landscapes, living and dead relationships, economic catastrophe, love, and desire―all while celebrating the persistent and ever-changing self, and envisioning beautiful Black futures.

    Featuring stories by:
    Trynne Delaney
    francesca ekwuyasi
    Whitney French
    Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
    Chimedum Ohaegbu
    Suyi Davies Okungbowa
    Chinelo Onwualu
    Lue Palmer
    Terese Mason Pierre
    Zalika Reid-Benta

  • As the Wicked Watch: The First Jordan Manning Novel

    by Tamron Hall

    Sold out

    The first in a thrilling new series from Emmy Award–winning journalist Tamron Hall, in which a reporter unravels the disturbing mystery around the deaths of two black girls, the work of a serial killer terrorizing Chicago.

    When crime reporter Jordan Manning leaves her hometown in Texas to take a job at a television station in Chicago, she’s one step closer to her a dream: a coveted anchor chair on a national network.

    Jordan is smart and aggressive, with unabashed star-power, and often the only woman of color in the newsroom. Her signature? Arriving first on the scene—in impractical designer stilettos. Armed with a master’s degree in forensic science and impeccable instincts, Jordan has thus far been able to balance her dueling motivations: breaking every big story—and giving voice to the voiceless.

    From her time reporting in Texas, she’s sure she has covered the vilest of human behaviors, but nothing has prepared her for Chicago. You see, Jordan is that rare breed of journalist who can navigate a crime scene as well as she can a newsroom—often noticing what others tend to miss. Again and again, she is called to cover the murders of black females, many of them sexually assaulted, most brutalized, and all of them quickly forgotten.

    All until Masey James—the story that Jordan just can’t shake, try as she might. A fifteen-year-old girl whose body was found in an abandoned lot, Masey has come to represent for Jordan all of the frustration that her job—with its required distance—often forces her to repress. Putting the rest of her workload and her (fraying) personal life aside, Jordan does everything she can to give the story the coverage it desperately requires, and that a missing black child would so rarely get. Three young boys are eventually charged with Masey’s murder, but Jordan remains unconvinced.

    There’s a serial killer on the loose, Jordan believes, and he’s hiding in plain sight.

  • As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (Indigenous Americas)

    Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

    $18.95

    Winner: Native American and Indigenous Studies Association's Best Subsequent Book 2017
    Honorable Mention: Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award 2017

    Across North America, Indigenous acts of resistance have in recent years opposed the removal of federal protections for forests and waterways in Indigenous lands, halted the expansion of tar sands extraction and the pipeline construction at Standing Rock, and demanded justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women. In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking.

    Indigenous resistance is a radical rejection of contemporary colonialism focused around the refusal of the dispossession of both Indigenous bodies and land. Simpson makes clear that its goal can no longer be cultural resurgence as a mechanism for inclusion in a multicultural mosaic. Instead, she calls for unapologetic, place-based Indigenous alternatives to the destructive logics of the settler colonial state, including heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation.

  • Ashes of Gold

    by J. Elle

    from $12.99

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    In the heart-pounding conclusion to the Wings of Ebony duology, which #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicole Yoon calls “bold, inventive, big-hearted and deeply perceptive,” Rue makes her final stand to reclaim her people’s stolen magic.

    Rue has no memory of how she ended up locked in a basement prison without her magic or her allies. But she’s a girl from the East Row. And girls from the East Row don’t give up. Girls from the East Row pick themselves back up when they fall. Girls from the East Row break themselves out.

    But reuniting with her friends is only half the battle. When she finds them again, Rue makes a vow: she will find a way to return the magic that the Chancellor has stolen from her father’s people. Yet even on Yiyo Peak, Rue is a misfit—with half a foot back in Houston and half a heart that is human as well as god, she’s not sure she’s the right person to lead the fight to reclaim a glorious past.

    When a betrayal sends her into a tailspin, Rue must decide who to trust and how to be the leader that her people deserve…because if she doesn’t, it isn’t just Yiyo that will be destroyed—it will be Rue herself.

  • Assata

    by Assata Shakur

    Sold out

    On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder.

    This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand of government officials. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou.

    Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides.

  • Astrology for Black Girls

    by Jordannah Elizabeth

    $14.99

    *ships in 7-10 business days*

    Astrology for Black Girls is a charming introduction to the wonders of self-discovery and empowerment through the Zodiac.

    Astrology for Black Girls gives young girls information and context for the core foundations of the Zodiac. This book provides the perfect introduction to the sun, moon, rising signs, and more. Speaking directly to black girls, author and life-long astrology practitioner Jordannah Elizabeth address:

    • Practicing both Faith and Astrology
    • Talking to Family and Friends about the stars
    • Using the Zodiac for discovery and understanding 

     Complete with four-color illustrations by Chellie Carroll throughout, this beautiful book will capture the imagination of middle-grade Black girls for years to come.

  • At the Vanguard of Vinyl: A Cultural History of the Long-Playing Record in Jazz

    by Darren Mueller

    Sold out

    In At the Vanguard of Vinyl, Darren Mueller examines how the advent of the long-playing record (LP) in 1948 revolutionized the recording and production of jazz in the 1950s. The LP’s increased fidelity and playback capacity allowed lengthy compositions and extended improvisations to fit onto a single record, ushering in a period of artistic exploration. Despite these innovations, LP production became another site of negotiating the uneven power relations of a heavily segregated music industry. Exploring how musicians, producers, and other industry professionals navigated these dynamics, Mueller contends that the practice of making LPs significantly changed how jazz was created, heard, and understood in the 1950s and beyond. By attending to the details of audio production, he reveals how Black musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and Charles Mingus worked to redefine prevailing notions of race and cultural difference within the United States. Mueller demonstrates that the LP emerges as a medium of sound and culture that maps onto the more expansive sonic terrain of Black modernity in the 1950s.

  • At the Vanguard: Making and Saving History at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
    $16.95

    The first volume in a major new series offering a compelling glimpse into the transformative and revolutionary world of HBCUs, that reveals the complex stories that their collections tell us.

    This book, featuring objects from the museums and archives at five HBCUs—Jackson State, Tuskegee, Florida A&M, Clark Atlanta, and Texas Southern Universities—attests to the aesthetic value of African American cultural production on university campuses, the persistent development and expansion of HBCU academic programs, and the impact of student-led activism on campuses and throughout surrounding communities. Organized into four main sections, focusing on the partner institutions, arts, academics, and activism, this remarkable assembly of images will inspire readers to engage with, reflect on, and examine the unforgettable stories they represent.

    The museums and archives at the five HBCUs featured tell unique stories, from detailed community histories and accounts of civil-rights era activism to premiere collections of African American art. Together, these institutions paint a powerful and multifaceted picture of African American academia and beyond.

    This multi-volume series of publications stemming from the work of NMAAHC’s HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium (HCAC), is a companion publication to the exhibition that will travel to each participating institution from September 2025.

  • Até Mais: Latinx Futurisms

    by Alan Chazaro, Malcolm Friend, and Kim Sousa

    $18.95

    A radical rethinking of poetics and the negation of borders from more than 40 Latinx poets.

    Até Mais: Until More gathers poets from a diverse spectrum of Latinidad, sharing their truths, visions, wonderments, fears, and revelations. Visions of collective futures emerge from a resistance to colonialist projects, displacement, and anti-indigenous settler cultures.

    In this anthology, Latinx poets engage in a radical rethinking of what our society can (or cannot) achieve through imagination. Despite/against the presence of borders, the unity enacted within these pages creates a mission of community resistance.

  • Audition: A Novel
    $28.00

    One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.

    Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. 

    Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

  • Audre & Bash Are Just Friends

    Tia Williams

    $19.99

    Scorching-hot summer. Scorching-hot chemistry. Two teens can’t forget they’re just friends in this sweet, funny, electrifying romance from New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams. Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Nicola Yoon.
     
    MEET AUDRE. Junior class president. Debate team captain. Unofficial student therapist. Desperately in need of a good time.
     
    MEET BASH. Mysterious new senior. Everybody’s crush. Tall, floppy, great taste in jewelry. King of having a good time.
     
    It’s the last day of school at Cheshire Prep, Brooklyn’s elite academy—and Audre Mercy-Moore’s life is a mess. Her dad cancelled her annual summer visit to his Malibu beach house. Now? She’s stuck in a claustrophobic apartment with her mom, stepdad, and one-year-old sister (aka the Goblin Baby).
     
    Under these conditions, she’ll never finish writing her self-help book—ie, the key to winning over Stanford’s admissions board.
     
    Cut to Bash Henry! Audre hires him to be her “fun consultant.” His job? To help her complete the Experience Challenge—her list of five wild dares designed to give her juicy book material. She’ll get inspo; he’ll get paid. Everybody wins.
     
    He isn’t boyfriend material. And she’s not looking for one. Can they stay professional despite their obvious connection?
     
    Fun fact: Audre Mercy-Moore first appeared in the New York Times bestseller Seven Days in June and now stars in her own story!

  • Audre Lorde -Iconic Black Author Art Card, Book Lovers
    Sold out
    Inside Message: “Without community, there is no liberation..." Audre Lorde Card Details: Dimensions - (A7) 5" x 7" Printed on thick, premium quality cover stock, paired with matching envelope. Card comes in a protective sleeve. By Cody B., Founder of Cody Burt Creative Harrisburg, Pennsylvania CODETURE by CODY BURT CREATIVE is a Black Pop Culture inspired Lifestyle Brand founded in 2020.
  • Audre Lorde Activist Sticker
    $3.50
    Product Description: Celebrate empowerment and creativity with our "Inspirational Black Literary Icons Vinyl Sticker Collection," featuring ten vibrant pop art renditions of influential activists and writers. Perfect as stocking stuffers, Christmas gifts, or tokens of motivation year-round, these stickers bring a touch of inspiration to laptops, notebooks, water bottles, stationery and more. Each sticker in this exclusive collection showcases a bold, colorful portrait of an iconic figure, crafted by talented Black artists. From the revolutionary spirit of Angela Davis to the literary genius of Toni Morrison, these stickers not only decorate but also honor the legacies of these trailblazers.
  • Audre Lorde Bookmark
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    Celebrate the powerful legacy of Audre Lorde with our beautifully designed bookmark, perfect for readers and activists alike. Featuring an inspiring quote from the renowned poet and civil rights advocate, this bookmark serves as a daily reminder of the strength found in embracing identity, love, and resistance. Crafted from durable materials, it not only marks your place in books but also ignites conversation and reflection. This bookmark is an essential accessory for anyone who seeks to uplift the voices of marginalized communities.
  • AUGUST 2023 ADULT BOOK CLUB: Perish by LaToya Watkins- August 31 at 7:30 PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting will take place on August 31, 2023 at 7:30PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    Please support the space and opportunities we create by purchasing your book from our store. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Bear it or Perish. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse that changes the trajectory of her life.  
     
    Spanning decades, PERISH tracks the choices Helen Jean—the matriarch of the Turner family—makes and the way those choices have ripped across generations, from her children, to her grandchildren and beyond.
    Told in in alternate chapters that follows four members of the Turner clan: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean's thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, mother of two, who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem and all of its trauma behind for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because her body can't seem to stay pregnant; as they're called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother.
     
    This family's "reunion" unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.
     
    With stirring, evocative prose and a sense of place that is wholly immersive, offering a nuanced look into Black communities in Texas, and tackling themes like family, trauma, legacy, home, class, race and more, this beautiful yet heart-wrenching debut novel, will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained or irrevocably broken.
  • AUGUST 2024: Adult Fiction Book Club - August 22 @7PM
    Sold out

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Thursday, August 22 @ 7PM 

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Adult Fiction Book Club 

    ABOUT LITTLE ROT

    One weekend. The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city. A breakup that starts a spiral. A party that goes awry. A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed. Little Rot is a whirling journey through the city’s dark side, told through the eyes of five people, each determined to run from the twisted powers out to destroy them.

    Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from his loss, visits a sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, intersect with the three old friends as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt underworld, they’re all looking for a way out of the trouble they’ve instigated, driven by loss and fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them. They careen madly in the face of the poison of power, sexual violence, murder, betrayals. Little Rot tests how far these five will go to save each other—or themselves—when confronted by evil, culminating in a shattering denouement.

    With each novel, with each creation, Akwaeke Emezi shows their genius as a storyteller, as a visionary force who has created a thrilling tale of sex, power, and deviance in Little Rot. You won’t be able to look away.

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