In Film Blackness Michael Boyce Gillespie shifts the ways we think about black film, treating it not as a category, a genre, or strictly a representation of the black experience but as a visual negotiation between film as art and the discursivity of race. Gillespie challenges expectations that black film can or should represent the reality of black life or provide answers to social problems. Instead, he frames black film alongside literature, music, art, photography, and new media, treating it as an interdisciplinary form that enacts black visual and expressive culture. Gillespie discusses the racial grotesque in Ralph Bakshi's Coonskin (1975), black performativity in Wendell B. Harris Jr.'s Chameleon Street (1989), blackness and noir in Bill Duke's Deep Cover (1992), and how place and desire impact blackness in Barry Jenkins's Medicine for Melancholy (2008). Considering how each film represents a distinct conception of the relationship between race and cinema, Gillespie recasts the idea of black film and poses new paradigms for genre, narrative, aesthetics, historiography, and intertextuality.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty.

One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as “a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways.” With Filthy Animals he renews and expands on the promise made in Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.

NEW DATE: DECEMBER 12, 2023 @ 7PM

The book club meeting will take place on December 4th at 7 PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. Show up with the book read (or partially read)! All are welcome. 

About the Book 

In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different—special—she names her Onyesonwu, which means "Who fears death?" in an ancient language.

It doesn't take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic. As she grows, so do her abilities, and during an inadvertent visit to the spirit realm, she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.

Desperate to elude her would-be murderer and to understand her own nature, she embarks on a journey in which she grapples with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately learns why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death.

An illustrated, practical guide to navigating your financial life, no matter your financial situation

"a potent mix of deeply practical and wonderfully empathetic" —Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial

"one of the most approachable financial books I've ever read." —Refinery 29

We are all weird about money. Whether you have a lot or a little, your feelings and beliefs about money have been shaped by a combination of silence (or even shame) around talking about money, personal experiences, family and societal expectations, and a whole big complex system rigged against many of us from the start. Begin with that baseline premise and it’s no surprise so many of us find it so difficult to save enough money (but way too easy to get trapped in ballooning credit card debt), emotionally draining to deal with student loans, and nearly impossible to understand the esoteric world of investing.
 
Unlike most personal finance books that focus on skills and behaviors, FINANCE FOR THE PEOPLE asks you to examine your beliefs and experiences around money—blending extremely practical exercises with mindfulness, and including more than 50 illustrations and diagrams to make the concepts accessible (and even fun). With deep insider expertise from years spent in many different corners of the financial industry, Paco de Leon is a friendly, approachable, and wise guide who invites readers to change their relationship with money. With her holistic approach you’ll learn how to:
  •  root out your unconscious beliefs about money
  •  untangle the mental and emotional burden of student loans to pay them off
  •  use a gratitude practice to help you think differently about spending
  •  break out of the debt cycle and begin building wealth
 
This book is for anyone who feels unseen, ignored, or bored to death by the way personal finances are approached and taught, and is ready to go on a journey of self-discovery and step into their financial power.

• Women looking for guidance on feminine empowerment
• Explorers of wellness and spirituality
• Fans of guided journals, tarot cards, and oracle decks that tap into inner wisdom and intuition, such as The Wild Unknown Alchemy Deck and Mystic Mondays Tarot
• Birthday, Galentine’s Day, holiday, or self-care gift for women

This book is also freely available online as an open-access digital edition:

https://manifold.ecds.emory.edu/projects/finding-god-in-all-the-black-places

(https://dhjhkxawhe8q4.cloudfront.net/rup-wp-v2/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/28132142/9781978839809.pdf)

In Finding God in All the Black Places, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade contends that Black spirituality and Black church religiosity are the critical crux of Black popular culture. She argues that cultural, community, and social support live within the Black church and that spirit, art, and progress are deeply entwined and seal this connection. Including the work of artists such as Mary J. Blige, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Prince, Spike Lee, and Oprah Winfrey, the book examines contemporary Black television, film, music and digital culture to demonstrate the role, impact, and dominance of spirituality and religion in Black popular culture. Smith-Shomade believes that acknowledging and comprehending the foundations of Black spirituality and Black church religiosity within Black popular culture provide a way for viewers, listeners, and users not only to endure but also to revitalize.

*ship in 7-10 business days

As his twenty-sixth birthday approaches, Desta Joy Walker finds himself in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the one place he's been actively avoiding most of his life. For Desta, the East African capital encompasses some of the happiest and saddest parts of his life-his first home and the place where his father died. When an unavoidable work obligation lands him there for twelve weeks, he may finally have a chance for the closure he so desperately needs. What Desta never expected was to catch a glimpse of his future as he reconnects with the beautiful country and his family's past.

Elias Fikru has never met an opportunity he hasn't seized. Except, of course, for the life-changing one, he's stubbornly ignored for the past nine months. He'd be a fool not to accept the chance to pursue his doctoral studies in the U.S., but saying yes means leaving his homeland, and Elias isn't ready to make that commitment.

Meeting Desta, the Dominican-American emergency relief worker with the easy smile and sad eyes, makes Elias want things he's never envisioned for himself. Rediscovering his country through Desta's eyes emboldens Elias to reach for a future where he can be open about every part of himself. But when something threatens the future that's within their grasp, Elias and Desta must put it all on the line for love.

OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK 2022

Finding Me is Viola Davis’ story, in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day. Hers is a story of overcoming, a true hero’s journey. Deeply personal, brutally honest, and riveting, Finding Me is a timeless and spellbinding memoir that will capture hearts and minds around the globe.  

How do you rebuild yourself when your whole world changes overnight?

Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way—a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness.

Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren’t perfect—they’re human.

In this astonishing memoir, Malala reintroduces herself to the world, sharing how she navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her—while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is. Finding My Way is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny—and a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.

Learn how to process your own grief--as well as family, community, and global grief--with this fierce and openhearted guide to healing in an unjust world.

In unsettling and uncertain times, the individual and collective heartbreak that lives in our bodies and communities can feel insurmountable. Many of us have been conditioned by the dominant culture to not name, focus on, or wade through the difficulties of our lives. But in order to heal, we must make space for grief and prioritize our wholeness, our humanity, and our inherent divinity.

In Finding Refuge, social justice activist, social worker, and yoga teacher Michelle Cassandra Johnson offers those who feel brokenhearted, helpless, confused, powerless, and desperate the tools they need to be present with their grief while also remaining openhearted. Through powerful personal narrative and meditation and journaling practices at the end of each chapter that explore being present with your heart, Michelle empowers us to see that each of us has a role to play in building enough momentum to take intentional action and shift what is unsettled and unjust in the world. Finding Refuge is an invitation to pick up the shattered parts of yourself and remember your strength, wholeness, and sacredness through this practice of presence and attending to your grief.

In the realm of African spiritual pathways, no tradition is so widely embraced and practiced as the West African religion Orisa. Awakened by her own spiritual journey, Tobe Melora Correal, an initiated priestess in the Yoruba-Lukumi branch of Orisa, guides us along this blessed road. FINDING THE SOUL ON THE PATH OF ORISA provides a fresh look at these ancient teachings and emphasizes introspection and inner work over the outward manifestations of Orisa’s practices. Correal debunks misconceptions surrounding the tradition, drawing us into a lushly textured, Earth-centered spiritual system—a compassionate and useful roadmap for revering God.

A long-awaited, comprehensive collection of renowned poet and performance artist Jayne Cortez’s poetry.

Like the jazz rhythms that inspired and punctuated her practice, Jayne Cortez improvised her way through and across disciplines, bridging poetry and performance with music and the visual arts to create a unique body of work. Consciously rupturing the boundaries between art and politics, Cortez’s practice uneasily fits within literary movements of the 20th century, residing everywhere and nowhere between the Black Arts Movement, Surrealism, feminism, and early performance art. As intersectional as it is interdisciplinary, her work is consistently visceral and fearless, acting as a powerful expression of collective rage on behalf of the disenfranchised and dispossessed. In the words of historian Robin D.G. Kelley, “her poetry was never ‘protest’ but a complete revolt, a clarion call for a new way of life.”

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and artist Juanita Londoño, this lyrical celebration of the first day of school across every continent explores what going back to school looks like for children in countries around the world!

How do children around the world spend their first day of school?

Some eat warm akara for breakfast in Nigeria, while others unwrap lunches of kluski in Poland. In China, they practice intricate characters in special notebooks, and in Argentina, they learn each other's names in a singsong memory game. No matter where in the world, every student has something new to look forward to on their first day!

From Ethiopia to Germany to India to Brazil, this lyrical text introduces young readers to the breakfast-to-bedtime routines, cultures, and landscapes that connect people across all continents.

The incredible journey of activist Opal Lee—known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth—is brought to life in this biographical graphic novel that not only explores Opal’s remarkable path, but the history of the holiday of Juneteenth itself.

From the 1860s to Ms. Opal’s childhood home, from her years as a teacher to the White House, First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth seeks to give readers an insight into the history behind one of the central figures in the creation of America’s newest federal holiday, Juneteenth.

Born in 1926, Opal Lee grew up in a racially divided America and dedicated her life to overcoming the obstacles presented therein. A lifelong educator, Ms. Opal has been a community activist all her life, and would take on the movement to celebrate and commemorate Juneteenth not just as a holiday, but as a symbol of comprehensive freedom for all people.

Ms. Opal’s life personifies the fight for everyday freedom that leads to lasting change. As the Grandmother of Juneteenth says, “There is so much more to do.”

Written by acclaimed journalist, producer, and author Angélique Roché (My Super Hero is Black) and drawn by a trio of talented artists—including Alvin Epps (I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005: A Graphic Novel), Bex Glendining (the upcoming Indigo Port), and rising star Millicent Monroe—The First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth promises to illuminate the life of a singular woman and the history of a momentous holiday, with additional back matter providing more insights into Juneteenth’s history and the making of this graphic novel tribute.

From award-winning author and creative writing professor at Tulane University comes an intimate and powerful memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters.

On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girls traces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar.

Growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, Bernice finds solace in books, summer trips to Barbados, and boarding school to escape her alcoholic father. Discovering the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, she finally sees herself and her loved ones reflected in their stories of “messy, beautiful, joyful Black people.”

Interwoven with Bernice's personal journey is her family's history, beginning with her four-times enslaved great-grandmother Louisa Vicey Wilson in 1822 Hancock County, Georgia. Her descendants survived Reconstruction and Jim Crow, joined the Great Migration, and mourned Dr. King’s assassination during the Civil Rights Movement. These women's wisdom, secrets, and fierce love are passed down like Louisa's handmade quilt.

A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an extraordinarily moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the drive to be something more.

in this mouthwatering companion to Soul Food Sunday, a child joins his grandmother in catching and cooking to prepare for the family’s fish fry.

Fish Fry Friday is the perfect follow-up to Soul Food Sunday, a beloved Coretta Scott King Book Award Illustrator Honor Book.

One special Friday when school is closed, our narrator finally gets to join Granny for her day’s routine. Rods and reels, lures and lines, bobbers and baits are packed in Granny’s Jeep.

Everyone cheers when Granny arrives at the pier—“the queen has arrived!” After reeling in the perfect catch together, they carefully scale and skin, cut and gut, batter and fry the fish into beautiful filets.

But the family meal isn’t complete until Grandson adds his own special side dish to the table—made just like Granny taught Momma, and like Momma taught him.

On Friday evenings, we go to Granny’s for a fish fry.
And on Friday mornings, Granny fishes.
This Friday, “You coming fishing with me,” Granny says.

Paperback Release - April 14, 2026

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

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

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

From the New York Times–bestselling author of All Boys Aren’t Blue comes an empowering set of essays about Black and Queer icons from the Harlem Renaissance.

In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer – and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety.

Interspersed with personal narrative, powerful poetry, and illustrations by award-winning illustrator Charly Palmer, Flamboyants looks to the past for understanding as to how Black and Queer culture has defined the present and will continue to impact the future. With candid prose and an unflinching lens towards truth and hope, George M. Johnson brings young adult readers an inspiring collection of biographies that will encourage teens today to be unabashed in their layered identities.

Welcome to the city of Setham. The home of Gem Ezz, a psychiatrist who plays god with her patients. By day she listens to their problems. By night she removes the evil in their lives with brutal and sometimes deadly force. When she crosses a sect of twisted billionaires she is in for the fight of her life. She has to bring down the sect and face the trauma of her violent past.

Collects FLAWED #1-6

Fledgling, Octavia Butler’s last novel, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly un-human needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: she is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of “otherness” and questions what it means to be truly human.

Octavia E. Butler's final novel is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted—and still wants—to destroy her and those she cares for, and how she can save herself.

Grip Trilogy Reading Order: Flow, Grip #1Grip, Grip #2Still, Grip #3 FLOW chronicles the week of magical days and nights that will haunt Grip & Bristol for years to come.In 8 years, Marlon James will be one of the brightest rising stars in the music industry. Bristol Gray will be his tough, no-nonsense manager.But when they first meet, she's a college student finding her way in the world, and he's an artist determined to make his way in it. From completely different worlds, all the things that should separate them only draw them closer. It's a beautiful beginning, but where will the story end?

In this debut story collection, Gianni Washington opens portals bridging the strange and the lonely to the gruesome and the intimate.

Thirteen dark tales are told through the lenses of Black, female, and queer narrators, among others, which burrow deep into the heart of the gothic to challenge the conventional nightmare. Flowers from the Void unburies a haunted labyrinth of chilling alternate realities eerily similar to our own.

A high school freshman is lured into a sinister pact with a classmate that will cost him more than he could ever imagine. A grieving African witch prepares for initiation into a 17th century Salem coven of white women. A girl with no shadow befriends one. 

Empathy and horrors collide to create a grimy discomfort that will never quite wash off. Otherworldly creatures, malevolent acts, and devastation consume these pages as Gianni Washington resurrects the skeletons in our closets and commands them to run amuck with a new zest for the macabre.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

Equal parts stunning, photo-heavy look book and cultural commentary, Fly is the story of the undeniable intersection of high fashion and basketball. Organized by era, each section is broken down by the style of the time and the cultural influence surrounding it: beginning with the league’s inception in 1949, pre–civil rights movement—when the NBA was mostly white players who wore suits and skinny ties. From the years following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the birth of funk and R&B when basketball fashion got flashier, with some players wearing fur coats and big hats (think Walt Clyde Frazier and Wilt Chamberlain), to the Michael Jordan era of the 80s and 90s, with big, oversize suits. And on to the epic Iverson or Hip-Hop Era, in the early 2000s, with the birth of the “tunnel walk.” Today, athletes are idealized not only as fashion icons but also social activists. We’re talking about the biggest names: Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Dwyane Wade, and Lebron James (who could forget his “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt). The conversationis no longer limited to athletic performance or what these athletes are wearing—they are expressing their fashion sense in what has become an important cultural moment.

A reissue of Greg Tate's classic, out-of-print collection of essays, with a new introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib and a new foreword by Questlove.

From one of the most original, creative, and provocative culture critics comes an eye-opening collection of essays and tales about American music and culture.

Under the guise of writing about a single subject, Greg Tate’s essays in Flyboy in the Buttermilk branch out from his usual and explore social, pop cultural, political, and economic subjects. Taking on a wide diversity of topics―from the rise of hip-hop; the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat; the music of Miles Davis, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Brains, and many others; to the crisis of the Black intellectual and the irony of the GOP recruiting Black Americans― Tate writes in a brave and distinctive voice that is angry, joyous, anxious, and funny.

In every piece of this collection, Tate offers informed insight into where America is going and why.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

Before she was a record-breaking, world-famous gymnast, Simone Biles spent time in foster care as a young child. Nimble and boundlessly energetic, she cherished every playground and each new backyard. When she was six years old, Simone’s family took shape in a different way: her grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles, adopted her and her sister Adria. Simone was also introduced to gymnastics that same fateful year, launching a lifelong passion fueled by remarkable talent, sacrifice, and the undying support of her family.

She’s a new PI in a beautiful seaside town. It’s dirtier than it looks―and more dangerous too―in a twisting novel of suspense by the Anthony Award–nominated author of These Toxic Things.

After ten years on the force, LAPD cop Sonny Rush relocates with her elderly mother to peaceful Haven, California, to join her godfather’s burgeoning PI business. What crimes could possibly happen in a town nicknamed “Mayberry by the Sea”? Sonny’s first case: find Figgy, a missing goldendoodle last seen sporting a Versace collar. At least scouting out a dognapper gives Sonny a chance to get to know her new neighbors.

Forty-eight hours in town and Figgy’s disappearance entangles Sonny in an unwelcome reunion with her ex, one of Haven’s wealthiest citizens. And when the body of a teenage boy is found along a popular hiking trail, Sonny is drawn into a web of strange beyond anything she ever saw in LA.

Then comes a local’s warning: question everything. Haven hides secrets that could destroy its idyllic facade. Or destroy Sonny first.

From the award-winning anthologists, a beautiful new book of short stories, designed as a perfect gift for readers of the supernatural, and a lifetime of reading pleasure.

A new anthology of Folk Horror stories, covering a wide range of mythologies and dark corners from around the world, revealing tales from the shadows of isolation, creepy forests and horrors rising from the land itself. Award-winning anthologists Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan have commissioned and chosen an outstanding selection of stories with contributions from authors including Neil Gaiman, John Connolly, Adam L.G. Nevill, Alison Littlewood and Jen Williams. Five brand new stories have also been selected from open submissions.

The full list of featured authors in this book is: Linda D. Addison, V. Castro, John Connolly, Neil Gaiman, Helen Grant, Kathryn Healy, H.R. Laurence, Alison Littlewood, Lee Murray, Adam L.G. Nevill, Cavan Scott, Christina Sng, Benjamin Spada, Stephen Volk, Jen Williams, Katie Young and B. Zelkovich.

The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.