The inspiring memoir of a brilliant young man who, sentenced to life in prison, refused to surrender his future—a story so powerful that it transformed even the judge who handed down the sentence.
 
If our world were more just, Chris Young would have been crossing a stage at college graduation at the age of 22. Instead, he was marched into a maximum-security federal prison, facing life under mandatory drug sentencing laws. Like far too many young Black men from his neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, this was where his story was supposed to end.
 
But one day in the prison library, a book caught his eye: an encyclopedia. As he began to turn the pages, Chris felt himself transported. Knowledge became a portal. He began to confront the nihilism around him, the trauma of his past, and the cruelty of a system determined to confine him. From the library, his cell, and even solitary confinement, Chris built an education from scratch, studying philosophy, art, anthropology, history, physics, and politics. He learned to analyze the stock market and taught himself how to code without a computer. He trained his mind—and refused to let prison dictate the limits of his imagination. At his sentencing hearing, Chris gave such a moving speech that the judge resigned from his lifetime appointment to the bench and fought to free him.
 
Started in solitary confinement and finished beyond bars, The Wound Is Where the Light Enters is a powerful meditation on choice, consequence, and human potential, told through the story of a man who was never given a chance—and who fought until, at last, he was.

A profound and poetic memoir, tracing the wounds that racism and colonialism have left on Black people across borders. 

With astute insight and immersive prose, Bonhomme outlines a personal and political history of life in the United States, Haiti, and Germany, discovering what it means to be Black at home and abroad. She unlearns the lies that she was told about slavery and colonialism and explores how communities are resisting the weight of centuries of history.

Whether examining debt, medical racism, art, or reparations, Tending to Our Wounds cuts a breathtaking course between the past and the present, the individual and the collective―identifying the tendrils of history in the everyday and outlining a path to real freedom.

“Mahalia Jackson was the greatest gospel singer of her time and an overlooked leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Her voice seemed born of heaven.” ?Henry Louis Gates Jr.

If Americans today still recognize the name Mahalia Jackson, they might recall that she was perhaps the greatest gospel singer who ever lived. But for many people, there is no awareness at all, not even for an entertainer whose “Move On Up a Little Higher” sold eight million copies, who headlined two Newport Jazz Festivals and performed before four United States presidents.

While this rich musical legacy is admired by those in the know, virtually no one recognizes Jackson’s astonishing role in American civil rights history. In this startling new depiction of the renowned gospel singer, New York Times best-selling author Timothy B. Tyson and Mary D. Williams, an acclaimed gospel singer herself, bring Jackson back to soaring life by positioning her as the major civil rights figure she, in fact, was.

Mahlia Jackson, Moving On Up a Little Higher then traces Jackson’s career from abject poverty in New Orleans to global superstardom, revealing how even after meteoric success, Jackson maintained an unwavering devotion to Black freedom. In the 1930s in Chicago, even before the Civil Rights Movement took its modern shape, she used her rapturous voice to support independent Black political power. Her work only intensified in the 1940s and beyond when she campaigned first for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later for Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson; headlined in Montgomery for the 1955–56 bus boycott; sang for the Birmingham campaign and on the Selma March; and performed at the iconic 1963 March on Washington, where she urged Martin Luther King Jr. to “Tell ’em about the dream.” In retrospect what becomes historically significant is that Mahalia Jackson was present at so many civil rights events, even singing a divine rendition of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” at Dr. King’s funeral in 1968. Weakened and worn, she succumbed to heart failure four years later at the age of sixty.

Weaving together Mahalia Jackson’s inspiring life journey with her soulful music into a transcendent text, this biography ultimately casts Mahalia Jackson as we’ve never seen her before, as a guiding light for the Civil Rights Movement, whose message still speaks to our struggles today.

5 illustrations

From one of the most electric and consequential figures to emerge from the contemporary American labor movement, the remarkable story of his battle to create the first Amazon union in the U.S. and a powerful call to arms on behalf of the working class

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, warehouse worker Chris Smalls and his colleagues continued showing up as the rest of the world was shutting down. A dedicated and experienced Amazon employee, increasingly frustrated by the inner workings of the retail giant, Smalls had already felt himself reaching a breaking point. So, when coworkers around him began falling ill, and with no transparency or assurances of safety coming from those in charge, he made the only choice left available to him. He staged a walkout with friend Derrick Palmer, eventually finding himself on the picket line without a job. But what began as a demand to keep essential employees safe in a crisis would grow into a movement devoted to achieving dignity and security for the American wage worker, sparking a groundswell of organizers at the most notable companies across the nation—including Starbucks, Trader Joe's, and Apple—and leading to lasting change for labor.

When the Revolution Comes is the riveting inside story of how a young Black man from Hackensack, NJ with little-to-no resources led a scrappy band of Staten Island warehouse workers in an improbable fight against Amazon, the second largest private employer in the U.S., and won. This epic David-and-Goliath tale traces Smalls’ dramatic story, from a childhood spent navigating his dad’s stints in and out of prison to his early pursuits of a career in music; from his years of sacrifice and economic uncertainty as a father of three, fighting a miasma of warehouse managerial politics in an effort to make ends meet, to his ascension as the leader of a new generation’s labor movement. Along the way, he details lessons learned from a life spent working paycheck-to-paycheck, advocating for those around him, and persevering in the face of adversity, and shares how those lessons helped him build the coalition that became the first-ever union of American Amazon workers.

A deeply personal and eye-opening account of the creation of the Amazon Labor Union, When the Revolution Comes is both a searing exposé of what it’s like to be working class in America today as well as the empowering story of what is possible when the overworked, underpaid, and disempowered join together, a movement born in community.

The creator of the viral TikTok series “Who TF Did I Marry?” shares an even more unfiltered account of how she reclaimed herself, fought through toxic relationships, and regained her foundation through healing and deep self-reflection.

When Tareasa “Reesa Teesa” Johnson decided to disclose the full details of her turbulent marriage in a 50-part TikTok series, from first meeting to the finality of divorce, she hoped it would help at least one person from making similar mistakes. In a flash "Who TF Did I Marry?" went global, becoming a movement. Millions around the world were enraptured and identified with Tareasa's story, ultimately sharing their own experiences of heartbreak and deceit.

While “Who TF Did I Marry?” questioned the relationship, What (TF) Do I Do Now? probes deeper, asking “Where did I lose myself?” Through reflection, acceptance, and humor, Tareasa unravels even more details of what caused her to stay in a partnership where familiarity became too comfortable, and loneliness was a scarier proposition than owning her solitude. Tareasa’s indelible voice and keen perspective shares new, engrossing stories and practical insights as she regains her footing and her faith in herself, offering readers the chance to do the same.

Probing, personal, and incredibly relatable, What (TF) Do I Do Now? isn’t a self-help guide, but an empowering conversation with the reader, illuminating the courage it takes to trust yourself because healing is on the other side of pain.

In this inspiring memoir, a Black woman pilot leading the way for other aviatrixes shares her journey of fulfilling a lifelong dream to fly—and how she rediscovered her passion in the face of tragedy and adversity.

Before being cleared for takeoff, Captain Nia Gilliam witnesses the World Trade Center attacks from the co-pilot’s seat on the runway of Newark Airport. Struggling with the harrowing sights unfolding before her, she finds the composure to take off as smoke billows from the Twin Towers. In a moment that changed everything, for her and the world, Gilliam's dedication to the skies is forever shaken and she resolves to never fly again.

Now, Gilliam traces her path to the pilot’s seat, from the moment her mother showed her an article of Black aviation pioneer Bessie Coleman to the day she ditched school to pay her respects at the funeral of Janet Harmon Bragg, the first Black woman to earn a commercial pilot’s license, where she ultimately met her future mentor. Alongside the grit and determination to work towards her dream, Gilliam captures the challenges, both personal and societal, and triumphs of earning her spot in the pilot’s seat. But just as Gilliam’s life begins to soar, the aftermath of 9/11 thrusts her into a moment of unforeseen decisions. As she finds the fortitude to stand strong after a national tragedy, she confronts bias as the first pregnant pilot at her airline, fights to overcome postpartum depression, and navigates a career transition that would take her away from the life she’d worked so hard for.

Cleared for Takeoff is a deeply affecting story, tracing Gilliam’s roots to navigating a male-dominated industry and illuminating one woman’s unwavering faith in herself.

The autobiography of a Black woman who defied nineteenth-century conventions to become a preacher, popular speaker, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist. 

Sojourner Truth was an incredible, remarkable, epoch-defying woman who escaped from slavery and successfully sued for her son’s freedom, in addition to her career as a wildly successful orator and activist—a woman alive to the hypocrisies of her age, and unafraid to talk about them.

Her autobiography, which she dictated, is an outstanding historical document. Truth’s tale sheds a light on realities of slavery that are still rarely discussed: that she was a slave in upstate New York, not on a Southern plantation; that Dutch was her first language; that the circumstances of her slavery isolated her from a broader Black community; that her experience of religion was a racially integrated one, and became the means of her independence. Ultimately, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is the story of a great American that reveals aspects of slavery and free Black life that are too often overlooked.

The soul-stirring intersectional biography of the most famous Islamic woman scholar working today, from the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist author of If the Oceans Were Ink and Home, Land, Security.

“A testament to what it means to labor for justice from inside a faith tradition—to love it enough to transform it . . . The Lady Imam is right on time to ignite our courage.”—Valarie Kaur, bestselling author of See No Stranger and Sage Warrior

A feminist scholar-activist, single mother of five, and queer advocate, amina wadud has led a struggle against Islam’s patriarchal establishment that’s been felt keenly all over the world. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X before her, wadud has mobilized faith’s potential as an engine of equality. Yet this American trail-blazer’s story has never been told in book form—until now.

Born Mary Teasley, the daughter of a Methodist preacher, wadud grew up in Maryland with a rare vantage on socioeconomic divides, living through poverty and her sister’s death from an illegal abortion. A gifted student, teenage wadud was sent to live with affluent white families in Weston, Massachusetts. After cross-country hitchhiking and a stint in a Buddhist ashram, she converted to Islam as a twenty-year-old Ivy League student.

wadud devoted her life to studying the Qur’an and challenged centuries of patriarchal interpretations, finding in it equality for all. In Manhattan in 2005, she became the world’s most famous—and infamous—Islamic scholar when she became the first woman in 1400 years to lead men and women together in public Friday prayers.

The Lady Imam chronicles the life of a singular figure not only in Islam, but also in feminism, Black history, and gender studies. With unprecedented access through years of interviews and archival research, Carla Power has written the definitive account of wadud's extraordinary life while shedding light on our deepest questions about faith, family, and social justice.

A dazzlingly inventive account of kinship and dispossession by a two-time Minnesota Book Award–winning author

In his first work of nonfiction, poet chaun webster blends memoir, archival research, visual poetics, and cultural criticism to trace the ways structural anti-Black violence has shaped his inheritance, and grapples with the question of how to know―and mourn―the kin he was never able to meet.

webster is particularly drawn to his grandfather Reginald, who worked for years as a Pullman porter, who was denied rest while his labor enabled rest for others, and who died without receiving a pension before webster was born. Returning to the figures of Reginald and the train, webster explores the relationship between comportment and confinement, speaking in tongues in the Pentecostal church, the ancestral meeting place of dreams, his fraught relationship with his mother, and moments with his own child. Throughout, webster also reflects on nonbiological kinship, tethering his and his predecessors’ lives to those of several historical Black figures―Harriet Jacobs, John Henry, Henry “Box” Brown, and Henry Dumas, a writer who was killed by New York City police while riding the subway.

Attempting to exhaust the possibilities of the sentence and the grammar of anti-Blackness, webster riffs and rails on the debris within reach. Part elegy, part archival detective story, and part visual poem, Without Terminus is a philosophically rigorous and deeply moving text that takes us beyond the archive of loss.

“All my blessings are the blessings of community.”
―Octavia Spencer

“Give them their flowers while you can” is something Octavia Spencer’s mother often told her, and now, it’s how she lives.
In this captivating memoir, the Oscar-winning actor and producer recounts the seeds of the relationships that grew into the story of her life, from her tender teenage connection with Whoopi Goldberg to her sustaining friendships with Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Allison Janney, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, and the many talented, inspiring women whose love and advice have helped her become the woman she is today.
Octavia drove to Los Angeles at twenty-six in search of a career. What she found was her chosen family, and together they built the world in which this book is set: a place where women support one another and the voices of history’s heroines ring aloud.
Give Them Their Flowers is a love letter to female friendship. It is a call to follow your personal passions, create community, and persevere. This is Octavia’s ode to all the women who wake up early to get it done: the mentors, the mothers, and the mother figures, the aunties and the godmothers, the creators, the visionaries, and the best friends.
“Men have given me jobs,” Octavia says. “Women are the reason the world knows who I am.”

Both an epic history and an intimate family story, a startling account of the lives of Black cops in one Midwestern city.

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, a Black police organization in Cleveland called the Black Shield was causing a stir. Officers broke ranks with their fellow cops, aligning themselves with local Black Lives Matter activists and supporting demands for radical reforms. In the midst of these fissures, Wilbert L. Cooper returned to his hometown to write a profile of the organization's president, who had become notorious years earlier for shooting a young unarmed Black man.

For Cooper, the news was deeply personal. Both of his parents are retired Black Cleveland cops, his sister was a Cleveland cop, and on his mother's side, there’s been a Cleveland cop in the family since 1950. Unearthing the dramatic histories of the Black Shield and his own family, Cooper tells the intertwined stories of the two: his relatives, who trace their roots back to the Great Migration and who chose policing because it was one of the few stepping stones to economic security and status in a segregated city; and an organization that, over decades of cultural and political upheaval, cycled endlessly between rebellion and acquiescence.

An intimate, bold work of literary nonfiction, The Black Shield is an urgent exploration of the complex duality of the Black cop. Cooper grapples with a knot of contradictions: Is the Black officer a sign of progressive change, or of the system’s masterful way of changing its appearance without changing its outcomes? How can he reconcile the fact that policing helped lift his family out of poverty, and the equally real panic that accompanies being pulled over? Fearless and singularly powerful, Cooper gives us an American story about race and power of a kind that has never been told before.

From Beatrice Dixon, founder of The Honey Pot Company, comes an inspiring memoir about overcoming adversity—personally and professionally—by trusting her intuition and following what she calls her “soul instinct” to build the life of her dreams.

Beatrice Dixon, cofounder and CEO of The Honey Pot Company, shares the powerful story of how trusting her dreams—and her inner voice—led her to build a groundbreaking well­ness brand and transform her life. The Honey Pot Company was born from a literal dream, in which Dixon’s late grandmother shared a recipe for an herbal remedy. When Dixon woke up, she went to her kitchen and formulated what would become the brand’s first product.

But Dixon’s story didn’t start—or stop—there. From being born prematurely without a nose or a forehead to navigating a scrappy adolescence, and pitching a vaginal wellness brand to rooms full of male investors, her journey has been anything but conventional. Through it all, she relied on her “soul instinct” to guide her.

Part memoir, part self-help book, The Soul Instinct is a raw, motivating look at the power of inner wisdom from one of the most influential voices in wellness today—and one of the few Black women to raise significant venture and private equity capital. Dixon imparts the lessons she’s learned throughout her life, including:

* How you must get lost to find your way
* There’s nothing to be ashamed of
* When you don’t know how, do it anyway
* Choose you
* Excellence is the baseline in everything you do
* How to build community in a crisis
* The importance of nurturing your soul

Fascinating, candid, and funny, The Soul Instinct will inspire readers to tap into their intuition and own their story. “The journey is in the seeking.”

A long-forgotten Black abolitionist who liberated captive workers by the wagonload, brilliantly satirized slaveholders, and gave the underground railroad its name.

Thomas Smallwood was a shoemaker by day and an organizer of mass escapes from slavery by night. Twelve years after purchasing his freedom from slavery, Smallwood took to the press and, over a 16-month stretch starting in 1842, pseudonymously published newspaper dispatches ridiculing and excoriating enslavers by name and offering sobering reflections on the depravity of slavery. With the pen that Smallwood called his “lash,” he leveraged mockery to flip the oppressive racial power structure of America. These dispatches, in which Smallwood was the first to use "underground railroad" in print, are the only accounts of escapes to be published in real time, imbuing Smallwood’s subversive wit with urgency and defiance. His 1851 memoir is prescient on the United States' tormented entanglement with race.

"Groundbreaking . . . Chang's lyrical experiment memorably evokes an individual family's time capsule and an artist's timeless yearning to shape carbon dust into incandescent gem." —NPR

Now in paperback, from the poet who “resurrects mediums” (The Millions), a collection of literary letters and mementos on the art of remembering across generations.

For Victoria Chang, memory “isn’t something that blooms, but something that bleeds internally.” It is willed, summoned, and dragged to the surface. The remembrances in this collection of letters are founded in the fragments of stories her mother shared reluctantly and in the silences of her father. They are whittled and sculpted from an archive of family relics: a marriage license, a letter, a visa petition, a photograph. And, just as often, they are built on questions that can no longer be answered.

Dear Memory is not a transcription but a process of shaping and being shaped, knowing that when a writer dips their pen into history, what emerges is poetry. In letters to family, past teachers, fellow poets, and to the imagination itself, Victoria Chang offers a model for what it looks like to find ourselves in our histories.

In her gripping memoir "Lighthouse," Kia Lee courageously shares her personal journey of falling into an abusive relationship and the challenges she faced. With raw honesty, she reveals the insidious nature of emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and abuse that she endured, often without realizing the full extent of the harm. As the story unfolds, the abuse escalates to physical violence, placing Kia in a perilous and life-threatening situation.

"Lighthouse" is a powerful account of survival as Kia navigates the complexities of an abusive relationship and finds the strength to break free. Her story serves as a beacon of hope for others who may be experiencing similar situations, shedding light on the realities of domestic abuse and the importance of seeking help. "Lighthouse" is a compelling and timely memoir that sheds light on a pervasive issue and provides a voice for survivors, bringing hope, awareness, and

understanding to those who may be facing similar challenges.

Through her memoir, Kia Lee aims to raise awareness about the warning signs of abuse, dispel misconceptions, and provide support to those who may be struggling in similar situations. Her courageous storytelling and unwavering resilience are an inspiration to others, offering a message of empowerment and healing.

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

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

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

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

This powerful biography follows Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s road to the Supreme Court as the first Black woman to be confirmed, for middle grade readers from New York Times bestselling author Garen Thomas and The Washington Post reporter Lori Rozsa. This inspiring story features key childhood moments and all those who influenced and encouraged her along the way.

Before becoming the first black woman on the Supreme Court Ketanji Brown Jackson was a bright and happy kid with big dreams and determination. Guided by her parents, whose own stories influenced her, and who helped her navigate the obstacles she might face as a Black child, Ketanji’s spirit, drive, and belief in herself blossomed. She was popular in school and excelled in academics, debate, and theater, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Over the decades, she’d run up against a backdrop of people and Supreme Court rulings that sometimes opened doors for her . . . and sometimes shut them. By remaining true to herself and fighting for what’s right, Ketanji became an inspiration to children everywhere, accomplishing her lifelong goals and ascending to the nation’s highest court, where she now helps decide the direction of our country.

From New York Times bestselling author Garen Thomas and Washington Post reporter Lori Rozsa comes this empowering biography that proves that with perseverance, dreams can come true!

Finalist: PROSE Awards for Excellence in Humanities 2023 - Biography and Autobiography

“A fascinating biography of a fascinating woman.” - Booklist, starred review
“This definitive look at a remarkable figure delivers the goods.” - Publishers Weekly, starred review
"A brilliant analysis." - Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize winner
Featured in Ms. Magazine's "Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us 2022" (books by or about historically excluded groups)

Born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who was formerly enslaved and a father of questionable identity, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was a pioneering activist, writer, suffragist, and educator. Until now, Dunbar-Nelson has largely been viewed only in relation to her abusive ex-husband, the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. This is the first book-length look at this major figure in Black women's history, covering her life from the post-reconstruction era through the Harlem Renaissance.

Tara T. Green builds on Black feminist, sexuality, historical and cultural studies to create a literary biography that examines Dunbar-Nelson's life and legacy as a respectable activist – a woman who navigated complex challenges associated with resisting racism and sexism, and who defined her sexual identity and sexual agency within the confines of respectability politics. It's a book about the past, but it's also a book about the present that nods to the future.

Fiery, funny, inviting and digressive, Sonny Simmons' memoir is a long overdue celebration of the famed New York free jazz pioneer

Though his years in the New York free-jazz scene of the sixties cemented his reputation as "one of the most forceful and convincing composers and soloists in his field," saxophonist Sonny Simmons (1933–2021) was nearly forgotten by the '80s, which found him broke, heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol, and separated from his wife and kids. "I played on the streets from 1980 to 1994, 365 days a year," Simmons tells jazz historian and biographer Marc Chaloin. "I would go to North Beach, and I'd sleep in the park. The word got around town that Sonny is a junkie, really strung out."
The resurrection of Simmons' career―upon the release of his critically acclaimed Ancient Ritual (Qwest Records) in 1994―has become a modern legend of the genre. In the last two decades of his musical career, Simmons broke through to a new echelon of recognition, joining the pantheon of great innovators and masters of the music. But to this day he remains an undersung figure. Here, in the first ever book dedicated to his life, Simmons recounts his childhood in the backwoods of Louisiana, his adolescence in the burgeoning Bay Area jazz scene and his star-studded life in New York playing alongside the greats.

Michael Jackson’s closest sister pulls back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of the Jackson family, Michael’s tortured soul, and her own love for her brother in this intimate portrait of a beloved, yet troubled, pop legend.

In this shocking New York Times bestselling memoir, La Toya Jackson pays heartfelt tribute to her legendary brother Michael’s tortured soul and offers unprecedented insight into the troubled entertainer’s tragic destruction.

La Toya Jackson was always closer to Michael than anyone knew. Now, she sheds light on the intimate moments she shared with the beloved pop legend and unveils the disturbing behind-the-scenes dealings that she believes foretold his death. Like Michael, La Toya experienced an upbringing that made her vulnerable to exploitation, and her own journey led to hell and back at the hands of her former manager and husband. Here, in vivid and candid detail, she reveals the most painful episodes of her deeply personal story and explores how anyone—regardless of fame, fortune, or status—can be trapped in a cycle of abuse. La Toya ultimately found the courage to break free, rebuild her life and career, and reconcile with her close-knit family. Her unforgettable story will touch the hearts of millions of fans and inspire anyone who feels as if there’s nowhere to go that it is possible to truly start over...

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.

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A New York Times Notable Book

Daring and fiercely original, The Women is at once a memoir, a psychological study, a sociopolitical manifesto, and an incisive adventure in literary criticism. It is conceived as a series of portraits analyzing the role that sexual and racial identity played in the lives and work of the writer's subjects: his mother, a self-described "Negress," who would not be defined by the limitations of race and gender; the mother of Malcolm X, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's misogyny and racism; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who rarely identified with other blacks or women, but deeply empathized with white gay men; and the late Owen Dodson, a poet and dramatist who was female-identified and who played an important role in the author's own social and intellectual formation.

Hilton Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to his inimitable scrutiny with relentless humor and sympathy. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.

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A searing debut YA poetry and essay collection about a Black cancer patient who faces medical racism after being diagnosed with leukemia in their early twenties, for fans of Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals and Laurie Halse Anderson's Shout. When Walela is diagnosed at twenty-three with advanced stage blood cancer, they're suddenly thrust into the unsympathetic world of tubes and pills, doctors who don’t use their correct pronouns, and hordes of "well-meaning" but patronizing people offering unsolicited advice as they navigate rocky personal relationships and share their story online. But this experience also deepens their relationship to their ancestors, providing added support from another realm. Walela's diagnosis becomes a catalyst for their self-realization. As they fill out forms in the insurance office in downtown Los Angeles or travel to therapy in wealthier neighborhoods, they begin to understand that cancer is where all forms of their oppression intersect: Disabled. Fat. Black. Queer. Nonbinary. In Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir, the author details a galvanizing account of their survival despite the U.S. medical system, and of the struggle to face death unafraid.

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A brilliant literary memoir of chosen family and chosen heritage, told against the backdrop of Chicago’s North and South Sides

As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the author; her wife Annie, who's white; and Cecilia, the Black daughter they adopt as a couple in their forties and fifties. Choosing Family chronicles this journey to motherhood while examining the messiness and complexity of adoption and parenthood from a Black, queer, and feminist perspective. Royster also explores her memories of the matriarchs of her childhood and the homes these women created in Chicago’s South Side—itself a dynamic character in the memoir—where “family” was fluid, inclusive, and not necessarily defined by marriage or other socially recognized contracts.

Calling upon the work of some of her favorite queer thinkers, including José Esteban Muñoz and Audre Lorde, Royster interweaves her experiences and memories with queer and gender theory to argue that many Black families, certainly her own, have historically had a “queer” attitude toward family: configurations that sit outside the white normative experience and are the richer for their flexibility and generosity of spirit. A powerful, genre-bending memoir of family, identity, and acceptance, Choosing Family, ultimately, is about joy—about claiming the joy that society did not intend to assign to you, or to those like you.

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The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. 

Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

A stunning and inspiring memoir charting a life as an astronomer, classically-trained actor, mother, and Black woman in STEM, searching for life in the universe while building a meaningful life here on Earth

As a kid, Aomawa Shields was always bumping into things, her neck craned up at the sky, dreaming of becoming an astronaut. A year into an astrophysics PhD program, plagued by self-doubt and discouraged by a white male professor who suggested that she—a young Black woman who also loved fashion, makeup, and the arts—didn’t belong, she left astronomy and pursued acting professionally for a decade, before a day job working for NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope drew her back to the stars. She was the oldest and the only Black student in her PhD cohort. This time, no professor, and no voice in her own head, would stop her. Now an astronomer and astrobiologist at the top of her field, Dr. Shields studies the universe outside our Solar System, researching and uncovering the planets circling distant stars with just the right conditions that could support life—while also using her theater education to communicate the wonder and magic of the universe with those of us here on Earth. But it’s been a journey as winding and complex as the physics she has mastered.

Life on Other Planets is a journey of discovery on this world and on others, a story of creating a life that makes space for joy, love, and wonder while being driven by one of our biggest questions: Is anybody else out there? It is about the possibility of living between multiple worlds and not choosing—but instead charting a new path entirely.

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In this disarming and candid memoir, cultural critic Clarkisha Kent unpacks the kind of compounded problems you face when you’re a fat, Black, queer woman in a society obsessed with heteronormativity.

There was no easy way for Kent to navigate personal discovery and self-love. As a dark-skinned, first-generation American facing a myriad of mental health issues and intergenerational trauma, at times Kent’s body felt like a cosmic punishment. In the face of body dysmorphia, homophobia, anti-Blackness, and respectability politics, the pursuit of “high self-esteem” seemed oxymoronic. 

Fat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto is a humorous, at times tragic, memoir that follows Kent on her journey to realizing that her body is a gift to be grown into, that sometimes family doesn’t always mean home, and how even ill-fated bisexual romances could free her from gender essentialism. Perfect for readers of Keah Brown’s The Pretty One, Alida Nugent’s You Don’t Have to Like Me, and Stephanie Yeboah’s Fattily Ever After, Kent’s debut explores her own lived experiences to illuminate how fatphobia intertwines with other oppressions. It stresses the importance of addressing the violence scored upon our minds and our bodies, and how we might begin the difficult—but joyful—work of setting ourselves free.

America’s most popular sports media figure tells it like it is in this surprisingly personal book, not only dishing out his signature, uninhibited opinions but also revealing the challenges he overcame in childhood as well as at ESPN, and who he really is when the cameras are off.

Stephen A. Smith has never been handed anything, nor was he an overnight success. Growing up poor in Queens, the son of Caribbean immigrants and the youngest of six children, he was a sports-obsessed kid who faced a number of struggles, from undiagnosed dyslexia to getting enough cereal to fill his bowl. As a basketball player at Winston-Salem State University, he got a glimmer of his true calling when he wrote a newspaper column arguing for the retirement of his own Hall of Fame coach, Clarence Gaines.

Smith hustled and rose up from a high school reporter at Daily News (New York) to a general sports columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1990s, before getting his own show at ESPN in 2005. After he was unceremoniously fired from the network in 2009, he became even more determined to fight for success. He got himself rehired two years later and, with his razor-sharp intelligence and fearless debate style, found his role on the show he was destined to star in: First Take, the network’s flagship morning program.

In Straight Shooter, Smith writes about the greatest highs and deepest lows of his life and career. He gives his thoughts on Skip Bayless, Ray Rice, Colin Kaepernick, the New York Knicks, the Dallas Cowboys, and former President Donald Trump. But he also pulls back the curtain and talks about life beyond the set, sharing authentic stories about his negligent father, his loving mother, being a father himself, his battle with life-threatening COVID-19, and what he really thinks about politics and social issues. He does it all with the same intelligence, humor, and charm that has made him a household name.

Provocative, moving, and eye-opening, this book is the perfect gift for lovers of sports, television, and anyone who likes their stories delivered straight to the heart.

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From a leading prison abolitionist, a moving memoir about coming of age in Brooklyn and surviving incarceration—and a call to break free from all the cages that confine us.
 
Marlon Peterson grew up in 1980s Crown Heights, raised by Trinidadian immigrants. Amid the routine violence that shaped his neighborhood, Marlon became a high-achieving and devout child, the specter of the American dream opening up before him. But in the aftermath of immense trauma, he participated in a robbery that resulted in two murders. At nineteen, Peterson was charged and later convicted. He served ten long years in prison. While incarcerated, Peterson immersed himself in anti-violence activism, education, and prison abolition work.
 
In Bird Uncaged, Peterson challenges the typical “redemption” narrative and our assumptions about justice. With vulnerability and insight, he uncovers the many cages—from the daily violence and trauma of poverty, to policing, to enforced masculinity, and the brutality of incarceration—created and maintained by American society.

Bird Uncaged is a twenty-first-century abolitionist memoir, and a powerful debut that demands a shift from punishment to healing, an end to prisons, and a new vision of justice.

A poignant and ruthlessly honest journey through cultural expectations of size, race, and gender—and toward a brighter future—from National Book Award nominee Evette Dionne

My body has not betrayed me; it has continued rebounding against all odds. It is a body that others map their expectations on, but it has never let me down.

In this insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne explores the minefields fat Black woman are forced to navigate in the course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to diagnosis with heart failure at age twenty-nine, Dionne tracks her relationships with friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image.

Along the way, she lifts back the curtain to reveal the subtle, insidious forms of surveillance and control levied at fat women: At the doctor’s office, where any health ailment is treated with a directive to lose weight. On dating sites, where larger bodies are rejected or fetishized. On TV, where fat characters are asexual comedic relief. But Dionne’s unflinching account of our deeply held prejudices is matched by her fierce belief in the power of self-love.

An unmissable portrait of a woman on a journey toward understanding our society and herself, Weightless holds up a mirror to the world we live in and asks us to imagine the future we deserve.