Everyone needs to love and be loved - even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving.

In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.

“A defining chronicle of strength and spirit” (Kirkus Reviews), Surpassing Certainty is a portrait of a young woman searching for her purpose and place in the world—without a road map to guide her. This memoir “should be required reading for your 20s” (Cosmopolitan).

A few months before her twentieth birthday, Janet Mock is adjusting to her days as a first-generation college student at the University of Hawaii and her nights as a dancer at a strip club. Finally content in her body after her teenage transition, she vacillates between flaunting and concealing herself as she navigates dating and disclosure, sex and intimacy, and most important, letting herself be truly seen. Under the neon lights of Club Nu, Janet meets Troy, a yeoman stationed at Pearl Harbor naval base, who becomes her first. The pleasures and perils of their relationship serve as a backdrop for Janet’s progression through all the universal growing pains—falling in and out of love, living away from home, and figuring out what she wants to do with her life.

Fueled by her dreams and an inimitable drive, Janet makes her way through New York City intent on building a career in the highly competitive world of magazine publishing—within the unique context of being trans, a woman, and a person of color. Hers is a timely glimpse about the barriers many face—and a much-needed guide on how to make a way out of no way.

Long before she became one of the world’s most respected media figures and lauded leaders for equality and justice, Janet learned how to advocate for herself before becoming an advocate for others. In this “honest and timely appraisal of what it means to be true to yourself” (Booklist), Surpassing Certainty offers an “exquisitely packaged gift of her experiences...that signals something greater” (Bitch Magazine).

With more than two hundred traditional and contemporary recipes, The Africa Cookbook is a unique window into the long culinary history of a diverse continent.

From the savory stews of the western savannah to the curries and chutneys of the Swahili coasts, prominent scholar Jessica Harris has assembled a collection of recipes that reflects the modern innovations and rich heritage of kitchens across Africa. Potatoes with Mint Leaves and Garlic from Algeria and Senegal’s classic Theibou Dienn are among the many flavorful dishes that offer a change of pace for contemporary North Americans. Illustrated with archival photographs and peppered with history and anecdote, The Africa Cookbook is a celebration of cultures and individuals whose contributions to the way we eat have long been ignored.

Experience the wonderful flavors of Ethiopia and Chef Yohanis' dazzling collection of recipes in this James Beard Award winning cookbook

Winner James Beard Award for Best International Cookbooks 2020

Winner IACP Julia Child First Book Award for Best Cookbook 2020

Shortlisted Guild of Food Writers Award 2019

National Geographic Traveller Best New Cookbook

Ethiopia stands as a land apart: never colonized, it celebrates ancient traditions. The fascinatingly distinct cuisine is influenced by a history enriched with a religious mix of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as some of the most fertile land on the continent.

In this cookbook, Ethiopia's gourmet guru seeks to spread love for the country’s cuisine. After working as a chef around the world, Yohanis Gebreyesus decided it was time to go home and put his skills to showing off what his home country has to offer. Now, he's dedicating his work to opening the world's eyes to Ethiopian cuisine.

The delicious dishes featured here include Doro Wat, chicken stewed with berbere spice, Siga Tibs, flashfried beef, and Asa Shorba, a hearty spiced fish soup, plus vegetarian dishes such as Gomen, collard greens with ginger and garlic, Azifa, green lentil salad, and Dinich Alicha, potatoes and carrots in an onion turmeric sauce.

Along with photography of the stunning landscapes and vibrant artisans of Ethiopia—combined with insightful cultural and historical details—this book demonstrates why Ethiopian food should be considered one of the world’s most singular and enchanting cuisines.

Rupi Kaur's Writing Prompts Relationships card deck is an invitation to dive deeper into the core of your most cherished relationships.

Rupi Kaur encourages you to build more honest and fulfilling relationships with help from this thoughtfully curated deck of 70 writing prompts. While focusing on the theme of relationships, use this card deck as a part of your daily ritual to inspire connection and creativity.

Examples of the prompts include:
* How do you want to receive and give love in a romantic relationship?
* Describe a time you let jealousy get the best of you.
* How did your family influence your definition of love?
* How would you end a toxic friendship?

We hope it becomes a tool for you to continue discovering more about your inner and outer worlds, and a light to help navigate you through it all.

Here are over 800 haiku by Richard Wright, one of the early forceful and eloquent spokesmen for black Americans, author of the acclaimed Native Son and Black Boy.

Wright discovered the haiku in the last eighteen months of life. He attempted to capture, through his sensibility as an African-American, the elusive Zen discipline and beauty in depicting man’s relationship, not only to his fellow man as he had in the raw and forceful prose of his fiction, but to the natural world. In all, he wrote over 4,000 haiku.

Here are the 817 he personally chose; Wright’s haiku, disciplined and steeped in beauty, display a universality that transcends both race and color without ever denying them. Wright wrote his haiku obsessively—in bed, in cafes, in restaurants, in both Paris and the French countryside. They offered him a new form of expression and a new vision: with the threat of death constantly before him, he found in them inspiration, beauty, and insights.

Fighting illness and frequently bedridden, deeply upset by the recent loss of his mother, Ella, Wright continued, as his daughter notes in her introduction, “to spin these poems of light out of the gathering darkness.”

“Twitty makes the case that Blackness and Judaism coexist in beautiful harmony, and this is manifested in the foods and traditions from both cultures that Black Jews incorporate into their daily lives…Twitty wishes to start a conversation where people celebrate their differences and embrace commonalities. By drawing on personal narratives, his own and others’, and exploring different cultures, Twitty’s book offers important insight into the journeys of Black Jews.”—Library Journal

“A fascinating, cross-cultural smorgasbord grounded in the deep emotional role food plays in two influential American communities.”—Booklist

The James Beard award-winning author of the acclaimed The Cooking Gene explores the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine and issues of memory, identity, and food.

In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. 

The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty’s own passage to and within Judaism.

As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul.

Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes.

Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellison’s strange inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. Arnold Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary heritage. Starting with Ellison’s hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma and his ordeal as a student in Alabama, Rampersad documents his improbable, painstaking rise in New York to a commanding place on the literary scene. With scorching honesty but also fair and compassionate, Rampersad lays bare his subject’s troubled psychology and its impact on his art and on the people about him.This book is both the definitive biography of Ellison and a stellar model of literary biography.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, rapper, and activist--Sister Souljah uses her passionate voice to deliver what is at once a fiercely candid autobiography and a survival manual for any Black woman determined to keep her heart open and her integrity intact in modern America.

Each chapter of No Disrespect is devoted to someone who made a difference in Sister Souljah's life--from the mother who raised her to the men who educated (and mis-educated) her about love--and each bares a controversial truth about the Black condition in America: the disintegration of families; the unremitting combat between the sexes; and the thousand and one ways in which racism continues to circumscribe how Black people see themselves and treat one another.

The result is an outspoken and often courageous rejoinder to the pieties of race, class, and gender by a writer who is at once wise, bawdy, brutally funny, and as sensitive a lightning rod in a thunderstorm.

"James Baldwin was born for truth. It called upon him to tell it on the mountains, to preach it in Harlem, to sing it on the Left Bank in Paris. . . . He was a giant." — Maya Angelou

This collectible edition celebrates James Baldwin’s 100th-year anniversary, delving into his years in France and Switzerland

Originally published in Notes of a Native Son, the essays, "Encounter on the Seine: Black Meets Brown," "A Question of Identity," "Equal in Paris," and "Stranger in the Village" will appeal to readers interested in Baldwin's observations as a Black man overseas.

During his transformative time in Europe, Baldwin uncovers what it means to be American, immersing the reader in his life as a foreigner, his troubling encounter with a Parisian prison, and his unprecedented arrival to a tiny Swiss village.

This final collection in the Baldwin centennial anniversary series raises issues of identity, belonging, nationhood, and race within a global context. Encounter on the Seine: Essays showcases Baldwin’s strengths as a storyteller, revealing how his years in Paris transformed his understanding of American identity.

Eight-year-old J.D. turns a tragic home haircut into a thriving barber business in this hilarious new illustrated chapter book series

J.D. has a big problem--it's the night before the start of third grade and his mom has just given him his first and worst home haircut. When the steady stream of insults from the entire student body of Douglass Elementary becomes too much for J.D., he takes matters into his own hands and discovers that, unlike his mom, he's a genius with the clippers. His work makes him the talk of the town and brings him enough hair business to open a barbershop from his bedroom. But when Henry Jr., the owner of the only official local barbershop, realizes he's losing clients to J.D., he tries to shut him down for good. How do you find out who's the best barber in all of Meridian, Mississippi? With a GREAT BARBER BATTLE!

From the hilarious and creative mind of J. Dillard, an entrepreneur, public speaker, and personal barber, comes a new chapter book series with characters that are easy to fall for and nearly impossible to forget. Akeem S. Roberts' lively illustrations make this series a must-buy for reluctant readers.

2021 New York Public Library Best Books
2021 Chicago Public Library Best Books
2021 School Library Journal Best Books
2022-2023 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List
2022 NCTE Charlotte Huck Award Honor

Rashid Johnson, Cauleen Smith and others pay tribute to a truly extraordinary figure in 20th-century American jazz

This volume unpacks the cultural legacy of musician, spiritual leader, wife and mother Alice Coltrane. Accompanying the eponymous exhibition at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, the book takes its title from Coltrane’s 1977 autobiography and devotional text, Monument Eternal, in which she reflected on her newfound spiritual beliefs and the path to healing and self-discovery. Coltrane was "ahead of her time," as her son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, says: she was "one of the first people to move outside the mainstream, and certainly one of the first female, Black, American jazz musicians to record her own music in her own studio, and to release music on her own terms."
Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal explores themes including spiritual transcendence, sonic innovation and architectural intimacy. The project juxtaposes works from 19 contemporary American artists with pieces of ephemera from Coltrane’s archive―including handwritten sheet music, unreleased audio recordings and rarely seen footage―to honor her cultural output and practice.
Alice Coltrane was born in Detroit in 1937 and took up music at an early age, beginning piano lessons at seven years old. In 1967 her husband, saxophonist John Coltrane, gifted her a harp, on which she went on to record seminal albums including Journey in Satchidananda and A Monastic Trio, making her one of the very few harpists in the history of jazz. Coltrane moved to Southern California in 1972 and founded the Sai Anantam ashram. She lived and worked in Los Angeles, where she died in 2007 at age 69.

This book was published in conjunction with Hammer Museum

In a near-future world, a new therapy promises to eradicate cancer by entirely replacing the body’s cells with nanites—android cells that not only cure those afflicted but also render patients virtually immortal. When literary researcher Yonghun—himself a recipient of nanotherapy—teaches an AI named Panit how to understand poetry, he creates a living, thinking machine. But when Yonghun mysteriously vanishes into thin air and then just as suddenly reappears, the event raises disturbing questions. What happened to Yonghun, and, though he’s returned, is he really himself anymore?

When Dr. Beeko, the scientist who holds the patent to the nanotherapy technology, learns of Panit, she transfers his consciousness from the machine into an android body, giving him freedom and life. As Panit and other immortals thrive—and begin to replicate—their development will lead them to a crossroads and a choice with existential consequences.

Toward Eternity explores the unexpected consequences of progress, what we really have to fear from technology and the future, and how love and the resilience of memory might survive even the end of humanity.

In this moving work, part clear-eyed assessment, part memoir, the son of iconic African American Congressman John Conyers Jr. shines a spotlight on his father and his political legacy, and reveals how, as his son, he eventually learned to leverage his own voice in a world that his father helped create.

A respectful, thoughtful, yet clear-eyed reframing of a national hero’s personal and political odyssey, My Father’s House is John Conyers III's love letter to his father and a record of his own journey. Conyers reveals a towering figure in modern American political history and an ordinary family man; a leader whose work in Washington necessitated his many absences as a father from a son coming of age in Detroit.

John Conyers III introduces us to John James Conyers, Jr. the legislator, who changed lives and made history, and of his equity-focused work that remains to be done. We meet Conyers the politician and mentor who worked with and counselled a network of powerbrokers—often from the family home on Seven Mile Road in the Motor City—including President Bill Clinton, Congressmen Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Charlie Rangel, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, entertainer-activists Harry Belafonte, Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Chris Tucker and a slew of other players in Washington, DC, and across the nation.

A resonant political, historical, and family story, My Father’s House explores how John James Conyers, Jr., was at once a man of deep and abiding spiritual faith, human talents, and human weaknesses. As he places his father among this land's greatest lawmakers, he also demystifies and grounds the Civil Rights giants of that era, reminding us of their noble yet deeply flawed humanity. This exploration of John James Conyers, Jr., told through John Conyers III's eyes and experiences, is essential to a thorough understanding of modern U.S. politics and the cultures and human lives it continues to shape.

My Father’s House includes a black-and-white photo insert.

A queer Black teen discovers the sinister, deadly history of his boarding school and the corrupt powers behind it all in this page-turning dark academia/horror YA novel that’s A Lesson in Vengeance meets The Taking of Jake Livingston. A USA Today bestseller!

Regent Academy has a long and storied history in Winslow, Vermont, as does the forest that surrounds it. The school is known for molding teens into leaders, but its history is far more nefarious than any outsider could begin to suspect.  

Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent's king-making; he’s just trying to survive. But then a student is murdered and for some reason, by the next day, no one remembers him having ever existed, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper's son, Everett Everley. In his determination to uncover the truth, Douglas awakens a horror hidden within the forest, unearthing secrets that have been buried for centuries. A vengeful creature wants blood as payment for a debt more than three hundred years in the making—or it will swallow all of Winslow in darkness.

And for the first time in his life, Douglas might have a chance to grasp the one thing he’s always felt was missing: power. But if he’s not careful, he will find out that power has a tendency to corrupt absolutely everything.

In nine lively essays, critic Aisha Harris invites us into the wonderful, maddening process of making sense of the pop culture we consume.

Aisha Harris, cohost of NPR’s beloved Pop Culture Happy Hour, has made a name for herself as someone you can turn to for a razor- sharp take on whatever show or movie everyone is talking about. Now, she turns her talents inward, mining the benchmarks of her nineties childhood and beyond to analyze the tropes that are shaping all of us, and our ability to shape them right back.

In the opening essay, an interaction with Chance the Rapper prompts an investigation into the origin myth of her name. Elsewhere, Aisha traces the evolution of the “Black Friend” trope from its Twainian origins through to the heyday of the Spice Girls, teen comedies like She’s All That, and sitcoms of the New Girl variety. And she examines the overlap of taste and identity in this era, rejecting the patriarchal ethos that you are what you like. Whatever the subject, sitting down with her book feels like hanging out with your smart, hilarious, pop culture–obsessed friend—and it’s a delight.

Acclaimed artist Erika Lynne Jones's author-illustrator debut picture book! A young girl named Zara would rather say she doesn't know what she wants than choose between her two grandmothers' ideas.

Zara loves living next door to her Grandma Jane and Granny Gladys, but sometimes it’s tough being stuck in the middle of them! Both her grandmas think they know what’s best for her, and Zara is worried she might upset them if she says what she really wants.

Find out what it will take for Zara to speak up for herself in this multigenerational story about finding your voice and the strength of family.

Inspired by YA debut author K. Ibura’s own upbringing in New Orleans, this is a beautifully written and lyrical contemporary novel with magical elements. Perfect for fans of A Song Below Water and Shadowshaper.

After her parents passed away in Hurricane Katrina, Veronique (a.k.a. V) moved to her MawMaw’s house in the Louisiana countryside. MawMaw always said that Veronique needed to hide her control and power over the wind, but one day, she has to use it to save a neighbor’s son from drowning. To protect Veronique, her MawMaw immediately sends her to live with an aunt in New Orleans.

But NOLA is nothing like Veronique could have imagined—she’s finally attending traditional school, she gets to bond with cousins that she’s never met, and she even rides on her first highway. Though she quickly falls in with a group of friends at school—and one boy who she’d like to be more than her friend—there’s also a higher risk of discovery in the city. When one of her cousin's friends figures out the truth, V learns about a secret organization called the Vaunted, a group that comes after people with elemental magic and recruits them for their own environmental rebellion.

Now that Veronique is on their radar, the Vaunted is closing in quickly, and V is forced on the run to hide from their sinister intentions. V’s left with two major questions: Can she trust anyone? And will she ever get a chance to be a normal girl again?

One of Wired's Twenty-Five All-Time Favorite Books

Critically acclaimed author Kai Ashante Wilson makes his commercial debut with this striking, wondrous tale of gods and mortals, magic and steel, and life and death that will reshape how you look at sword and sorcery.

Since leaving his homeland, the earthbound demigod Demane has been labeled a sorcerer. With his ancestors' artifacts in hand, the Sorcerer follows the Captain, a beautiful man with song for a voice and hair that drinks the sunlight.

The two of them are the descendants of the gods who abandoned the Earth for Heaven, and they will need all the gifts those divine ancestors left to them to keep their caravan brothers alive.

The one safe road between the northern oasis and southern kingdom is stalked by a necromantic terror. Demane may have to master his wild powers and trade humanity for godhood if he is to keep his brothers and his beloved captain alive.

PRAISE FOR THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS

"The unruly lovechild of Shakespeare, Baldwin, George RR Martin and Ghostface Killah -- this was a book I could not put down." - Daniel José Older, author of Half-Resurrection Blues

"Lyrical and polyphonous, gorgeous and brutal, THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS is an unforgettable tale of love that empowers." - Ken Liu, multiple Hugo Award-winning author of The Grace of Kings

"Wilson is doing something both very new and very old here: he's tossing aside the traditional forms of sword and sorcery in favor of other, older forms, and gluing it all together with a love letter to black masculinity. The result is powerful and strange and painful in all the right ways." -N.K. Jemisin, author of The Fifth Season and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

"THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS reads like Gene Wolfe and Samuel R Delany trying to one-up each other on a story prompt by Fritz Leiber. That means it's good. Read it." - Max Gladstone, author of the Craft Sequence

"Seamlessly knots magic and science in a wholly organic way... THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS will catch you by the throat and hold you fast until the last searing word." - Alyssa Wong, Nebula-nominated author of "The Fisher Queen"

A reissue of the popular anthology by bestselling authors at one great price, Rosie's Curl and Weave: Four Novellas.

Step inside for a day of love, beauty, laughter…and love.

Whether you want a cut, weave or braid; a facial, manicure, or massage; there's always a helping hand―and a sympathetic ear―at Rosie's Curl and Weave on 125th Street in Harlem. And sometimes, when you least expect it, love walks in the door. So sit back, relax, put your feet up, and enjoy, as four talented writers render four magical stories about the love of beauty and the beauty of love.

Rochelle Alers gets the sparks flying, as a high-maintenance banker finds herself falling, against her better judgement, for a handsome delivery man who walks into Rosie's...

Donna Hill puts the assistant manager of Rosie's in the path of a fine-looking contractor, whose hypnotic honey-brown eyes could be her undoing...

Felicia Mason helps the owner of Rosie's discover that you don't have to be young―just young at heart―to fall in love...

Francis Ray turns a timid, dowdy duckling into a confident, sexy swan―and sends her into the arms of a handsome artist―with the help of Rosie's Curl and Weave...

Specializing in Cuts, Weaves, Manicures, Pedicures. . . and Passion. Della's House of Style is back at an attractive $9.99 price!

Rochelle Alers' Sweet Surrender
Manicurist Maria Parker can't help but notice when a hunky financial planner brings his niece into Della's for a manicure. And when he starts to frequent the salon himself for manicures from Maria, she's pretty sure he has more than cuticles on his mind...

Donna Hill's It Could Happen to You
When Della turned Rosie's Curl and Weave into Della's House of Style, a few things managed to slip through the cracks―and now she's under fire by the IRS. When a by-the-book IRS agent comes to investigate, Della is infuriated by his presence in the salon―and reluctant to admit that she's growing more than a little used to it...

Felicia Mason's Truly, Honestly
High-maintenance investment banker Sheila needs some serious pampering. On a whim, she decides to get a shoulder-length weave at Della's House of Style, and afterwards visits the salon's lounge, where a sexy D.J. has a song in mind for her...

Francis Ray's A Matter of Trust
Single mother Hope Lassiter, once a critically acclaimed actress, is now a cosmetologist at Della's House of Style. When a handsome director tries to woo her back to the stage, Hope has to wonder if his intentions are more than professional...

Ness Brown's The Scourge Between Stars is a tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship harboring something terrible within its walls.

“A perfect scare to swallow up in one sitting.” ―Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights
A LibraryReads Pick! • Featured on the 2024 RUSA Reading List: Science Fiction

As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears’ failed colony on a distant planet.

Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn's crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship’s Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion.

Jacklyn and her team must hunt down the ship’s unknown intruder if they have any hope of making it back to their solar system alive.

“Highly recommended.” ―Library Journal, STARRED review

A teen deep-dives into her dating history to uncover her mistakes, become the perfect girlfriend, and get revenge on the wrong guy so she can ride into the sunset with the right one in this debut rom-com.

To the surprise of no one, Amelia Hernandez is once again single. It’s her family curse at work; whether it’s by heartbreak, scandal, or even accidental death, every romantic relationship that a Hernandez woman has will meet its demise eventually. And that may be fine with Amelia’s sisters, mom, and aunts, but definitely not with Amelia.

So, convinced that she is the problem, Amelia decides to embark on an “Ex Retrospective:” tracking down her exes, finding out where she went wrong, and using that information to finally become un-break-up-able for whenever her next relationship comes along. Because Amelia is determined to be free of the family curse…and her family.

However, when Amelia is unwillingly reunited with Leon, the ex to end all exes, she can’t resist having a little revenge on the side, too. After all, what better way to test out her new persona of perfect girlfriend traits than on the boy who broke her heart?

But old loves die hard, and as Amelia’s feelings grow more complicated, she suspects that she may be in for more than she bargained for.

A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul.

Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls.

Aminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again.

An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.

Cuban American Camila Núñez has always been afraid of the future. She’s been working hard to keep her anxieties in check, but with so many new experiences―her first queer love, trouble with her dog walking job, her mother’s judgments about her body, learning to drive, her father being too busy with work―there’s just so much to worry about.

So when Camila’s best friend gives her a tarot card reading for her sixteenth birthday, she believes it when the cards predict terrible things to come. As the year unfolds, the cards seem to be spot-on―is her papi having an affair? Will her best friend’s love life ruin their friendship? Are all her relationships doomed to fail?

Whether she’s ready or not, Camila will have to reckon with all the ways her fear about the future is ruining her life and learn to find peace amidst it all.

With 200,000 copies in print, this anthology has for decades been seen as a fundamental collection of African-American verse. Bontemps (1902-73), an important figure during and after the Harlem Renaissance, author of more than 25 novels, and longtime librarian at Fisk University, last revised this classic anthology just before his death, adding such crucial new voices as Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, and Bob Kaufman, among others.

This edition, issued in 1996, reprints the poems in Bontemps's revised volume along with updated biographical notes. Nearly seventy poets are represented, their works indexed by both author and title.

New and selected poems from the great Pulitzer Prize–winning poet

These songs run along dirt roads
& highways, crisscross lonely seas
& scale mountains, traverse skies
& underworlds of neon honkytonk,
Wherever blues dare to travel.

Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth brings together selected poems from the past twenty years of Yusef Komunyakaa’s work, as well as new poems from the Pulitzer Prize winner. Komunyakaa’s masterful, concise verse conjures arresting images of peace and war, the natural power of the earth and of love, his childhood in the American South and his service in Vietnam, the ugly violence of racism in America, and the meaning of power and morality.

The new poems in this collection add a new refrain to the jazz-inflected rhythms of one of our “most significant and individual voices” (David Wojahn, Poetry). Komunyakaa writes of a young man fashioning a slingshot, workers who “honor the Earth by opening shine / inside the soil,” and the sounds of a saxophone filling a dim lounge in New Jersey. As April Bernard wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “He refuses to be trivial; and he even dares beauty.”

"Probably my favorite living poet. No one else taught me more about how important it was to think about how words make people feel. It's not enough for people to know something is true. They have to feel it's true." ―Ta-Nehisi Coates, The New York Times Style Magazine

Winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, selected by Major Jackson

The stub of your left leg dangles
as I hold you up, my hands inserted under your arms
like a child. You are complaining about the itch,
the burn; scratch the ghost of your calf and heel.
―from "Scratching the Ghost"

Dexter L. Booth's ruminations on loss in this award-winning debut are rooted in a time past but one still palpable and persistent. Here are memories of love lost, family mourned, a father absent, ghosts of hometowns and childhood. Here too is a "Short Letter to the Twentieth Century" and, finally, a "Long Letter to the Twentieth Century," as if across this collection the poet is mustering up the force to speak back to history.

"In Dexter Booth's Scratching the Ghost, a cracked egg means the universe is splitting, the slap of a double-dutch rope is a broken-throated hymn, and splitting a squealing hog is akin to lovemaking. These are poems loyal to their own intrepid logic and reckless plausibility. Yet, lest the reader get too giddy in a fun house of mirrors, here, too, are the melodic laments and remarkable lyric passages of a poet who acknowledges the infinite current of melancholy that underlines his journey." ―Major Jackson

Perfect for fans of Rick Yancey and Marie Lu, The Ones We're Meant to Find is a sci-fi fantasy with mind-blowing twists, ready to burst onto the YA scene, from the critically-acclaimed Descendant of the Crane author, Joan He.

Cee awoke on an abandoned island three years ago. With no idea of how she was marooned, she only has a rickety house, an old android, and a single memory: she has a sister, and Cee needs to find her.

STEM prodigy Kasey wants escape from the science and home she once trusted. The Metropolis―Earth's last unpolluted place―is meant to be a sanctuary for those committed to planetary protection, but it’s populated by people willing to do anything for refuge, even lie. Now, she'll have to decide if she’s ready to use science to help humanity, even though it failed the people who mattered most.

"One of the Good Ones is magic.” —Damon Young, author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker

A shockingly powerful exploration of the lasting impact of prejudice and the indomitable spirit of sisterhood that will have readers questioning what it truly means to be an ally, from sister-writer duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, authors of Dear Haiti, Love Alaine.

ISN’T BEING HUMAN ENOUGH?

When teen social activist and history buff Kezi Smith is killed under mysterious circumstances after attending a social justice rally, her devastated sister Happi and their family are left reeling in the aftermath. As Kezi becomes another immortalized victim in the fight against police brutality, Happi begins to question the idealized way her sister is remembered. Perfect. Angelic.

One of the good ones.

Even as the phrase rings wrong in her mind—why are only certain people deemed worthy to be missed?—Happi and her sister Genny embark on a journey to honor Kezi in their own way, using an heirloom copy of The Negro Motorist Green Book as their guide. But there’s a twist to Kezi’s story that no one could’ve ever expected—one that will change everything all over again.

"Astonishing!" —Laura Ruby, two-time National Book Award finalist and author of Bone Gap
"Brilliant" —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Thrilling" —SLJ, starred review

Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices fill this bestselling anthology―including V.E. Schwab's First Kill, now a major Netflix adaptation!

"Boundary-pushing... Stories that stake a new claim on old tropes." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night.

Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.

Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley.

An Imprint Book

"Vampire fans, sink your teeth into this satisfying collection." ―Kirkus Reviews

One of Us Is Lying meets Gossip Girl in The Headmaster's List, an edge-of-your-seat YA thriller about a fatal car crash and the dangerous lengths one teen will go to uncover the truth about what really happened.

*This paperback edition includes exclusive bonus material!*

Friday night. The party of the summer. Four teens ride home together. Only one never makes it.

When high school sophomore Chris Moore is tragically killed in a car crash, Armstrong Prep is full of questions. Who was at the wheel? And more importantly, who was at fault?

Eighteen-year-old Spencer Sandoval wishes she knew. As rumors swirl that her ex, Ethan, was the reckless driver, she can’t bring herself to defend him. And their messy breakup has nothing to do with it – she can’t remember anything from that night, not even what put her in that car with Ethan, Chris, and Tabby Hill, the new loner in school.

The hunt for answers intensifies when a local true crime podcast takes an interest in the case, pushing Spencer further into the depths of this sinister mystery. Was it all just a night out that went very wrong? And is it a coincidence that all but Chris is on Armstrong's esteemed honor roll, the Headmaster’s List? In a place ruled by pedigree and privilege, the truth can only come at a deadly price.

Set against the glitz and glamour of an elite LA private school, Melissa de la Cruz's explosive YA thriller is an addictive mystery perfect for fans of Only Murders in the Building and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

"There's nothing Melissa de la Cruz can't write, and she continues to prove it with this razor-sharp, glitteringly mysterious thriller! Put The Headmaster's List at the top of your TBR." ―Kiersten White, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the And I Darken trilogy

"Melissa de la Cruz will keep you guessing - all the way up to the last page even when you think you’ve figured it out! Everything you want in a thriller - a complicated heroine, snarky outsiders, cute boys, and a surprising and insightful story about status, race, class and tragedy in Los Angeles." ―Sara Shepard, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars