Bestsellers
- Big Nick Energy
Big Nick Energy
Danielle Allen
$16.00Hamilton University’s Homecoming is always a good time. Typically, it’s just a weekend of football, fun, and reconnecting. But this year is different.
My wildly popular and incredibly sexy college crush is finally single!
Nick Williams had no idea who I was. He was completely out of my league in undergrad.
But we’re grown now.
And this homecoming weekend, I’m going to find out if the big man on campus is really a big man - Blood Slaves (The Blood Saga)
Blood Slaves (The Blood Saga)
Markus Redmond
$28.00For readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.
What if nobody ever freed the slaves…because they freed themselves – 150 years before the Civil War?
In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.
Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.
One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.
Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.
- Catalina: A Novel
Catalina: A Novel
by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
$18.00A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom
When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfillment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her own complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world that has no place for the undocumented; her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties and secret societies—which she observes with the eye of an anthropologist and an interloper’s skepticism: she is both fascinated and repulsed. Craving a great romance, Catalina finds herself drawn to a fellow student, an actual budding anthropologist eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew, even as her life back in Queens begins to unravel. And every day, the clock ticks closer to the abyss of life after graduation. Can she save her family? Can she save herself? What does it mean to be saved?
Brash and daring, part campus novel, part hagiography, part pop song, Catalina is unlike any coming-of-age novel you’ve ever read—and Catalina, bright and tragic, circled by a nimbus of chaotic energy, driven by a wild heart, is a character you will never forget.
- What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World
by Prentis Hemphill
$19.00From one of the most prominent voices in the trauma conversation comes a groundbreaking new way to heal on a personal and a collective level.
“I love this book.”—Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score
“In a time when so many of us are being trained in cynicism, this book stands in necessary defiance.”—Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies and This Here Flesh
As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect with one another, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how.
What It Takes to Heal asserts that the principles of embodiment—the recognition of our body’s sensations and habits, and the beliefs that inform them—are critical to lasting healing and change. Hemphill, an expert embodiment practitioner, therapist, and activist who has partnered with Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Esther Perel, among others, shows us that we don't have to carry our emotional burdens alone. Hemphill demonstrates a future in which healing is done in community, weaving together stories from their own experience as a trauma survivor with clinical accounts and lessons learned from their time as a social movement architect. They ask, “What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?”
In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls—to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.
- Summer on Highland Beach: A Novel
Summer on Highland Beach: A Novel
by Sunny Hostin
from $18.99The View cohost and three-time Emmy Award winner Sunny Hostin transports readers to Highland Beach in the captivating third novel of her New York Times bestselling Summer Beach series.
In this awakening, spirited novel, Sunny Hostin celebrates family, friendship, and community and reminds us of the importance of the legacies of our collective past and finding one’s way in the world.
Founded in the late 1800s by the son of Frederick Douglass, Highland Beach along the Chesapeake Bay is the oldest Black resort community in America. Inside this proud and secluded beach community of about 100 private homes is Olivia Jones’s legacy.
But Oliva’s legacy comes with thorns—intertwined are secrets of her aunt’s death; a controlling grandmother who is determined to crush anyone or anything that will interfere with her son’s political career; and a father who wants to rebuild the family he rejected decades ago.
In the midst of tense family drama, Olivia must decide if she wants to return to the beautiful life she’s created in Sag Harbor—with the neighbors and wonderful man who’ve become central to her happiness—or finally achieve her dream of having a family and home to call her own in Highland Beach.
- The Accomplice: A Novel
The Accomplice: A Novel
by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson
Sold outThe New York Times bestselling multitalented artist makes his fiction debut with this electrifying novel—The Accomplice combines the imaginative page-turning suspense of S. A. Cosby’s novels with the high-tension thrills of the Netflix blockbuster series Money Heist.
In The Accomplice, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and award-winning mystery writer Aaron Philip Clark introduces readers to New York-born and Texas-bred Nia Turner, who always dreamt of becoming a Texas Ranger. She knows the dangers of the job, and as the first Black female ranger, she knows the politics, but she’s never encountered a criminal like Desmond Bell. A Vietnam vet turned thief, Desmond steals more than money; he steals the secrets of the rich and powerful and blackmails them for millions. When Desmond steals from the Duchamps, the wealthiest family in the country, Nia’s investigation into the robbery threatens to expose him and the criminal enterprise he works for. As the bodies pile up, Nia digs deeper for the truth, putting her life and career in danger. It’s a deadly cat-and-mouse game between ranger and thief, but to protect their family’s secrets, the Duchamps won’t hesitate to kill them both.
- Snakes (A Day in the Life): What Do Cobras, Pythons, and Anacondas Get Up to All Day?
Snakes (A Day in the Life): What Do Cobras, Pythons, and Anacondas Get Up to All Day?
by Christian Cave
$16.99Set over 24 hours, meet rattlesnakes, vipers, and black mambas in this kids’ nonfiction book by TikTok star and snake expert Christian Cave. Journey around the world to follow the lives of these cold-blooded reptiles as they hunt, hide, and fight their way through their day. Biologist and conservationist Christian Cave tells the story of the world’s most amazing venomous snakes in the style of a nature documentary, including gentle science explanations of topics such as camouflage and skin shedding that are perfect for future biologists. Witness incredible moments including: • A paradise flying snake soaring through the air to escape a predator • A king cobra defending her eggs from a mongoose • A spider-tailed viper using its tail to catch birds! Beautifully illustrated by Rebecca Mills and packed with animal facts, Snakes (A Day in the Life) encourages kids to look at the roles these incredible legless predators play in ecosystems across the globe, and why it’s important we protect them.
- Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America
Biting the Hand: Growing Up Asian in Black and White America
by Julia Lee
$18.99In the vein of Eloquent Rage and Minor Feelings—a passionate, no-holds-barred memoir about the Asian American experience in a nation defined by racial stratification
When Julia Lee was fifteen, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, following the the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper, forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity. She was neither Black nor white. So who was she?
This question would follow Julia for years to come, resurfacing as she traded in her tumultuous childhood for the white upper echelon of elite academia. It was only when she began a PhD in English that she found answers—not in the Brontës or Austen, as Julia had planned, but rather in the brilliant prose of writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. Their works gave Julia the vocabulary and, more important, the permission to critically examine her own tortured position as an Asian American, setting off a powerful journey of racial reckoning, atonement, and self-discovery that has shaped her adult life.
With prose by turns scathing and heart-wrenching, Julia Lee lays bare the complex disorientation and shame that stems from this country’s imposed racial hierarchy to argue that Asian Americans must leverage their liminality for lasting social change alongside Black and brown communities.
- Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' with Mother Nature
Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' with Mother Nature
by Dick Gregory & James R. McGraw
Sold outFirst published in 1974 and even more relevant today, a natural and whole foods guide the voice of black consciousness, cultural icon Dick Gregory, the incomparable satirist, human rights and environmental activist, health advocate, social justice champion, and author of the NAACP Image Award–winning Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies and the classic bestseller Nigger: An Autobiography.
Written with Dick Gregory’s irreverent wit and informed by his deep intelligence, Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat is for real people who are concerned about their health and wellness. Gregory offers an enlightening introduction to natural foods, and offers a wickedly amusing and informative assessment of how our modern diet damages the human digestive tract, and raises our consciousness about the political power of food.
Gregory argues that how you treat yourself and your body reflects how you treat others. He discusses various fasts and the ones he’s done for both political and health reasons, hunger in America, navy beans, and how Americans are changing the way they eat—the beginning of a movement in the 1970s that is still felt today. He offers suggestions on diets to help you gain or lose pounds and offers advice on natural substitutes for favorite alcoholic drinks. You are what you eat—with Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat you can laugh your way to better health.
- Zora Neale Hurston: Novels & Stories
Zora Neale Hurston: Novels & Stories
by Zora Neale Hurston
$40.00This Library of America volume, with its companion, brings together for the first time all of Zora Neale Hurston’s best writing in one authoritative set. When she died in poverty and obscurity in 1960, all of her books were out of print. Today Hurston’s groundbreaking works, suffused with the culture and traditions of African Americans and the poetry of black speech, have won her recognition as one of the most significant modern American writers.
Hurston’s fiction is free-flowing and frequently experimental, exuberant in its storytelling and open to unpredictable and fascinating digressions. Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934), based on the lives of her parents and evoking in rich detail the world of her childhood, recounts the rise and fall of a powerful preacher torn between spirit and flesh in an all-black town in Florida.
“There is no book more important to me than this one,” novelist Alice Walker has written about Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Hurston’s lyrical masterpiece about a woman’s determined struggle for love and independence. In this, her most acclaimed work, she employs a striking range of tones and voices to give the story of Janie and Tea Cake the poetic intensity of a myth.
In Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), her high-spirited and utterly personal retelling of the Exodus story, Hurston again demonstrates her ability to use the black vernacular as the basis for a supple and compelling prose style.
Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), Hurston’s last major work, is set in turn-of-the-century Florida and portrays the passionate clash between a poor southern “cracker” and her willful husband.
A selection of short stories (among them “Spunk,” “The Bone of Contention,” and “Story in Harlem Slang”) further displays Hurston’s unique fusion of folk traditions and literary modernism—comic, ironic, and soaringly poetic.
The chronology of Hurston’s life prepared for this edition sheds fresh light on many aspects of her career. In addition, this volume contains detailed notes and a brief essay on the texts.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries. - The Complete Stories
The Complete Stories
by Zora Neale Hurston
Sold outThis landmark gathering of Zora Neale Hurston's short fiction—most of which appeared only in literary magazines during her lifetime—reveals the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. Spanning her career from 1921 to 1955, these stories attest to Hurston's tremendous range and establish themes that recur in her longer fiction. With rich language and imagery, the stories in this collection not only map Hurston's development and concerns as a writer but also provide an invaluable reflection of the mind and imagination of the author of the acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. - If I Survive You
If I Survive You
by Jonathan Escoffery
$18.00A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.
In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. The family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”
Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You centers on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself. After a fight with Topper—himself reckoning with his failures as a parent and his longing for Jamaica—Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab, and his cousin, Cukie, looks for a father. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.
Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery’s debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You, Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.
- Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
by Uché Blackstock, MD
$28.00“Legacy is an illuminating and stirring journey of a book.” —Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist
The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives.
What Dr. Uché Blackstock did not understand as a child—or learn about at Harvard Medical School, where she and her sister had followed in their mother’s footsteps, making them the first Black mother-daughter legacies from the school—were the profound and long-standing systemic inequities that mean just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians today are Black women; the racist practices and policies that ensure Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country; and the flawed system that endangers the well-being of communities like theirs. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face.
Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. - Black Writers of the Founding Era: A Library of America Anthology
Black Writers of the Founding Era: A Library of America Anthology
edited by James G. Basker
$40.00A radical new vision of the nation's founding era and a major act of historical recovery
Featuring more than 120 writers, this groundbreaking anthology reveals the astonishing richness and diversity of Black experience in the turbulent decades of the American Revolution
Black Writers of the Founding Era is the most comprehensive anthology ever published of Black writing from the turbulent decades surrounding the birth of the United States. An unprecedented archive of historical sources––including more than 200 poems, letters, sermons, newspaper advertisements, slave narratives, testimonies of faith and religious conversion, criminal confessions, court transcripts, travel accounts, private journals, wills, petitions for freedom, even dreams, by over 100 authors––it is a collection that reveals the surprising richness and diversity of Black experience in the new nation.
Here are writers both enslaved and free, loyalist and patriot, female and male, northern and southern; soldiers, seamen, and veterans; painters, poets, accountants, orators, scientists, community organizers, preachers, restaurateurs and cooks, hairdressers, criminals, carpenters, and many more. Along with long-famous works like Phillis Wheatley’s poems and Benjamin Banneker’s astonishing mathematical and scientific puzzles are dozens of first-person narratives offering little-known Black perspectives on the events of the times, like the Boston Massacre and the death of George Washington.
From their bold and eloquent contributions to public debates about the meanings of the revolution and the values of the new nation–– writings that dramatize the many ways in which protest, activism, and community organizing have been integral to the Black American experience from the beginning––to their intimate thoughts preserved in private diaries and letters, some unseen to the present day, the words of the many writers gathered here will indelibly alter our understandings of American history.
A foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed and an introduction by James G. Basker, along with introductory headnotes and explanatory notes drawing on cutting edge scholarship, illuminate these writers’ works and to situate them in their historical contexts.
A 16-page color photo insert presents portraits of some of the writers included and images of the original manuscripts, broadside, and books in which their words have been preserved. - Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies
Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies
by Elizabeth McHenry
$31.95Over the past decade the popularity of black writers including E. Lynn Harris and Terry McMillan has been hailed as an indication that an active African American reading public has come into being. Yet this is not a new trend; there is a vibrant history of African American literacy, literary associations, and book clubs. Forgotten Readers reveals that neglected past, looking at the reading practices of free blacks in the antebellum north and among African Americans following the Civil War. It places the black upper and middle classes within American literary history, illustrating how they used reading and literary conversation as a means to assert their civic identities and intervene in the political and literary cultures of the United States from which they were otherwise excluded. Forgotten Readers expands our definition of literacy and urges us to think of literature as broadly as it was conceived of in the nineteenth century. Elizabeth McHenry delves into archival sources, including the records of past literary societies and the unpublished writings of their members. She examines particular literary associations, including the Saturday Nighters of Washington, D.C., whose members included Jean Toomer and Georgia Douglas Johnson. She shows how black literary societies developed, their relationship to the black press, and the ways that African American women's clubs--which flourished during the 1890s--encouraged literary activity. In an epilogue, McHenry connects this rich tradition of African American interest in books, reading, and literary conversation to contemporary literary phenomena such as Oprah Winfrey's book club.
- The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
by Asma Naeem
$55.00A sweeping survey of hip hop’s resounding impact on contemporary art and culture across the past 20-plus years
Accompanying a groundbreaking exhibition originating at the Baltimore Museum of Art, this book captures the extraordinary influence of hip hop, which has driven innovations in music, visual and performing arts, fashion, and technology and grown into a global phenomenon since its emergence in the 1970s. It features approximately 70 objects by both established and emerging artists, design houses, streetwear icons and musicians working in a wide range of mediums to demonstrate hip hop’s proliferation from the street to the runway, the studio to the museum gallery, and countless sites in between. The exhibition also explores how hip hop has and continues to challenge structures of power, dominant cultural narratives, and political and social systems of oppression.
This fully illustrated monograph documents the exhibition and contains texts and interviews from more than 30 artists and scholars
Artists include: Nina Chanel Abney, Dionne Alexander, Maxwell Alexandre, Devin Allen, Alvaro Barrington, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Wales Bonner, Mark Bradford, Jordan Casteel, Willy Chavarria, Caitlin Cherry, Troy Chew II, William Cordova, Carl Jones, Stan Douglas, John Edmonds, Gajin Fujita, Monica Ikegwu, Shabez Jamal, Kahlil Joseph, Nia June, LA II, Deana Lawson, Eric N. Mack, Emmanuel Massillon, Julie Mehretu, Murjoni Merriweather, Jayson Musson, Rashaad Newsome, Yvonne Osei, Zéh Palito, Gordon Parks, Adam Pendleton, Robert Pruitt, Rammellzee, Sheila Rashid, Rozeal, Joyce J. Scott, Tschabalala Self, Tariku Shiferaw, Devan Shimoyama, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, Abbey Williams, Pharrell Williams and Wilmer Wilson IV.
Authors include: Ebony Haynes, Todd Boyd, Lester Spence, Jordana Moore Saggese, Greg Tate, Misa Hylton, Elena Romero, Ekow Eshun, Devin Allen, Michael Holman, Simone White, Salome Asega, Alphonse Pierre, David A.M. Goldberg and Tahir Hemphill, Jacolby Satterwhite, Wendel Patrick, Simon Reynolds, Seph Rodney, Jesse McCarthy, Danez Smith, Noriko Manabe, Lindsay Knight and Charity Marsh, Shaheem Sanchez, Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr., Sekou Cooke, Jessica N. Pabón-Colón, Martha Cooper, Skeme, Alex de Mora and Lawrence Burney. - Small Worlds
Small Worlds
by Caleb Azumah Nelson
from $17.00An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and Costa First Novel Award winning author Caleb Azumah Nelson
One of the most acclaimed and internationally bestselling “unforgettable” (New York Times) debuts of the 2021, Caleb Azumah Nelson’s London-set love story Open Water took the US by storm and introduced the world to a salient and insightful new voice in fiction. Now, with his second novel Small Worlds, the prodigious Azumah Nelson brings another set of enduring characters to brilliant life in his signature rhythmic, melodic prose.
Set over the course of three summers, Small Worlds follows Stephen, a first-generation Londoner born to Ghanian immigrant parents, brother to Ray, and best friend to Adeline. On the cusp of big life changes, Stephen feels pressured to follow a certain path—a university degree, a move out of home—but when he decides instead to follow his first love, music, his world and family fractures in ways he didn’t foresee. Now Stephen must find a path and peace for himself: a space he can feel beautiful, a space he can feel free.
Moving from London, England to Accra, Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exquisite and intimate new novel about the people and places we hold close, from one of the most “elegant, poetic” (CNN) and important voices of a generation.
- A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing From Soil to Stars
A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing From Soil to Stars
by Erin Sharkey
$20.00A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.
What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.
Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining.
A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundan
- Like a Sister
Like a Sister
by Kellye Garrett
$17.99When the body of reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her twenty-fifth birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. A tragedy, certainly, but not a crime.
Yet Columbia grad student Lena—principled, headstrong, and allergic to the spotlight—knows that can’t be the case. Despite the bitter truth that the two hadn’t spoken in two years, they were half-sisters. Lena knew Desiree. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. Something is very wrong with the facts. So why is no one listening?
While the two sisters had been torn apart by Desiree’s partying and by their difficult father, Lena becomes determined to find justice for Desiree. Even if that means untangling her family’s darkest secrets—or ending up dead herself. - Black Disability Politics
Black Disability Politics
by Sami Schalk
Sold outDrawing on the archives of the Black Panther Party and the National Black Women’s Health Project, Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present.
In Black Disability Politics Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism. She points out that this work has not been recognized as part of the legacy of disability justice and liberation because Black disability politics differ in language and approach from the mainstream white-dominant disability rights movement. Drawing on the archives of the Black Panther Party and the National Black Women’s Health Project alongside interviews with contemporary Black disabled cultural workers, Schalk identifies common qualities of Black disability politics, including the need to ground public health initiatives in the experience and expertise of marginalized disabled people so that they can work in antiracist, feminist, and anti-ableist ways. Prioritizing an understanding of disability within the context of white supremacy, Schalk demonstrates that the work of Black disability politics not only exists but is essential to the future of Black liberation movements. - The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities
The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities
by Lawrence C. Ross Jr.
$21.95This comprehensive history of African American fraternities and sororities celebrates the spirit of Black Excellence in higher education that has produced American leaders in politics, sports, arts, and culture such as Kamala Harris, Colin Kaepernick, Michael Jordan, Thurgood Marshall, and Toni Morrison, and is sure to be a treasured resource for generations to come.
America’s Black fraternities and sororities are a unique and vital part of 20th century African American history, providing young black achievers with opportunities to support each other while they serve their communities and the nation.
From pioneering work in the suffragette movement to extraordinary strides during the Civil Rights era to life-changing inner-city mentoring programs, members of these organizations share a proud tradition of brotherhood, sisterhood, and service.
Today, America’s nine black fraternities and sororities are millions of members strong with chapters at HBCUs, Ivy League Schools, and colleges across the nation including Stanford University, Howard University, and the University of Chicago. - Black Landscapes Matter
Black Landscapes Matter
edited by Walter Hood & Grace Mitchell Tada
$43.50The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation’s landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape.
Essayists examine a variety of U.S. places—ranging from New Orleans and Charlotte to Milwaukee and Detroit—exposing racism endemic in the built environment and acknowledging the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes. Through a combination of case studies, critiques, and calls to action, contributors reveal the deficient, normative portrayals of landscape that affect communities of color and question how public design and preservation efforts can support people in these places. In a culture in which historical omissions and specious narratives routinely provoke disinvestment in minority communities, creative solutions by designers, planners, artists, and residents are necessary to activate them in novel ways. Black people have built and shaped the American landscape in ways that can never be fully known. Black Landscapes Matter is a timely and necessary reminder that without recognizing and reconciling these histories and spaces, America’s past and future cannot be understood.
- Invisible Man
Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
$16.00Both a deeply compelling bestselling novel and an epic milestone of American literature.
Originally published in 1952 as the first novel by a then unknown author, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century.
The book’s nameless narrator describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, before retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. - This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed
This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed
by Charles E. Cobb Jr
Sold outVisiting Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. "Just for self-defense," King assured him. It was not the only weapon King kept for such a purpose; one of his advisors remembered the reverend’s Montgomery, Alabama, home as "an arsenal." Like King, many ostensibly "nonviolent" civil rights activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protection—yet this crucial dimension of the Afro-American freedom struggle has been long ignored by history. In This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, Charles E. Cobb Jr. recovers this history, describing the vital role that armed self-defense has played in the survival and liberation of black communities. Drawing on his experiences in the civil rights movement and giving voice to its participants, Cobb lays bare the paradoxical relationship between the nonviolent civil rights struggle and the long history and importance of African Americans taking up arms to defend themselves against white supremacist violence.
About the Author:
Charles E. Cobb Jr. is a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and has taught at Brown University. An award-winning journalist, he is an inductee of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. Cobb lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
- The Best Cookbook Ever: with recipes so deliciously awesome, your life will change forever
The Best Cookbook Ever: with recipes so deliciously awesome, your life will change forever
Sold outRecipes so deliciously awesome, parties so incredibly mind-blowing, pictures so breathtakingly beautiful, menus so expertly crafted, and stories so heartbreakingly poignant that you will cry as you cook from it, and it will change your life forever.
After conquering the world with our last cookbook, we’re back again with more flavorful recipes and tales. Featuring dishes for authentic scenarios, like being totally hungover, prepping for the upcoming apocalypse, or heading out to the countryside with friends for a night at the cabin, this book will help you through real-life situations, such as . . . having no friends! And being vegetarian! And the changing seasons! And eating light before a heavy night!
We have and always will be down to party extremely hard. And in these pages, we share the best recipes of all time. Looking for snacks for an upscale house party on the last night of school? Your parents are out of town and you want to throw a raging pool party sure to bring the cops? We’ve got you covered with a slew of tasty bites that span the snack spectrum from trashy to classy, along with the best party menus the world has ever known.
You are on your way to personal and professional greatness. We know you will become a truly amazing cook. We can’t wait to have you own this cookbook, as it’s the best one ever written in the history of the world. Better yet, buy two copies because one is definitely going in your backyard time capsule and you don’t want to have to dig it up four times a week when you get hungry.
“This is the best cookbook ever.” max + eli sussman
- Young, Vintage & Black Poster Prints
Young, Vintage & Black Poster Prints
$45.00Commemorative and contemporary style posters in honor of the original Black ABC's, issued in the 1970's in Chicago. Large format print poster on weighted paper. Posters measure 11" wide x 17" tall; no framing included. Matte, offset printing. Will ship flat in cardstock envelope. Please select preferred prints from the menu.
About the Black ABC's: The Black ABC’s was created by two Black women educators, June Sark Heinrich, and consultant Bernadette H. Triplett in Chicago, Illinois. Heinrich received her MA in English at the University of Chicago and was an author and editor of programs for early childhood education. Heinrich and Triplett teamed up to produce the Black ABCs in 1970 for the Society of Visual Education. The organization was started in Chicago in 1919 and by the early 1970s became a leading supplier of classroom learning materials. The original sets of twenty six poster-sized study prints feature a color photograph corresponding to the letter of the alphabet and educational keywords, biographies, and suggested activities on the reverse side - learning aides that centered the achievements, histories and popular sociopolitical affirmations of Black Americans during the Black Power era.
- The Lula Cafe Cookbook: Collected Recipes and Stories
The Lula Cafe Cookbook: Collected Recipes and Stories
$49.95‘A colorful, conversational, idea-pricking cookbook is always a welcome host gift, and this on – hits all the right notes.’ – Vanity Fair
The debut cookbook from Jason Hammel, showcasing the all-day seasonal food and arty vibe of his iconic Chicago restaurant
This book is the story of 20 years of cooking, love, friendship, and community told through food, with each recipe taking a particular moment in time as its inspiration. Chapters include: Brunch, Soups, Snacks, Salads, Vegetables, Pasta, Meat/Fish, and Desserts, along with dozens of ‘building block’ recipes and ‘classic’ signature dishes.
With 90 all-day recipes, each marked with the date of their creation, and all-new photography, this first book about Jason Hammel's bustling hotspot, Lula Cafe, gives a vibrant insight into the food and story of this iconic Chicago restaurant, written by its admired chef-author owner.
Beloved by its loyal clientele, Lula is a meeting place for locals, gourmands, artists, writers, filmmakers, and musicians, and the intensely personal recipes and stories in this book are infused with their creative spirit – the perfect book for creative home cooks, and for readers who love stories about the ingredients, techniques, and people behind the food they eat.
- Cowboy Carter - 300 Piece
Cowboy Carter - 300 Piece
$36.00Cowboy Carter Story is a celebration of Texas native Beyoncé and her grammy winning album and new tour.
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This puzzle is part of our Celebrature collection of limited edition puzzles that celebrate a noteworthy moment in history or cultural celebration.
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Please note: These puzzles are print on demand and may take 1-3 business days prior to shipping.
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Puzzles of Color introduces you to artistic work that captures the mind and delights the soul. It introduces artwork and genius of artists of color – Black, Indigenous American, Latin, and Asian heritage.
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Family fun and family friendly. This puzzle is sure to ignite family fun, entertainment and memorable family time and conversations.
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Follow on Instagram @amacieforever
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Pieces: 100 or 500
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Puzzle Size: 14x19.25 in (100 Piece) or 19.25x26.625 in (500 Piece)
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Box Size: 9.75 X 7.625 X 1.75 in
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Made with recyclable material
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- Gracie’s Corner: What Sound Does That Letter Make?
Gracie’s Corner: What Sound Does That Letter Make?
Gracie's Corner
$10.99Get grooving, moving, and learning with Gracie’s Corner!
What sound does a letter make? Using familiar rhythms from the smash hit the "Phonics Song,” this perfect-to-hold board book adaptation breaks down the alphabet and letter sounds into easy-to-remember word examples and bright and bold art in the style of Gracie’s Corner. From “elephant” to “umbrella,” kids will be breaking it down and sounding it out in no time!
* Features the lyrics of an easy, catchy, and educational song! Teach kids the alphabet in a fun-filled way that they’re sure to love.
* First of its kind Gracie’s Corner board book adaptation is perfect to read (or sing!) along with your child’s favorite Gracie’s Corner YouTube video!
* Vibrant illustrations and fan-favorite lyrics will make kids want to read this over and over, aiding in memorization along the way!
* Created by family team Graceyn, Javoris, and Arlene Hollingsworth,Gracie’s Corner focuses on centering children of color in the edutainment industry and making learning a fun, positive experience. - It Was the Way She Said It: Short Stories, Essays, and Wisdom
It Was the Way She Said It: Short Stories, Essays, and Wisdom
Terry McMillan
$28.00From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale comes a remarkable, career-spanning collection of short fiction and essays about love, aging, culture and all the things in between.
For the first time, a single volume brings together renowned author Terry McMillan’s previously published short fiction and nonfiction pieces, as well as never-before-seen works.
Before McMillan found success as a novelist in the early 1990s, she published provocative, boundary-pushing short stories, capturing the struggles and triumphs of Black life in America with vitality and honesty, from the workaday factory man’s malaise in “The End” to the cast-aside lover’s resolve in “Touching” to the elderly woman’s wiles in “Ma’Dear.” McMillan’s inimitable voice bravely explores the dark corners of human relationships with compassion, humor, and nuance. This collection also features five unpublished stories that reveal how she wrestled with controversial topics rarely addressed in short fiction, from domestic abuse in “Mama, Take Another Step” to extreme poverty in “Can’t Close My Eyes to It.”
Whether she’s revealing life lessons, pontificating about aging, recalling her sources of inspiration, or laying bare the beginnings of her life as a writer, McMillan approaches every piece with enduring candor, wit, and fearlessness.
Devoted fans and new readers alike will be delighted to discover these treasures spanning McMillan’s long, groundbreaking career. Indeed, it wasn’t only what Terry McMillan has said that made her so beloved . . . it was the way she said it.
- Self Care Woman Sticker, Black Woman Sticker
Self Care Woman Sticker, Black Woman Sticker
$4.00Self Care Woman Sticker, Black Woman Sticker, Black Girl Sticker, For Black People, BLM Stickers, Black People, Black Owned, Black Gifts This cute handmade sticker: Self Care Woman Sticker is great for adorning your laptops, journals, water bottles, hydro flask, and more. These stickers are a great way to express yourself. Dimensions: 2.2 X 1.9 Material -Vinyl Sticker -laminated and scratch-resistant -Handmade with a high gloss finish -100 % Weatherproof + Waterproof - Removable and replaceable: Removes with little to no residue, any residue can be easily removed with hand sanitizer or rubbing alcohol - Do not use with dishwasher, handwash only. Applying Stickers Before applying the sticker, I recommend cleaning the surface with soap and water, or alcohol to remove any oils. Let the surface completely dry, and then carefully apply your sticker! Please message me with any questions or concerns. - "Smut and Sauvignon Blanc" Enamel Pin - Bookish Fairycore Cottagecore Pinstory Original Enamel Pins
"Smut and Sauvignon Blanc" Enamel Pin - Bookish Fairycore Cottagecore Pinstory Original Enamel Pins
$15.00"Smut and Sauvignon Blanc" Enamel Pin Enamel Pin Size: 1.75 Inches Dive into a world where whimsy meets wonder with Pinstory's exclusive collection of originally designed enamel pins. Drawing inspiration from the enchanting realms of fairycore, cottagecore, and the mystique of elven lore, each pin is a gateway to a story yet untold. Crafted for dreamers, book lovers, and seekers of the magical, our pins are more than mere adornments; they are symbols of the untamed imagination, of quiet moments in sun-dappled forests, and of tales whispered beneath the ancient boughs of mythical woods. Our Fairycore series captures the whimsical essence of fairy tales with designs that feature delicate wings, sparkling enchantments, and creatures that dance in the moonlight.
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