Bestsellers
- The Strangers : Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them
The Strangers : Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them
Ekow Eshun
$35.00In the western imagination, a Black man is always a stranger, outsider, foreigner, intruder, alien; one who remains associated with their origins irrespective of how far they have travelled from them. One who is not an individual in his own right, but the representative of a type.
What kind of performance is required for a person to survive this condition? What happens beneath the mask—what is the cost to the mind and body, to one’s relationships and one’s sense of self?
Searching for answers, Ekow Eshun channels the voices of five very different individuals. Each man a renowned trailblazer in his field. Each man haunted by a sense of isolation and exile. Each man a stranger in his own world:
- Ira Aldridge, nineteenth century British actor and playwright;
- Matthew Henson, the first Black man to reach the North Pole;
- Frantz Fanon, French-Martinican psychiatrist and political philosopher;
- Malcolm X, civil rights activist and leader;
- Justin Fashanu, Britain’s first openly gay professional footballer.
Telling their stories, Eshun pushes the boundaries of genre to capture them in all their complexity, interweaving biography, fiction, historical record, and memoir, sharing his own experiences living as a Black Briton in the art world. The Strangers illuminates both the hostility and the beauty each man encountered in the world, positioning them all within a wider landscape of Black art, culture, history, and politics throughout the diaspora.
- PRE-ORDER: Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art
PRE-ORDER: Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art
Phoebe Hoban
$19.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: November 25, 2025
In less than a decade, Jean-Michel Basquiat went from being a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star. His meteoric rise to fame coincided with the outrageous excess of the heady ’80s art boom. A fixture of the downtown scene, with its explosive mix of music, fashion, art, and drugs, he soon became involved with some of its most celebrated personalities, including Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Madonna.
Basquiat fulfilled that cynical aphorism: Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. But Basquiat did more than that: he left a beautiful corpus. With each passing year, the remarkable energy, perspicacity and originality of his work increases in power.
In a world where Black Lives Matter and the imperative need for diversity are among the driving forces of our time, Basquiat’s success in the 1980s white art world, and his ongoing universal celebrity, have made him a significant role model for generation of artists to come.
From the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, to the East Village art scene, to the art dealers and out-of-control auction houses, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, the definitive biography of the young painter, is a vivid portrait of both the artist and his time.
Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art includes 12-14 photographs.
- Detective Aunty : A Novel
Detective Aunty : A Novel
Uzma Jalaluddin
$17.99After her husband’s unexpected death eighteen months ago, Kausar Khan never thought she’d receive another phone call as heartbreaking—until her thirty-something daughter, Sana, phones to say that she's been arrested for killing the unpopular landlord of her clothing boutique. Determined to help her child, Kausar heads to Toronto for the first time in nearly twenty years.
Returning to the Golden Crescent suburb where she raised her children and where her daughter still lives, Kausar finds that the thriving neighborhood she remembered has changed. The murder of Sana’s landlord is only the latest in a wave of local crimes which have gone unsolved.
And the facts of the case are troubling: Sana found the man dead in her shop at a suspiciously early hour, with a dagger from her windowfront display plunged in his chest. And Kausar—a woman with a keen sense of observation and deep wisdom honed by her years—senses there’s more to the story than her daughter is telling.
With the help of some old friends and her plucky teenage granddaughter, Kausar digs into the investigation to uncover the truth. Because who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty? But even Kausar can’t predict the secrets, lies, and betrayals she finds along the way…
- The Dilemmas of Working Women : Stories
The Dilemmas of Working Women : Stories
Fumio Yamamoto, Brian Bergstrom (Translated by)
$26.99A spiky, edgy collection of five sly yet sensitive stories spotlighting clear-eyed and “difficult” women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan—a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time.
The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto’s darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs. In “Naked,” a woman who’s simultaneously lost her business and her husband finds that it is surprisingly comfortable to stay at home sewing stuffed animals, even if it makes her a “loser” in the eyes of society. In “Planarian,” a young woman recovering from breast cancer tells her friends and boyfriend that she would prefer to be the titular worm to organically regenerate her body. Each of these spiky women—as well as the three other protagonists in this groundbreaking work—chafes against social expectations that equate work with worth and demand women squeeze into the confining and sometimes dehumanizing role of employee in a world built by and for men.
First published in Japan in 2000, The Dilemmas of Working Women struck a nerve with Japanese readers and became a bestselling literary sensation, selling nearly half a million copies and winning the prestigious Naoki Prize in Literature. A quarter of a century later, this brilliant modern classic—available for the first time outside Asia and in English—remains deliciously funny and astonishingly relevant.
Translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom
- Waterline : A Novel
Waterline : A Novel
Aram Mrjoian
$28.00Outside Detroit on the island of Gross Ile, the Kurkjians learn that Mari, the eldest of their youngest generation, has swum into the depths of Lake Michigan—a suicide that reverberates throughout the family and lays bare the deeply rooted pain that is their legacy.
More than a century earlier, Gregor, the Kurkjian’s larger-than-life patriarch, survived the Armenian Genocide after fighting for his freedom atop Musa Dagh. Decades later and miles away, Gregor’s epic mythos looms large over his descendants’ lives. As these Kurkjians contend with Mari’s devastating loss, secrets and shortcomings rise to the surface, forcing each of them to decide where their own story fits in the narrative of the family’s fraught history.
For fans of Tommy Orange’s There, There, Thao Thai’s Banyan Moon, and Jeffrey Eugenides epic Middlesex, Waterline explores the complex, unexpected beauty of diaspora, the weight of inherited trauma, and the echoes of the genocide on contemporary Armenian life. Aram Mrjoian brilliantly creates a searing portrait of a family afloat in grief as it struggles to find the perseverance needed to rise above.
- Dark Thirst
Dark Thirst
Angela Allen
$19.99A haunting anthology of vampire fiction—one that brings a colorful new dimension to one of the world's most erotic and enduring myths.
Featuring stories from some of the most popular African American writers:
Omar Tyree writes about The Old South, which falls prey to a handsome young vampire with a taste for beautiful women—love at first bite never hurt so good.
In Angela C. Allen’s story, the mafia is no match for the wicked charms of a beautiful young vampire once she's let loose on the New York City streets.
Can a pair of fangs help a sister burn more calories? A full-figured woman goes on a thirst-quenching search for the perfect low-carb diet in Monica Jackson’s story.
In Linda Addison’s story, it's a matter of life and the living dead for a half-vampire whose greatest wish is to save lives...and become human again.
Donna Hill writes about a sensuous vampire thirsts for something more...but can she find it without getting a dagger in her own heart?
Kevin S. Brockenbrough’s tale features a vengeful vampire pushes one woman to the edge, though she’s unaware that her family secret gives her the power to fight back.
- Citizens Creek: A Novel
Citizens Creek: A Novel
Lalita Tademy
$25.99The New York Times bestselling author of the Oprah Book Club Pick Cane River brings us the evocative story of a once-enslaved man who buys his freedom after serving as a translator during the American Indian Wars, and his granddaughter, who sustains his legacy of courage.
Cow Tom, born into slavery in Alabama in 1810 and sold to a Creek Indian chief before his tenth birthday, possessed an extraordinary gift: the ability to master languages. As the new country developed westward, and Indians, settlers, and blacks came into constant contact, Cow Tom became a key translator for his Creek master and was hired out to US military generals. His talent earned him money—but would it also grant him freedom? And what would become of him and his family in the aftermath of the Civil War and the Indian Removal westward?
Cow Tom’s legacy lives on—especially in the courageous spirit of his granddaughter Rose. She rises to leadership of the family as they struggle against political and societal hostility intent on keeping blacks and Indians oppressed. But through it all, her grandfather’s indelible mark of courage inspires her—in mind, in spirit, and in a family legacy that never dies.
Written in two parts portraying the parallel lives of Cow Tom and Rose, Citizens Creek is a beautifully rendered novel that takes the reader deep into a little known chapter of American history. It is a breathtaking tale of identity, community, family—and above all, the power of an individual’s will to make a difference.
- Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?: A Fantastical Tale
Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?: A Fantastical Tale
Maryse Condé
$17.00From the winner of the New Academy Prize in Literature (the alternative to the Nobel Prize), critically-acclaimed author Maryse Condé blends magical realism and a true story to create an unforgettable masterpiece.
On one hand, beautiful Celanire—a woman mutilated at birth and left for dead—appears today to be a saint; she is a tireless worker who has turned numerous neglected institutions into schools for motherless children. But she is also a woman apprehended by demons, as death and misfortune seem to follow in her wake. Traveling from Guadeloupe to West Africa to Peru, the mysterious, seductive, and disarming Celanire is driven to uncover the truth of her past at any cost and avenge the crimes committed against her.
With her characteristic blend of magical realism and fantasy, and inspired by a true story, Maryse Condé hauntingly imagines Celanire in an unforgettable novel—a most dazzling addition to the deeply prolific and widely celebrated author’s brilliant body of work.
- Mama Black Widow
Mama Black Widow
Iceberg Slim
$17.99“Iceberg Slim breaks down some of the coldest, capitalist concepts I’ve ever heard in my life.” —Dave Chappelle, from his Netflix special The Bird Revelation
The most gritty and real illustration of the black ghetto ever told, from the only man capable of telling it, Iceberg Slim, bestselling author of Pimp. Iceberg Slim’s story is now depicted in a major motion picture distributed worldwide.
Mama Black Widow tells the tragic story of Otis Tilson, a stunning black drag queen trapped in a cruel queer ghetto underworld. In hopes of escaping the racial bigotry and economic injustice of the South, Otis’ family journeys north from their plantation to an urban promised land. Once in Chicago Otis and his brother and sisters become prisoners to a wasteland of violence, crime, prostitution and rape. This is the gut-wrenching tale of the destruction of a family and the truest portrayal of homosexuality in the ghetto ever told.
- The Angel of Indian Lake (3) (The Indian Lake Trilogy)
The Angel of Indian Lake (3) (The Indian Lake Trilogy)
Stephen Graham Jones
$19.99The “riotously entertaining” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale.
It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront…until Jade comes back to town. The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.
New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of generational trauma from the Indigenous to the townies rooted in the mountains of Idaho. It is the story of the American west written in blood.
- Don't Fear the Reaper (2) (The Indian Lake Trilogy)
Don't Fear the Reaper (2) (The Indian Lake Trilogy)
Stephen Graham Jones
$18.99A Locus Award Finalist
NATIONAL BESTSELLERDecember 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this “superb” (Publishers Weekly) sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.
Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.
Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.
Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.
Don’t Fear the Reaper is the “adrenaline-filled” (Library Journal, starred review) sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.
- Mounted : On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation
Mounted : On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation
Bitter Kalli
$22.00Joining the growing Black creative movement currently refashioning horses and cowboy imagery, a thoughtful, probing exploration of the shared history of Blackness and horses which reveals what its image can teach us about nationhood, race, and culture.
Drawing on their personal history as a former urban equestrian, Black queer person, and child of Jamaican and Filipino immigrants, essayist and art critic Bitter Kalli contends the horse should be regarded as a critical source of power and identity in Black life.
In a series of astute essays, Kalli explores the work of Black artists and influencers from Beyoncé to filmmakers Tiona Nekkia-McClodden and Jeymes Samuel and explores their own life-long relationship to equines. Alternatively playful and critical, meditative and biting, these essays navigate time and place—from the shadows of racetracks where jockey culture and the ubiquity of “equestrian chic” was born, to the reclamation—or, in Lil Nas X’s word, yeehawification—of the image of the cowboy, to the fraught connections of equestrian sport to slavery, US militarization, and European colonial domination. At heart, Kalli probes a central question: What does it mean for Black people to ride and tend horses in the context of a culture that has also used horses against them?
Throughout these essays, Kalli reflects on the experience of being the only Black member of the equestrian team at Columbia University, and how the aesthetics, ethos, and practice of horse stewardship contributed to their understanding of gender, sexuality, and radical community building. Mounted moves beyond the reductive stereotypes that dominate our perceptions of “horse people”—the swaggering masculinity, snooty elitism, and assumed whiteness—to reveal how Black people relate to the image and physical presence of the horse in nature and culture, considering violence, sexualization, power, migration, and more through its image.
- Archive of Unknown Universes : A Novel
Archive of Unknown Universes : A Novel
Ruben Reyes Jr.
$28.00Cambridge, 2018. Ana and Luis’s relationship is on the rocks, despite their many similarities, including their mothers who both fled El Salvador during the war. In her search for answers, and against her best judgement, Ana uses The Defractor, an experimental device that allows users to peek into alternate versions of their lives. What she sees leads her and Luis on a quest through Havana and San Salvador to uncover the family histories they are desperate to know, eager to learn if what might have been could fix what is.
Havana, 1978. The Salvadoran war is brewing, and Neto, a young revolutionary with a knack for forging government papers, meets Rafael at a meeting for the People's Revolutionary Army. The two form an intense and forbidden love, shedding their fake names and revealing themselves to each other inside the covert world of their activism. When their work separates them, they begin to exchange weekly letters, but soon, as the devastating war rages on, forces beyond their control threaten to pull them apart forever.
Ruben Reyes Jr.’s debut novel is an epic, genre-bending journey through inverted worlds—one where war ends with a peace treaty, and one where it ends with a decisive victory by the Salvadoran government. What unfolds is a stunning story of displacement and belonging, of loss and love. It’s both a daring imagining of what might have been and a powerful reckoning of our past.
- Midnight Rooms : A Novel
Midnight Rooms : A Novel
Donyae Coles
$19.99Set in a foreboding Gothic mansion and infused with the heightened paranoia and creeping horror, a spine-chilling debut historical thriller from a fresh voice in the genre that will leave you questioning who, or what, you can trust . . . including your own sanity.
A mysterious suitor. A secluded manor. And a heroine’s quest to uncover the mysteries hidden within its haunted halls.
England, 1840. The orphaned daughter of a white man and a Black woman—an outsider with no fortune or connections—Orabella Mumthrope never expected to marry, until Elias Blakersby, the scion of a fabulously wealthy family, arrives at her uncle’s home, declaring a deep desire to make Orabella his wife.
The new bride is quickly whisked away to Korringhill Manor, the Blakersby family estate where she is shocked to find decay, skittish servants, and curt elders. Despite Elias’s assurances, Orabella becomes increasingly unsettled. There is a darkness deep within this house. Rooms are kept locked or hidden away, and the walls seem to thrum with secrets. Orabella has little freedom, and soon, the darkness begins to engulf her, too. She suffers fitful sleep filled with macabre dreams, is awakened by blood-curdling screams, and rises from her bed covered in mysterious bruises.
Confused and terrified, she begins to question where her dreams end and reality begins. The longer Orabella stays in this place, the more she loses parts of herself. . . . How long until she no longer exists?
- I Can't Even Think Straight
I Can't Even Think Straight
Dean Atta
$19.99From the Stonewall Award–winning author of The Black Flamingo comes a new novel in verse, in which a biracial young man confronts issues of race, class, and sexuality.
Kai knows who he is to others: the reliable grandson, the best friend, the romantic backup. But he doesn’t quite know who he is to himself.
Though Kai desperately wants to come out at school, he keeps himself closeted. His best school friend, Matt, who is also queer, is afraid of getting kicked out by his religious parents if they knew—so he stays closeted and asks Kai to do the same. Kai unhappily goes along with it, but when a rumor goes around that Kai and Matt are together, Matt starts acting differently toward Kai anyway.
Kai’s other best friend, Vass, is nonbinary and doesn’t care who knows it. Vass feels that Matt is a negative influence, putting a damper on Kai’s identity—but maybe that’s just Vass’s crush on Kai talking. Caught between his best friends, Kai turns to writing to express his emotions. But when he explodes, he puts everything at risk.
- The Road to the Salt Sea : A Novel
The Road to the Salt Sea : A Novel
Samuel Kolawole
$18.99A searing exploration of the global migration crisis that moves from Nigeria to Libya to Italy, from an exciting new literary voice.
Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel, where he must flash a smile for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel’s overprivileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and the game of chess.
But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dan- gerous hotel guest. Caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself—a journey that leads him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by charismatic religious leader Ben Ten. The travelers’ dream of reaching Europe—and a new life—shatters when they fall prey to human traffickers and find them- selves fighting for their freedom.
As Able God moves into the treacherous unknown, the foundations of his beliefs are forever altered. Suspenseful, incisive, and illuminating, The Road to the Salt Sea is a story of family, fate, religion, survival, and what often happens to those who seek their fortunes elsewhere.
- Kinning (Everfair, 2)
Kinning (Everfair, 2)
Nisi Shawl
$18.99Named a Best Fantasy and Sci-Fi Book of The Year by Elle!
Nominated for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel!
Kinning, the sequel to Nisi Shawl’s acclaimed debut novel Everfair, continues the stunning alternate history where barkcloth airships soar through the sky, varied peoples build a new society together, and colonies claim their freedom from imperialist tyrants.
The Great War is over. Everfair has found peace within its borders. But our heroes’ stories are far from done.
Tink and his sister Bee-Lung are traveling the world via aircanoe, spreading the spores of a mysterious empathy-generating fungus. Through these spores, they seek to build bonds between people and help spread revolutionary sentiments of socialism and equality―the very ideals that led to Everfair’s founding.
Meanwhile, Everfair’s Princess Mwadi and Prince Ilunga return home from a sojourn in Egypt to vie for their country’s rule following the abdication of their father King Mwenda. But their mother, Queen Josina, manipulates them both from behind the scenes, while also pitting Europe’s influenza-weakened political powers against one another as these countries fight to regain control of their rebellious colonies.
Will Everfair continue to serve as a symbol of hope, freedom, and equality to anticolonial movements around the world, or will it fall to forces inside and out?
- Immortal Longings (1) (Flesh & False Gods)
Immortal Longings (1) (Flesh & False Gods)
Chloe Gong
$28.99A NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Chloe Gong’s adult epic fantasy debut, inspired by Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, is a “smart, imaginative, and brutal” (Wesley Chu, New York Times bestselling author of The War Arts Saga) collision of power plays, spilled blood, and romance amidst a set of deadly games.
Every year, thousands in the kingdom of Talin flock to its capital twin cities, San-Er, where the palace hosts a set of games. For those confident enough in their ability to jump between bodies, competitors across San-Er fight to the death to win unimaginable riches.
Princess Calla Tuoleimi lurks in hiding. Five years ago, a massacre killed her parents and left the palace of Er empty…and she was the one who did it. Before King Kasa’s forces in San can catch her, she plans to finish the job and bring down the monarchy. Her reclusive uncle always greets the victor of the games, so if she wins, she finally gets her opportunity to kill him.
Enter Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat. His childhood love has lain in a coma since they were both ousted from the palace, and he’s deep in debt trying to keep her alive. Thankfully, he’s one of the best jumpers in the kingdom, flitting from body to body at will. His last chance at saving her is entering the games and winning.
Calla finds both an unexpected alliance with Anton and help from King Kasa’s adopted son, August, who wants to mend Talin’s ills. But the three of them have very different goals, even as Calla and Anton’s partnership spirals into something all-consuming. Before the games close, Calla must decide what she’s playing for—her lover or her kingdom.
- I'll Never Write My Memoirs
I'll Never Write My Memoirs
Grace Jones
$19.99Iconic music and film legend Grace Jones gives an in-depth account of her stellar career, professional and personal life, and the signature look that catapulted her into the stardom stratosphere.
Grace Jones, a veritable “triple-threat” as acclaimed actress, singer, and model, has dominated the entertainment industry since her emergence as a model in New York City in 1968. Quickly discovered for her obvious talent and cutting-edge style, Grace signed her first record deal in 1977 and became one of the more unforgettable characters to emerge from the Studio 54 disco scene, releasing the all-time favorite hits, “Pull Up to the Bumper,” “Slave to the Rhythm,” and “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You).” And with her sexually charged, outrageous live shows in the New York City nightclub circuit, Grace soon earned the title of “Queen of the Gay Discos.”
But with the dawn of the ’80s came a massive anti-disco movement across the US, leading Grace to focus on experimental-based work and put her two-and-a-half-octave voice to good use. It was also around this time that she changed her look to suit the times with a detached, androgynous image. In this first-ever memoir, Grace gives an exclusive look into the transformation to her signature style and discusses how she expanded her musical triumph to success in the acting world, beginning in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, and later in Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang.
Featuring sixteen pages of stunning full-color photographs, Miss Grace Jones takes us on a journey from Grace’s religious upbringing in Jamaica to her heyday in Paris and New York in the ’70s and ’80s, all the way to present-day London, in what promises to be a no holds barred tell-all for the ages.
- Invisible Men: A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration
Invisible Men: A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration
Flores A. Forbes
$22.99Winner of the 2017 American Book Award
Flores Forbes, a former leader in the Black Panther Party, has been free from prison for twenty-five years. Unfortunately that makes him part of a group of black men without constituency who are all but invisible in society. That is, the invisible” group of black men in America who have served their time and not gone back to prison.
Today the recidivism rate is around 65%. Almost never mentioned in the media or scholarly attention is the plight of the 35% who don’t go back, especially black men. A few of them are hiding in Ivy League schools’ prison education programsthey don’t want to be knownbut most of them are recruited by the one billion dollar industry reentry employee programs that allow the US to profit from their life and labor. Whereas, African Americans consist of only 12% of the population in the US, black males are incarcerated at much higher rates. The chances of these formerly convicted men to succeed after prisonto matriculate as leading members of societyare increasingly slim. The doors are closed to them.
Invisible Men is a book that will crack the code on the stigma of incarceration. When Flores Forbes was released from prison, he made a plan to re-invent himself but found it impossible. His involvement in a plan to kill a witness who was testifying against Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, had led to his incarceration. While in prison he earned a college degree using a Pell Grant, with hope this would get him on the right track and a chance at a normal life. He was released but that’s where his story and most invisible men’s stories begin.
This book will weave Flores’ knowledge, wisdom, and experience with incarceration, sentencing reform, judicial inequity, hiding and re-entry into society, and the issue of increasing struggles and inequality for formerly incarcerated men into a collection of poignant essays that finally give invisible men a voice and face in society.
- My Bondage and My Freedom: The Givens Collection
My Bondage and My Freedom: The Givens Collection
Frederick Douglass
$26.95My Bondage and My Freedom is the second of three published autobiographies from one of the most brilliant and eloquent abolitionists and human rights activists in American history. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was published ten years before in 1845, while The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was published twenty-five years later.
- All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (One World Essentials)
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (One World Essentials)
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
$20.00NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.
“A powerful read that fills one with, dare I say . . . hope?”—The New York Times
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINEThere is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society.
Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, this collection is a celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save.With essays and poems by:
Emily Atkin • Xiye Bastida • Ellen Bass • Colette Pichon Battle • Jainey K. Bavishi • Janine Benyus • adrienne maree brown • Régine Clément • Abigail Dillen • Camille T. Dungy • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Joy Harjo • Katharine Hayhoe • Mary Annaïse Heglar • Jane Hirshfield • Mary Anne Hitt • Ailish Hopper • Tara Houska, Zhaabowekwe • Emily N. Johnston • Joan Naviyuk Kane • Naomi Klein • Kate Knuth • Ada Limón • Louise Maher-Johnson • Kate Marvel • Gina McCarthy • Anne Haven McDonnell • Sarah Miller • Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset • Susanne C. Moser • Lynna Odel • Sharon Olds • Mary Oliver • Kate Orff • Jacqui Patterson • Leah Penniman • Catherine Pierce • Marge Piercy • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Varshini • Prakash • Janisse Ray • Christine E. Nieves Rodriguez • Favianna Rodriguez • Cameron Russell • Ash Sanders • Judith D. Schwartz • Patricia Smith • Emily Stengel • Sarah Stillman • Leah Cardamore Stokes • Amanda Sturgeon • Maggie Thomas • Heather McTeer Toney • Alexandria Villaseñor • Alice Walker • Amy Westervelt • Jane Zelikova
- Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized
Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized
Alan Henry
$26.00The real tools for career success and work satisfaction for anyone feeling undermined or marginalized at their job, from a productivity expert and editor at Wired.
“Alan Henry doesn’t just illuminate the invisible barriers that often stand in the way of success—he shines a light on what you can do to break through them.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
For over twenty years, Alan Henry has written about using technology and productivity techniques to work and live better for publications such as Lifehacker, The New York Times, and Wired.But he found that as a Black man he didn’t have access to some of the more powerful ways to hack your job—like only checking email once a day or blocking out time on your calendar to do deep work. In fact, he found that even when he landed a prestigious title at the Times, there were moments when he was still overlooked and excluded from the most interesting and career-boosting work.
This led him to first explore these struggles in a Times piece titled “Productivity Without Privilege.” Now he goes even deeper, interviewing experts across multiple fields to come up with powerful tools to overcome the forces of marginalization. In Seen, Heard, and Paid, Henry shares the new work rules that may finally allow people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ folks to have the same access to career advancement and rewarding work as those with more privilege, including:
How to Be Seen: Only spend time on work that gets you attention.
How to Be Heard: Figure out your unique contribution.
How to Get Paid: Data is power and power is money.
Whether you’re dealing with microaggressions, trying to get the glamour work instead of the office housework, weighing the pluses and minuses of working remotely, or deciding it’s time to look for a new opportunity, Seen, Heard, and Paid will help you feel informed, supported, and empowered. - The Record Keeper
The Record Keeper
Agnes Gomillion
$14.95"The Record Keeper is empathy through fiction."
- Actor, Comedian and Film Producer Wayne Brady on The Record Keeper which he plans to bring to the Silver Screen.
The Record Keeper is a visceral and thrilling near-future dystopia examining past and present race relations.After World War III, Earth is in ruins, and the final armies have come to a reluctant truce. Everyone must obey the law--in every way--or risk shattering the fragile peace and endangering the entire human race.
Arika Cobane is on the threshold of taking her place of privilege as a member of the Kongo elite after ten grueling years of training. But everything changes when a new student arrives speaking dangerous words of treason: What does peace matter if innocent lives are lost to maintain it? As Arika is exposed to new beliefs, she realizes that the laws she has dedicated herself to uphold are the root of her people's misery. If Arika is to liberate her people, she must unearth her fierce heart and discover the true meaning of freedom: finding the courage to live--or die--without fear.
- A Lucky Man: Stories
A Lucky Man: Stories
Jamel Brinkley
$17.00FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
In the nine expansive, searching stories of A Lucky Man, fathers and sons attempt to salvage relationships with friends and family members and confront mistakes made in the past. An imaginative young boy from the Bronx goes swimming with his group from day camp at a backyard pool in the suburbs, and faces the effects of power and privilege in ways he can barely grasp. A teen intent on proving himself a man through the all-night revel of J’Ouvert can’t help but look out for his impressionable younger brother. A pair of college boys on the prowl follow two girls home from a party and have to own the uncomfortable truth of their desires. And at a capoeira conference, two brothers grapple with how to tell the story of their family, caught in the dance of their painful, fractured history.
Jamel Brinkley’s stories, in a debut that announces the arrival of a significant new voice, reflect the tenderness and vulnerability of black men and boys whose hopes sometimes betray them, especially in a world shaped by race, gender, and class―where luck may be the greatest fiction of all.
- Before the Dawn
Before the Dawn
Beverly Jenkins
$8.99Leah Barnett can't believe how far fate has carried her: from Boston to the towering Colorado Rockies...and into the life of an angry, ruggedly sexy man. Ryder Damien is not about to welcome this beauty with open arms, however, especially since Leah was the one who won the affection of Ryder's late father and now may inherit his considerable wealth. But when she stands before him in the flesh—proud, vulnerable, and intoxicatingly lovely—desire replaces hatred in Ryder's heart. Yet can passion survive this wild land and its dangerous men...and the most breathtaking peril: untamed love?
- Women of the Post: A Historical Novel Based on the True Story of the 6888th―the Only All-Black, All-Female Army Battalion to Serve in Europe in WWII
Women of the Post: A Historical Novel Based on the True Story of the 6888th―the Only All-Black, All-Female Army Battalion to Serve in Europe in WWII
Joshunda Sanders
$18.99"This is a novel to cherish and share. And this is a history to sing about and affirm -- to proclaim.”
— Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times Bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, an Oprah Book Club NovelInspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black 6888th Battalion during World War II, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship.
1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses for next to nothing. She dreams of a bigger life, but with her husband fighting overseas, it’s up to her and her mother to earn enough for food and rent. When she’s recruited to join the Women’s Army Corps—offering a steady paycheck and the chance to see the world—Judy jumps at the opportunity.
During training, Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit—Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce—who all come from different cities and circumstances. Under Second Officer Charity Adams's leadership, they receive orders to sort over one million pieces of mail in England, becoming the only unit of Black women to serve overseas during WWII.
The women work diligently, knowing that they're reuniting soldiers with their loved ones through their letters. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy. Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship and self-discovery.
"A moving and compelling tribute to the lives and legacy of Black women in the American military during World War II that feels especially poignant in this moment." — The Boston Globe
- Wild Women and the Blues: A Fascinating and Innovative Novel of Historical Fiction
Wild Women and the Blues: A Fascinating and Innovative Novel of Historical Fiction
Denny S. Bryce
$15.95"Perfect for fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo...a dazzling depiction of passion, prohibition, and murder.“ —Shelf Awareness
“Ambitious and stunning.” —Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author
"Vibrant…A highly entertaining read!” —Ellen Marie Wiseman New York Times Bestselling author of THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR
“The music practically pours out of the pages of Denny S. Bryce's historical novel, set among the artists and dreamers of the 1920s.” —OprahMag.com
Goodreads Debut Novel to Discover & Biggest Upcoming Historical Fiction Books
Oprah Magazine, Parade, Ms. Magazine, SheReads, Bustle, BookBub, Frolic, & BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Books
Marie Claire & Black Business Guide’s Books By Black Writers to Read
TODAY & Buzzfeed Books for Bridgerton Fans
SheReads Most Anticipated BIPOC Winter Releases 2021
Palm Beach Post Books for Your 2021 Reading ListIn a stirring and impeccably researched novel of Jazz-age Chicago in all its vibrant life, two stories intertwine nearly a hundred years apart, as a chorus girl and a film student deal with loss, forgiveness, and love…in all its joy, sadness, and imperfections.
“Why would I talk to you about my life? I don't know you, and even if I did, I don't tell my story to just any boy with long hair, who probably smokes weed.You wanna hear about me. You gotta tell me something about you. To make this worth my while.”
1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.
2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right—if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting...
Piece by piece, Honoree reveals her past and her secrets, while Sawyer fights tooth and nail to keep his. It’s a story of courage and ambition, hot jazz and illicit passions. And as past meets present, for Honoree, it’s a final chance to be truly heard and seen before it’s too late. No matter the cost...
“Immersive, mysterious and evocative; factual in its history and nuanced in its creativity.” —Ms. Magazine
“Perfect…Denny S. Bryce is a superstar!” —Julia Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series
“Evocative and entertaining!” —Laura Kamoie, New York Times bestselling author
“Wild Women and the Blues deftly delivers what historical fiction has been missing.” —Farrah Rochon USA Todaybestselling author
- Let Us March On: An Unforgettable Historical Novel with a Timely Social Justice Theme, Perfect for Winter 2025, Be Inspired by Lizzie McDuffie's Courage and Tenacity!
Let Us March On: An Unforgettable Historical Novel with a Timely Social Justice Theme, Perfect for Winter 2025, Be Inspired by Lizzie McDuffie's Courage and Tenacity!
Shara Moon
$18.99Devoted wife, White House maid, reluctant activist…
A stirring novel inspired by the life of an unsung heroine, and real-life crusader, Lizzie McDuffie, who as a maid in FDR’s White House spearheaded the Civil Rights movement of her time.
I’m just a college-educated Southerner with a passion for books. My husband says I’m too bold, too sharp, too unrelenting. Others say I helped spearhead the Civil Rights movement of our time. President Roosevelt says I’m too spunky and spirited for my own good.
Who am I?
I am Elizabeth “Lizzie” McDuffie.
And this is my story…
When Lizzie McDuffie, maid to Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, boldly proclaimed herself FDR’s “Secretary-On-Colored-People’s-Affairs,” she became more than just a maid—she became the President’s eyes and ears into the Black community. After joining the White House to work alongside her husband, FDR’s personal valet, Lizzie managed to become completely indispensable to the Roosevelt family. Never shy about pointing out injustices, she advocated for the needs and rights of her fellow African Americans when those in the White House blocked access to the President.
Following the life of Lizzie McDuffie throughout her time in the White House as she championed the rights of everyday Americans and provided access to the most powerful man in the country, Let Us March On looks at the unsung and courageous crusader who is finally getting the recognition she so richly deserves.
- Eight Men: Short Stories
Eight Men: Short Stories
Richard Wright
$17.00“[Wright’s] landscape was not merely that of the Deep South, or of Chicago, but that of the world, of the human heart.” —James Baldwin
In these powerful stories, literary giant Richard Wright probes the landscape of the human heart and soul with deep compassion and biting clarity.
Each of the short works in Eight Men focuses on a Black man at violent odds with a white world, reflecting Wright's views about racism in our society and his fascination with what he called "the struggle of the individual in America." Wrenching and indelible, these stories will captivate all those who loved Black Boy and Native Son.
- The Old Drift: A Novel
The Old Drift: A Novel
Namwali Serpell
$18.00“A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage.”—Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Book Review
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Dwight Garner, The New York Times • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Atlantic • BuzzFeed • Tordotcom • Kirkus Reviews • BookPageWINNER: The Arthur C. Clarke Award • The Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award • The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction • The Windham-Campbell Prizes for Fiction
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives—their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes—emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines, this gripping, unforgettable novel is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize • Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize“An intimate, brainy, gleaming epic . . . This is a dazzling book, as ambitious as any first novel published this decade.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“A founding epic in the vein of Virgil’s Aeneid . . . thoughin its sprawling size, its flavor of picaresque comedy and its fusion of family lore with national politics it more resembles Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A story that intertwines strangers into families, which we'll follow for a century, magic into everyday moments, and the story of a nation, Zambia.”—NPR - The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, 1)
The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, 1)
Tasha Suri
$19.99WINNER OF THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, LIBRARY JOURNAL, BOOKLIST, AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
A ruthless princess and a powerful priestess come together to rewrite the fate of an empire in this “fiercely and unapologetically feminist tale of endurance and revolution set against a gorgeous, unique magical world” (S. A. Chakraborty, author of the The City of Brass).
Exiled by her despotic brother, princess Malini spends her days dreaming of vengeance while imprisoned in the Hirana: an ancient cliffside temple that was once the revered source of the magical deathless waters but is now little more than a decaying ruin.
The secrets of the Hirana call to Priya. But in order to keep the truth of her past safely hidden, she works as a servant in the loathed regent’s household and cleaning Malini’s chambers.
When Malini witnesses Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a ruthless princess seeking to steal a throne. The other a powerful priestess desperate to save her family. Together, they will set an empire ablaze.Praise for The Jasmine Throne:
"Suri’s writing always brings me to another world; one full of wonders and terrors, where every detail feels intricately and carefully imagined." —R. F. Kuang, author of Babel
"Raises the bar for what epic fantasy should be." —Chloe Gong, author of These Violent Delights
"An intimate, complex, magical study of empire and the people caught in its bloody teeth. I loved it.” —Alix E. Harrow, author of The Once and Future Witches
"Suri’s incandescent feminist masterpiece hits like a steel fist inside a velvet glove. Simply magnificent." —Shelley Parker-Chan, author of She Who Became the Sun
"A fierce, heart-wrenching exploration of the value and danger of love in a world of politics and power." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Lush and stunning....Inspired by Indian epics, this sapphic fantasy will rip your heart out." —BuzzFeed News
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