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  • The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century by Peniel E. Joseph
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    *Ships in 7-10 business days*

    One of our preeminent historians of race and democracy argues that the period since 2008 has marked nothing less than America’s Third Reconstruction

    In The Third Reconstruction, distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol.

    America’s first and second Reconstructions fell tragically short of their grand aims. Our Third Reconstruction offers a new chance to achieve Black dignity and citizenship at last—an opportunity to choose hope over fear.

  • The Three-Body Problem
    $18.99

    The inspiration for the Netflix series 3 Body Problem!

    WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

    Over 1 million copies sold in North America

    “A mind-bending epic.”―The New York Times • “War of the Worlds for the 21st century.”―The Wall Street Journal • “Fascinating.”―TIME • “Extraordinary.”―The New Yorker • “Wildly imaginative.”―Barack Obama • “Provocative.”―Slate • “A breakthrough book.”―George R. R. Martin • “Impossible to put down.”―GQ • “Absolutely mind-unfolding.”―NPR • “You should be reading Liu Cixin.”―The Washington Post

    The Three-Body Problem is the first novel in the groundbreaking, Hugo Award-winning series from China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu.

    Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

    The Three-Body Problem Series
    The Three-Body Problem
    The Dark Forest
    Death's End

    Other Books by Cixin Liu
    Ball Lightning
    Supernova Era
    To Hold Up the Sky
    The Wandering Earth
    A View from the Stars

  • The Tilting House

    Ivonne Lamazares

    $27.00

    Two estranged sisters with a past as complicated as their present acrimoniously reunite in 1990s Cuba to confront the riddle of family amidst the scars of political upheaval

    In the summer of 1993, Yuri, a teenage orphan, lives with her strict, religious Aunt Ruth in a Havana suburb when Mariela, a thirty-four-year-old artist, arrives from the U.S. with a shocking revelation. She claims to be Yuri's sister, insisting that she and Yuri share a mother and that Ruth is nothing more than Mariela's "kidnapper." Mariela has spent the past three decades in American orphanages and has returned to Cuba to reclaim her roots and culture, make art, and perhaps seek vengeance on Ruth for sending her to America through Operation Pedro Pan. Yuri is both fascinated and repulsed by the young, glamourous, and aggrieved Mariela. When Ruth is jailed for unknown charges, Yuri falls further into Mariela's mercurial orbit.

    Through Yuri's reminiscent narration (from Havana, to NYC, to Miami, and back to Havana), The Tilting House explores the riddles of identity and family loyalty, the effects of losing one's mother and motherland, the scars of political and historical upheaval, and an immigrant's complex quest both to return "home" and to be free from the past. Through her long journey, Yuri comes to understand that the past cannot be fully recovered, or fully escaped, and she approaches the possibility of compassion for Mariela, for Ruth, for others, and for herself.

  • The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe Black Figure

    Ekow Eshun

    $45.00

    *ships or ready for pick up in 7 - 10 business days*

    Black figuration and portraiture as realized in the works of Amy Sherald, Jordan Casteel and other contemporary artists

    “There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now,” wrote James Baldwin. Published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, The Time is Always Now is edited by curator Ekow Eshun, former director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The book brings together 22 contemporary African diasporic artists working primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States, whose practices―whether through painting, drawing or sculpture―foreground the Black figure. Acknowledging the paradox of race as both a “socially constructed fiction” and a “lived reality,” as Eshun writes, The Time is Always Now celebrates these Black figurative artworks against a background of heightened cultural visibility. Through a three-part structure, this book examines Black figuration as a means to address the absence and distortion of Black presence within Western art history. Each artist receives a detailed biographical profile alongside reproductions of their included works. The catalog is also supplemented by three original essays from Dorothy Price, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art; Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize–winning author of Girl, Woman, Other; and Esi Edugyan, two-time Giller Prize winner for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black.


    Artists include: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Noah Davis, Godfried Donkor, Kimathi Donkor, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Chris Ofili, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jennifer Packer, Thomas J. Price, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Henry Taylor, Barbara Walker.

  • The Tiny Things are Heavier

    Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo

    $28.99

    “A gracefully told and sharply observed debut." -Kiley Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Such a Fun Age and Come and Get It

    For readers of Americanah, a heart-rending debut novel about a Nigerian immigrant as she tries to find her place at home and in America-a powerful epic about love, grief, family, and belonging.

    The Tiny Things are Heavier follows Sommy, a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States for graduate school two weeks after her brother, Mezie, attempts suicide. Plagued by the guilt of leaving Mezie behind, Sommy struggles to fit into her new life as a student and an immigrant. Lonely and homesick, Sommy soon enters a complicated relationship with her boisterous Nigerian roommate, Bayo, a relationship that plummets into deceit when Sommy falls for Bryan, a biracial American, whose estranged Nigerian father left the States immediately after his birth. Bonded by their feelings of unbelonging and a vague sense of kinship, Sommy and Bryan transcend the challenges of their new relationship.

    After some time together, Sommy and Bryan visit the bustling city of Lagos, Nigeria for the summer break, where Sommy hopes to reconcile with Mezie and Bryan hopes to connect with his father. But when a shocking and unexpected event throws their lives into disarray, it exposes the cracks in Sommy's relationships and forces her to confront her notions of self and familial love.

    A daring and ambitious novel rendered in stirring, tender prose, The Tiny Things Are Heavier is a captivating portrait that explores the hardships of migration, the subtleties of Nigeria's class system, and how far we'll go to protect those we love.

  • THE TOMONOSHi WAY: A Philosophy for a More Playful Life

    Mr. Tomonoshi!

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    The TOMONOSHi Way: A Philosophy for a More Playful Life.

    The TOMONOSHi Way is a path for the seekers, the wonderers, and the adventurers—those who have never felt fully at home within the expected, and instead carve their own way forward.

    This philosophy invites those who color outside the lines, not in rebellion, but in the belief that life can be shaped into something more joyful, more curious, and more expansive.

    It is for the doers, the makers, the ones who see light even in the darkest corners—the individuals who weave beauty into existence, who find wonder in simplicity, who bring laughter to moments when only silence was expected.

    The TOMONOSHi Way is about embracing curiosity, exploring without hesitation, and daring to unearth meaning where others may not search.

    It is for those who create with their own hands—not waiting for the world to offer them what they seek, but choosing to build it themselves.

    This philosophy does not dictate what to think, but offers a more playful, expansive way to engage with life.

    It is not a rigid structure, but a perspective—one that sees possibility where others see limitation, one that welcomes adventure, one that embraces betterment not as an achievement, but as a way of moving through the world.

    If you’ve ever wondered about yourself—your place, your purpose, your journey—then The TOMONOSHi Way is already yours.

    This is the Way.

  • The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster: A Novel

    by Shauna Robinson

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    From the acclaimed author of The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks and Must Love Books comes a heartfelt bookclub read following one woman's journey to reconnect with her estranged Black family in the south, just as it's on the brink of falling apart, perfect for fans of The Chicken Sisters and The Last Summer at the Golden Hotel.

    One estranged family. One lost recipe. One last barbecue on the line. Mae is about to learn what happens when things go south…

    Mae Townsend has always dreamed of connecting with her estranged Black family in the South. She grew up picturing relatives who looked like her, crowded dinner tables, bustling kitchens. And, of course, the Townsend family barbecue, the tradition that kept her late father flying to North Carolina year after year, despite the mysterious rift that always required her to stay behind. 

    But as Mae's wedding draws closer, promising a future of always standing out among her white in-laws, suddenly not knowing the Townsends hits her like a blow. So when news arrives that her paternal grandmother has passed, she decides it's time to head South. 

    What she finds is a family in turmoil, a long-standing grudge intact, a lost mac & cheese recipe causing grief, and a family barbecue on the brink of disaster. Not willing to let her dreams of family slip away, Mae steps up to throw a barbecue everyone will remember.

    For better or for worse.

  • The Tradition by Jericho Brown
    $17.00
    The Tradition explores cultural threats on black bodies, resistance, and the interplay of desire and privilege in a dangerous era.

    WINNER OF THE 2020 PULITZER PRIZE FOR POETRY

    Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award

  • The Tradition: Civic Dialogue Edition

    by Jericho Brown

    $18.00

    Ships in 7-10 business days

    In this special edition of Jericho Brown’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Tradition,you are invited to participate in an urgent dialogue—sparked by poetry—about what it means to be human. Including a discussion guide and an interview with the author, The Tradition: Civic Dialogue Editionis meant to catalyze and inspire deep and engaging community conversations.


    In 2021, the Free Library of Philadelphia selected The Traditionfor their annual city-wide reading program, choosing a book of poetry for the first time ever. The vision was for neighbor to meet neighbor and discuss—in profound and transformative ways—the difficult subjects confronted so powerfully by the poems: racism, homophobia, violence, and the human resolve to compose a joyful life. To encourage other communities—cities, schools, book groups—to follow Philadelphia’s lead, Copper Canyon Press collaborated with the Free Library to create The Tradition: Civic Dialogue Edition. The dream is to tap the power of poetry to open hearts, clarify vision, spark conversation, and help make the world a more just and equitable place. And, if we’re fortunate, to laugh as freely and share as openly as the poet himself.

  • The Tree of Life: A lift-the-flap book about the amazing animals that live in trees around the world

    Nalini Nadkarni

    $19.99

    A lift-the-flap book about the animals, plants, and fungi that live in trees, written by pioneering tree scientist Nalini Nadkarni.

    A single tree can be home to hundreds of different species. This joyous book highlights some of the best tree habitats in the world, with plenty of fun things for young readers to spot in each stunning illustration by Kendra Binney. After spying a creature hidden in the foliage they can lift a flap to learn more about it.

    The book includes famous trees like coast redwoods and ancient oaks, as well as some species kids might be less familiar with–like the dragon blood tree of Yemen! They will meet swinging orangutans in the dipterocarp trees of Asia, witness elephants drinking from wells inside the baobab trees of Africa, and spy some sleepy koalas in the eucalyptus trees of Australia. The Tree of Life also looks at the importance of these giants on human societies, such as the Hindu festivals that take place among the roots of the Indian banyan.

    By the end of the book kids will have a new-found appreciation for the role trees play in ecosystems all over the world.

  • The Trees

    by Percival Everett

    $16.00

    An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone

    Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

    The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.

     

  • The True Definition of Neva Beane
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    From the author of Riding Chance comes the story of a girl whose dictionary is helping make sense of the world, her changing body, friendships, and a family that's struggling to stay strong amidst the turbulent backdrop of activism, across generations.

    Being twelve isn't easy, especially when you're Neva Beane. Neva feels beautiful wearing her new bra, but she's confused by how others respond to the changes taking place in and out of her body. Her best friend, Jamila, is getting all the attention. Her brother, Clayton, is becoming an activist. And Mom and Dad are gone working-again. Grandad and Nana aren't much help, either, with their old ways and backward views.Neva struggles to find her place in a world that, like the political landscape that's always shifting around her in her West Philadelphia neighborhood, is uncertain, at times scary, but most always, filled with unanswered questions. Neva is left with what comforts her most-words and their meanings, which she chronicles herself. While the pages of her beloved dictionary reveal truths about what's happening around her, Neva must discover the best way to define herself. In this wholly original story by the author of the NAACP Image Award nominee Riding Chance, a girl finds her voice in unexpected ways.

  • The True Size of Africa: Transcontinental Perspectives

    Ralf Beil

    $65.00

    Opening up the cosmos of an entire continent - New perspectives on Africa

    This lavishly illustrated volume explores Africa from multiple points of view as it progresses beyond prejudice and stereotypes. Combining cultural history with contemporary art, it presents a diverse range of artistic voices and shifting viewpoints. Human history intersects with the colonial past and the omnipresent influence of Africa across the world.

    A fresh lens capturing the cosmos of Africa and its everlasting presence in our global societies.

    This lavishly illustrated volume approaches the vast continent of Africa from a variety of viewpoints; beyond prejudice and stereotypes, via cultural history and contemporary art: by means of permanent changes of perspective and a diversity of artistic voices. The history of humankind meets the colonial past and the omnipresence of aspects of Africa in many regions of the world.
     
    On the one hand, surprising views of Africa are focused on from Europe. And on the other, works and installations by Africans or protagonists from the diaspora present ideas, impulses and identities which all signify Africa. The texts illustrate the broad time frame from the first humans to Pan-Africanism and Afro-Futurism, as well as present literary and philosophical narratives.

    ARTISTS:
    DELE ADEYEMO, JOHN AKOMFRAH, JAMES GREGORY ATKINSON, SAMMY BALOJI, ARÉBÉNOR BASSÉNE, MEMORY BIWA, MARÍA MAGDALENA CAMPOS-PONS, CATPC, OMAR VICTOR DIOP, SOKARI DOUGLAS CAMP, WILLIAM KENTRIDGE, KONGO ASTRONAUTS, SUSANA PILAR DELAHANTA MANTIENZO, ROMÉO MIVEKANNIN, ZANELE MUHOLI, JOSÈFA NTJAM, KALOKI NYAMAI, EMEKA, OGBOH, ZINEB SEDIRA, SANDRA SEGHIR, YINKA SHONIBARE, THE SINGH TWINS, GÉRALDINE TOBE, KARA WALKER, CARRIE MAE WEEMS

  • The Truth About Mrs. Claus

    by Meena Harris

    $18.99
    An empowering holiday picture book by Meena Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Ambitious Girl.

    Amalia the Elf loves everything about making teddy bears . . .
     
    Watching Grandma and Mama sew!
    Feeling the soft, velvety fur!
    Imagining the bears in their new homes!
     
    . . . except the bear-making part. 
     
    Worried about disappointing her family, Amalia goes straight to Santa for advice. But it’s Mrs. Claus who knows how to solve Amalia’s problem—and who needs help with a secret of her own.
     
    From #1 New York Times bestselling author Meena Harris, The Truth About Mrs. Claus is an empowering story about being true to yourself, honoring family traditions, and believing in Christmas magic.
  • The Truths We Hold: An American Journey

    by Kamala Harris

    $18.00

    Vice President Kamala Harris’s commitment to speaking truth is informed by her upbringing. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social justice; her parents—an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired cancer researcher from India—met as activists in the civil rights movement.

    Growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a deputy district attorney out of law school, she quickly established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement officer of California as a whole. Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless and championing the middle class, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure crisis and won a historic settlement for California’s working families. Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of California’s thorniest issues; neither “tough” nor “soft” but smart on crime became her mantra.

    Being smart means learning the truths that can make us better as a community, and supporting those truths with all our might. That has been the pole star that is guiding Harris now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, our country, and the world, from health care to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and accelerating inequality.

  • The Turner House

    Angela Flournoy

    $18.99

    NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

    A New York Times Notable Book • An Amazon Top 100 Editors' Pick of the Year

    Named a Best Book of the Year by O, The Oprah Magazine • Entertainment Weekly • NPR • Essence • Men’s Journal • Buzzfeed • Bustle • Time Out • Denver Post • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage • Literary Hub • Kobo • The Week • Detroit Free Press

    Winner of the Paterson Fiction Prize and the Black Caucus of the ALA—1st Novelist Award

    Nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Debut Author, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction

    Finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and the Indies Choice Award

    Short-listed for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Ernest Gaines Award, The Morning News Tournament of Books, the Winter Lariat List, and the Medici Book Club Prize

    Long-listed for the NBCC John Leonard Prize for A Debut Novel and the Chautauqua Prize

    A powerful debut,The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family.

    The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone—and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts—and shapes—their family’s future.

    Praised by Ayana Mathis as “utterly moving” and “un-putdownable,” The Turner House brings us a colorful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It’s a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home.

  • The Twelve Tribes of Hattie: Oprah's Book Club 2.0

    Ayana Mathis

    $18.00

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER • AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2.0 SELECTION • "A remarkable page-turner of a novel." —Chicago Tribune

    In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd, swept up by the tides of the Great Migration, flees Georgia and heads north. This "brutal, illuminating version of the twentieth century African-American experience belongs alongside those of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston" (Newsday).

    Full of hope, Hattie settles in Philadelphia to build a better life. Instead she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment, and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins are lost to an illness that a few pennies could have prevented.

    Hattie gives birth to nine more children, whom she raises with grit, mettle, and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them to meet a world that will not be kind. Their lives, captured here in twelve luminous threads, tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage—and a nation's tumultuous journey.

    Don't miss Ayana Matthis's new novel, The Unsettled coming soon!

  • The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health

    by Rheeda Walker

    $16.95

    We can’t deny it any longer: there is a Black mental health crisis in our world today. Black people die at disproportionately high rates due to chronic illness, suffer from poverty, under-education, and the effects of racism. This book is an exploration of Black mental health in today’s world, the forces that have undermined mental health progress for African Americans, and what needs to happen for African Americans to heal psychological distress, find community, and undo years of stigma and marginalization in order to access effective mental health care.

    In The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health, psychologist and African American mental health expert Rheeda Walker offers important information on the mental health crisis in the Black community, how to combat stigma, spot potential mental illness, how to practice emotional wellness, and how to get the best care possible in system steeped in racial bias.

    This breakthrough book will help you:

    • Recognize mental and emotional health problems
    • Understand the myriad ways in which these problems impact overall health and quality of life and relationships
    • Develop psychological tools to neutralize ongoing stressors and live more fully
    • Navigate a mental health care system that is unequal
     

    It’s past time to take Black mental health seriously. Whether you suffer yourself, have a loved one who needs help, or are a mental health professional working with the Black community, this book is an essential and much-needed resource.

  • The Unbroken

    by C. L. Clark

    $19.99

    On the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire, two women--a princess and a soldier--will haggle over the price of a nation in this richly imagined, breath-taking sapphic epic fantasy filled with rebellion, espionage, and assassinations.
     
    Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
     
    Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet's edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
     
    Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren't for sale.

    "A perfect military fantasy: brutal, complex, human and impossible to put down." - Tasha Suri, author of Empire of Sand

  • The Underground Railroad: A Novel

    by Colson Whitehead

    $16.95
    Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this #1 New York Times bestseller chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins.

    Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

    In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

    As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

    Look for Colson Whitehead’s bestselling new novel, Harlem Shuffle!
  • The Undocumented Americans
    $20.00

    NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.

    “Karla’s book sheds light on people’s personal experiences and allows their stories to be told and their voices to be heard.”—Selena Gomez

    FINALIST FOR THE NBCC JOHN LEONARD AWARD • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, NPR, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOOK RIOT, LIBRARY JOURNAL, AND TIME

    Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she’d tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer’s phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own. 
     
    Looking beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented—and the mysteries of her own life. She finds the singular, effervescent characters across the nation often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects. 
     
    In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint, Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio, childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father is in sanctuary. And through it all we see the author grappling with the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival. 
     
    In her incandescent, relentlessly probing voice, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American.

  • The Unfolding: An Invitation to Come Home to Yourself

    by Arielle Estoria

    $27.99

    A wise and beautifully designed collection of poetry, essays, and meditations meant to guide the reader into reflecting on the periods of unfolding in their own lives.

    In order to let something in,

    you have to let some things go


    In order to heal, you must hurt,

    In order to grow, you will experience discomfort

    and all of this is to make more room for hope

    less room for perfectionism and more room for simply being.


    Less room for answers,

    more room for questions with integrity

    for mystery and wonder that leads you somewhere new

    not right or wrong, good or bad


    This is the Unfolding

    The Unfolding is a gateway to change that gives you permission to breathe, change, and grow. Arielle Estoria shares the story of her own transformation in poems that were birthed from seasons of hurt and discomfort—from single to engaged, from Baptist pastor’s kid to student and explorer of the wonder and unanswered aspects of faith, from broken to restored—as she became the person she was meant to be.

    The process of unfolding happens over and over again, helping you to grow, to expand, to peel away the layers of who you’ve been, mesh them with who you will be, and step into the fullness and wholeness of who you are.

  • The Unfortunates: A Novel by J K Chukwu
    $30.00

    Ships in 7-10 business days

    An edgy, bitingly funny debut about a queer, half-Nigerian college sophomore who, enraged and exhausted by the racism at her elite college, sets out to find truth about The Unfortunates—the unlucky subset of Black undergrads who have been mysteriously dying

    Sahara is Not Okay. Entering her sophomore year at Elite University, she feels like a failure: her body is too curvy, her love life is nonexistent, her family is disappointed in her, her grades are terrible, and, well, the few Black classmates she has just keep dying. Sahara is close to giving up, herself: her depression is, as she says, her only “Life Partner.” And this narrative—taking the form of an irreverent, piercing “thesis” to the university committee that will judge her—is meant to be a final unfurling of her singular, unforgettable voice before her own inevitable disappearance and death. But over the course of this wild sophomore year, and supported by her eccentric community of BIPOC women, Sahara will eventually find hope, answers, and an unexpected redemption.
  • The Unicorn Woman

    by Gayl Jones

    $26.95

    Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal

    Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.

    A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he’s a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.

    As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots. The lead among these characters is, of course, The Unicorn Woman, who exists, but mostly lives in Bud’s private mythology.

    Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope.

  • The Unsettled: A novel

    by Ayana Mathis

    $29.00

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    "A fine, powerful book.” —Marilynne Robinson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gilead

    From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there.

    Ava has been estranged from her own mother, Dutchess, since she left her Alabama home as a young woman barely out of her teens. Despite their estrangement and the thousand miles between them, mother and daughter are deeply entwined, but Ava can't forgive her sharp-tounged, larger than life mother whose intractability and bouts of debilitating despair brought young Ava to the outer reaches of neglect and hunger.

    Ava wants to love her son differently, better. But when Toussaint’s father, Cass, reappears, she is swept off course by his charisma, and the intoxicating power of his radical vision to destroy systems of racial injustice and bring about a bold new way of communal living. 

    Meanwhile, in Alabama, Dutchess struggles to keep Bonaparte, once a beacon of Black freedom and self-determination, in the hands of its last five Black residents—families whose lives have been rooted in this stretch of land for generations—and away from rapidly encroaching white developers. She fights against the erasure of Bonaparte's venerable history and the loss of the land itself, which she has so arduously preserved as Ava's inheritance.

    As Ava becomes more enmeshed with Cass, Toussaint senses the danger simmering all around him—his well-intentioned but erratic mother; the intense, volatile figure of his father who drives his fledgling Philadelphia community toward ever increasing violence and instability. He begins to dream of Dutchess and Bonaparte, his home and birthright, if only he can find his way there. 

    Brilliant, explosive, vitally important new work from one of America’s most fiercely talented storytellers.

  • The Unsettled: A Novel

    by Ayana Mathis

    $18.00

    Two bold, utopic communities are at the heart of Ayana Mathis’s searing follow-up to her bestselling debut, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. Bonaparte, Alabama – once 10,000 glorious Black-owned acres – is now a ghost town vanishing to depopulation, crooked developers, and an eerie mist closing in on its shoreline. Dutchess Carson, Bonaparte's fiery, tough-talking protector, fights to keep its remaining one thousand acres in the hands of the last five residents. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, her estranged daughter Ava is drawn into Ark – a seductive, radical group with a commitment to Black self-determination in the spirit of the Black Panthers and MOVE, with a dash of the Weather Underground’s violent zeal. Ava’s eleven-year-old son Toussaint wants out – his future awaits him on his grandmother’s land, where the sounds of cicada and frog song might save him if only he can make it there. 
     
    In Mathis’s electrifying novel, Bonaparte is both mythic landscape and spiritual inheritance, and 1980s Philadelphia is its raw, darkly glittering counterpoint. The Unsettled is a spellbinding portrait of two fierce women reckoning with the steep cost of resistance: What legacy will we leave our children? Where can we be free?

  • The Unspoken: An Ashe Cayne Novel

    Ian K. Smith

    Sold out

    In this new series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ian K. Smith, an ex-cop turned private investigator seeks justice on the vibrant, dangerous streets of Chicago.

    Former Chicago detective Ashe Cayne is desperate for redemption. After refusing to participate in a police department cover-up involving the death of a young black man, Cayne is pushed out of the force. But he won’t sit quietly on the sidelines: he’s compelled to fight for justice as a private investigator…even if it means putting himself in jeopardy.

    When a young woman, Tinsley Gerrigan, goes missing, her wealthy parents from the North Shore hire Cayne to find her. As Cayne looks into her life and past, he uncovers secrets Tinsley’s been hiding from her family. Cayne fears he may never find Tinsley alive.

    His worries spike when Tinsley’s boyfriend is found dead―another black man murdered on the tough Chicago streets. Cayne must navigate his complicated relationships within the Chicago PD, leveraging his contacts and police skills to find the missing young woman, see justice done, and earn his redemption.

  • The Untelling

    by Tayari Jones

    Sold out

    Aria is no stranger to tragedy -- as a young girl, she and her older sister and mother survived a car crash that took the lives of their father and beloved baby sister. And although relations with her remaining family are strained, she's done her best to establish a solid, normal life for herself, living in Atlanta and teaching literacy to girls who have fallen on hard times.

    But now she has a secret that she's not yet ready to share with Dwayne, her devoted boyfriend, or Rochelle, her roommate and best friend: Aria is pregnant. Or so she thinks. The truth is about to make her question her every assumption and reevaluate the life she has worked so hard to build for herself...as it sends her reeling in a direction she had no idea she was destined to go.

  • The Unvarnished Gary Phillips: A Mondo Pulp Collection

    by Gary Phillips

    $17.00

    *ship in 7-10 business days

    Award-winning author, screenwriter, and editor Gary Phillips gathers his most thrilling, outlandish, and madcap pulp fiction in an 17-story collection that straddles the line between bizarro, science fiction, noir, and superhero classics.

    Aztec vampires, astral projecting killers, oxygen stealing bombs, undercover space rangers, aliens occupying Los Angeles, right wing specters haunting the ’hood, masked vigilantes, and mad scientists in their underground lairs plotting world domination populate the stories in this rip-snorting collection. In these pages grindhouse melds with blaxploitation along with strong doses of B movie hardcore drive-in fare.

    Phillips, editor of the Anthony Award-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, and author of One-Shot Harry and Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem, said this about pulp. “The most common definition of pulp is it’s fast-paced, a story containing out there characters and a wild plot. There is that. But certainly, as we’ve now arrived at the era of retro-pulp, these stories have elements of characterization: not just action, but a glimpse behind the steely eyes of these doers of incredible deeds.” As an added bonus, Phillips resurrects Phantasmo, a Golden Age comics character created by Black artist-writer E.C. Stoner in an all-new outing of ethereal doings (includes 4 original illustrations by cover artist Adam Shaw).

  • The Unveiling: A Novel

    Quan Barry

    $28.00

    From the award-winning author of We Ride Upon Sticks and When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East, a genre-bending novel of literary horror set in Antarctica that explores abandonment, guilt, and survival in the shadow of America’s racial legacy

    Striker isn’t entirely sure she should be on this luxury Antarctic cruise. A Black film scout, her mission is to photograph potential locations for a big-budget movie about Ernest Shackleton’s doomed expedition. Along the way, she finds private if cautious amusement in the behavior of both the native wildlife and the group of wealthy, mostly white tourists who have chosen to spend Christmas on the Weddell Sea.

    But when a kayaking excursion goes horribly wrong, Striker and a group of survivors become stranded on a remote island along the Antarctic Peninsula, a desolate setting complete with boiling geothermal vents and vicious birds. Soon the hostile environment will show each survivor their true face, and as the polar ice thaws in the unseasonable warmth, the group’s secrets, prejudices, and inner demons will also emerge, including revelations from Striker’s past that could irrevocably shatter her world.

    With her signature lyricism and humor, Quan Barry offers neither comfort nor closure as she questions the limits of the human bonds that connect us to one another, affirming there are no such things as haunted places, only haunted people. Gripping, lucid, and imaginative, The Unveiling is an astonishing ghost story about the masks we wear and the truths we hide even from ourselves.

  • The Vanishing Half

    by Brit Bennett

    $18.00

    The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

    Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

  • The Vanquishers: Rise of the Wrecking Crew

    Kalynn Bayron

    $8.99

    In the heart-stopping conclusion to the Vanquishers series by New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron, it is time for the final stand against the undead.

    San Antonio is on lockdown, taken over by the new hive. No one can deny that the undead are back now, but the Vanquishers found out the hard way: when they learned that an old friend is behind the latest string of attacks.

    As the Squad hide out at an abandoned combat training facility, honing their vampire-butt-kicking skills, they begin to suspect that they're not alone. And when a vial of Dracula's blood--able to give unrivaled power to the vampire that consumes it--is stolen from the bunker, the Vanquishers race to recover it before it falls into the wrong hands.

    The Vanquishers have always been Boog's family, the ones she trusts the most. But what does it mean when a former Vanquisher, one of her heroes, is now the enemy?

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