New Releases
- Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Wealth and Happiness―Navigate the Complexities of Personal Finance and Debt Management to Attain True Financial Literacy
Your Journey to Financial Freedom: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Wealth and Happiness―Navigate the Complexities of Personal Finance and Debt Management to Attain True Financial Literacy
$22.99Your Journey to Financial Freedom stands out as a beacon of financial wisdom. This book goes beyond money—it's about mindset, empowerment, and designing a life you truly deserve. —Farnoosh Torabi, author of A Healthy State of Panic
As a wife, mother of three and first-generation Jamaican immigrant, Jamila knows all too well the struggles of saving for tomorrow while spending liberally today. Her voice resonates with the dynamic and diverse population of everyday people who long to break free from smart-spending rules and money-saving ultimatums that reek of joylessness.
Now, podcaster Jamila offers her seasoned expertise in Your Journey to Financial Freedom, providing readers with the resources they need to not only save for cake but eat it, too.
Your Journey to Financial Freedom is a firm but kind guide to being your best financial self. —Erin Lowry, author of the Broke Millennial series
A comprehensive guide to achieving true financial independence that empowers you to make informed money decisions. —Bola Sokunbi, author, founder and CEO of Clever Girl Finance
- Not Without Laughter (Vintage Classics)
Not Without Laughter (Vintage Classics)
Langston Hughes
$12.00Depicts a Black family's attempts to deal with life in a small Kansas town.
- Janae Sanders' Second Time Around: A Novel
Janae Sanders' Second Time Around: A Novel
$20.00"A gratifying romance between kind, confident, deserving leads." ―Kirkus Reviews
A single mom gets a second chance at love with her high school sweetheart.
Wary of love after divorce, Janae Sanders focuses on the best things in her life: her son James and her besties in the Savvy, Sexy, and Single Club. As for romance? Not today, Satan. That is, until high school heartthrob Adam Henderson crashes back into her life at their 20-year reunion. Sparks fly, but just when Janae considers dating again, the new superintendent of James’ school district slashes his beloved arts program. Instead of getting her groove back, Janae gets her protest on.
Returning home after twenty years, Adam jumps at the chance to reacquaint himself with Janae, the one who got away. But he’s nearly reached his limit, juggling a meddling father, school politics, and―unbeknownst to him―Janae’s ire. If he can’t get the head of the PTA off his back after cutting programs that were costing the district money, his debut role as superintendent and his love life hang in the balance.
When a school board meeting is called and they both realize they’ve been dating the enemy, Janae gives Adam two choices: restore the program or lose her. Adam proposes a third option: one weekend at his cabin to talk it all out―funding the arts, and old feelings too. When her girls cheer her on, Janae must decide if she’s willing to risk it all. Armed with sass, sarcasm, and a suitcase full of emotional baggage, Janae and Adam discover that sometimes love shows up in the most infuriating and unexpectedly sexy ways.
- Talking with Boys (Immigrant Writers)
Talking with Boys (Immigrant Writers)
$17.95In a collection of linked tales filled with irony, humor, and magic, Talking with Boys introduces an unforgettable cast of characters in the Pakistani diaspora in Houston navigating crises of their own making and beyond their control.
Via generations and geographies, the stories expand from Houston into tales from the characters’ pasts in Dubai and Lahore. A community of Pakistani immigrants distract ICE with unlikely bait. A housekeeper in a Dubai mansion plots to liberate her fellow indentured workers. In Lahore, an empty nester finds herself bound by more than a jinxed bracelet. Throughout, Tayyba Kanwal’s remarkable characters navigate economic upheavals, political turmoil, and personal betrayals to pursue love, plot for survival, and play subtle power games to triumph against patriarchal forces of all genders.
- The Starseekers: A Murder and Magic Novel: 4
The Starseekers: A Murder and Magic Novel: 4
$22.00Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic...if not murder.
In the 1960s, the world was caught up in reaching beyond our planet and into the cosmos. It felt impossible--but there was nothing science, math...and magic couldn't make possible. The race to space was on, and the Moon was what everyone had their eyes on.
Including Cynthia Rhodes, a brilliant arcane engineer at NASA's Ainsworth Research Labs. Talented in math and magic, she hosts a magical educational show... a job she took mostly for a chance to regularly see the dashing Theodore Danner, a professor of arcane archeology.
She is also an amateur sleuth--something that has run in her family for generations.
When a cursed museum curator nearly interrupts a broadcast of their show, Cynthia finds an eager sleuthing partner in Theo. Pairing up, they begin investigating the strange behavior of the curator and a mysterious theft at the arcane history museum--until one of Cynthia's own coworkers perishes right in front of her in a major lab accident that endangers Ainsworth's role in the space race.
Certain it was murder instead of an accident, Cynthia sees this as a separate case at first. However the more she and Theo investigate, Cynthia uncovers a surprising link between the two incidents. The museum theft and murder are part of a larger equation--one that includes deadly enchantments, rumored pirate treasure, a peculiar plant, and a dire threat to the space program as well as everything she holds dear.
The Starseekers is another rip-roaring adventure for the Rhodes family, who have been using magic to aid their community and solve mysteries since before the Civil War. The times may have changed, but a Rhodes once again finds themselves thrust into a world of murders, theft, sabotage, and curses, and this time the stakes extend to the stars themselves.
- Where the Black Flowers Bloom
Where the Black Flowers Bloom
$9.99A gripping, richly imagined fantasy set in an alternate ancient African world in which a Black girl finds her power and saves her people from evil, by the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning author of Black Panther: The Young Prince.
In the land of Alkebulan, twelve-year-old Asha is an orphan, raised by Madame S, the proprietor of a traveling carnival. When Madame S is attacked by ghoulish creatures, she manages to tell Asha before she dies, “Seek the Underground Kingdom, where the black flowers bloom.”
Asha doesn’t understand the mysterious words, but they launch her onto a page-turning quest to protect her people and stop an ancient evil. Along the way, she uncovers shocking secrets about the family she never knew and begins to find her place in the world as she discovers her own untapped powers.
- Song of Ancient Lovers: A Novel
Song of Ancient Lovers: A Novel
Laura Restrepo
$30.00Award-winning Colombian author Laura Restrepo weaves contemporary themes and ancient myth in this story of star-crossed lovers in a world on the brink of collapse.
Retelling the mythical love story between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon in the refugee camps of the present day, Song of Ancient Lovers is a sublime ode to love and desire as forces shaping human history, with power that rivals forces of destruction.
Ethereal in its weaving of the real and the mythical, the contemporary and the ancient, this is the story of Bos Mutas, a young writer traveling from South America to northern Africa in search of traces of his obsession. His research unveils the Queen of Sheba as unyielding and committed to her independence, with remarkable influence both in her time—over Solomon and all the subjects in her expansive kingdom—and on thinkers and artists across the centuries, from Thomas Aquinas to Gérard de Nerval, Frida Kahlo to Patti Smith. He also finds traces of her influence in the magic made of devastating circumstances by women he meets on his journey, especially Zahra Bayda, a Somali midwife who has taken it upon herself to show him around.
Stunning and evocative, Song of Ancient Lovers is a triumph of imagination and reverence for the spirit that connects us across boundaries of time and geography.
Translated from the Spanish by Caro De Robertis
- Champagne Taste on a Bad Boy Budget: A Spicy Opposites Attract Romance About Redemption
Champagne Taste on a Bad Boy Budget: A Spicy Opposites Attract Romance About Redemption
Zuri Day
$15.99“Perfectly balancing sweetness and steam.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Stuck in the Country with You
She's a good girl trying to rebuild her restaurant.
He's a felon trying to rebuild…everything.
Second chances have never been so sweet.
For Jamilah Carver, a by-the-books entrepreneur with refined tastes, running her own restaurant has been a dream come true. Until she’s buried in debt and without a chef, her once-bustling eatery on the brink of collapse. Enter Rashad White, a newly released ex-con who happens to be a culinary genius…and likes to play by his own rules.
With nothing in common but their love for food, the two clash at every turn. But when they’re not bickering over menu items or cooking methods, neither can deny the attraction that simmers between them. After Rashad proposes a daring plan, they’ll have to put their differences aside to work together—that’s when things really start heating up in the kitchen.
Can two completely different people, from two completely opposite worlds, find the perfect recipe for a fresh start…and maybe even love?
From showing up to glowing up, the characters in Afterglow Books are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don’t miss any of these other fun titles…
Stuck in the Country with You by Zuri Day
Ms. V's Hot Girl Summer by A.H. Cunningham
The Grump Whisperer by Katy James
- The Mysterious Death of Junetta Plum (A Harriet Stone Mystery)
The Mysterious Death of Junetta Plum (A Harriet Stone Mystery)
Valerie Wilson Wesley
$27.00At the darkly glamorous height of the Roaring 20s, an independent Black intellectual and her bi-racial foster child are immersed in the vibrant world of the Harlem Renaissance – and a shocking murder on Striver’s Row – in this thrilling Jazz Age mystery for reader of Nekesia Afia, Jacqueline Winspear, Avery Cunningham’s The Mayor of Maxwell Street.
1926: Harriet Stone, a liberated, educated Black woman, and Lovey, the orphaned, biracial 12-year-old she is bound to protect, are Harlem-bound, embarking on a new, hopefully less traumatic chapter in their lives. They have been invited to move from Connecticut by Harriet’s cousin, Junetta Plum, who runs a boardinghouse for independent-minded single women.
It’s a bold move, since Harriet has never met Junetta, but the fatalities of the Spanish flu and other tragedies have already forced her and Lovey to face their worst fears. Alone but for each other, they have little left to lose—or so it seems as they arrive at sophisticated Junetta’s impressive brownstone.
Her cousin has a sharp edge, which makes Harriett slightly uncomfortable. Still, after retiring to her room for the night, she finally falls asleep—only to awaken to Junetta arguing with someone downstairs. In the morning, she makes a shocking discovery at the foot of the stairs.
What ensues will lead Harriet to question Junetta’s very identity—and to wonder if she and Lovey are in danger, as well. It will also tie Harriet to five strangers. Among them, Harriet is sure someone knows something. What she doesn’t yet know is that one will play a crucial role in helping her investigate her cousin’s murder . . . that she will be tied to the others in ways she could never imagine . . . and that her life will take off in a startling new direction. . . .
- Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination
Oluremi C. Onabanjo
$60.00A rich examination of the role of portrait photography in the construction of Africa as a political idea
At a moment of profound change marked by decolonization and the civil rights period of the mid-20th century, photographers across Africa and the African diaspora used the photographic portrait in order to fuel incipient ideas of Africa. Published in conjunction with a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination charts international histories of resistance and liberation up to the present day in order to contend with the construction of Africa as a political idea, and the tools that artists used to forge it.
Featuring more than 100 photographs by renowned artists of the time, such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé and Jean Depara, and by contemporary artists of African descent, such as Samuel Fosso, Silvia Rosi and Njideka Akunyili-Crosby, this richly illustrated publication explores modes of Pan-African possibility in powerful images of everyday people, where the personal was undeniably political. With an introduction by curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo, excerpts from landmark texts by V.Y. Mudimbe and Brent Hayes Edwards, and a conversation between Yasmina Price and Momtaza Mehri, Ideas of Africa highlights the potential of the photographic portrait as both a creative endeavor and political mechanism. - Where There Is Love: A Story in African Proverbs
Where There Is Love: A Story in African Proverbs
Shauntay Grant
Sold outFood, family, love, and laughter make for the perfect recipe in this sweet picture book from acclaimed author Shauntay Grant.
Taking place over the course of a summer day, we follow a young girl as she and her family gather at her nana's house for a get-together where lessons are shared, food is prepared, and lifelong memories are created. Told in African proverbs, Where There Is Love explores the importance of familial bonds and their lasting impact while presenting proverbs to inspire readers long after the story ends. Throughout the book, Nana's house provides a safe space for our protagonist to make mistakes, learn lessons, and most importantly, find and feel love. This gorgeous picture book provides that same comforting space for readers page after page.
- Bloom How You Must: A Black Woman's Guide to Self-Care and Generational Healing
Bloom How You Must: A Black Woman's Guide to Self-Care and Generational Healing
Tara Pringle Jefferson
Sold outA self-empowering wellness guide that celebrates the roots of self-care and community care as a sustaining force for generations of Black women. Bloom How You Must is a love letter to the millions of Black women who want a less stressful life but don’t know where to begin.
Self-care isn’t a trend among Black women; it has always been a throughline in our heritage. Consider Coretta Scott King, who along with fellow activists Betty Shabazz and Myrlie Evers-Williams, would enjoy “girls’ trips” to take a break from the stress of the Civil Rights Movement. Remember their contemporary Rosa Parks attended (and led) yoga classes while on the front lines for Black rights in Detroit.
Think of the enduring friendship between Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, a sisterhood in which they have leaned on each other for nearly forty years while thriving in the glaring media and entertainment spotlight.
Picture Toni Morrison’s overflowing gardens and lush houseplants she tended while writing classics like Beloved and The Bluest Eye.
Recall Audre Lord’s enduring declaration written after her second cancer diagnosis: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
Bloom How You Must explores and expands on this self-care legacy and shows how it can help every Black woman today.
Tara Pringle Jefferson excavates the roots of self-care and community care as a sustaining force for generations of Black women and transforms her findings into a blueprint women can follow in their daily lives. A blend of guidebook and journal, Bloom How You Must explores several distinct pillars of wellness, featuring:
* Research from leading wellness experts
* Interviews with women aged 19–99
* Stories of personal experience
* Overviews and explanations of each component of self-care
* Dedicated pages for readers to reflect on each chapter
* Exercises to put wellness into practice
* Easy-to-follow explanatory graphics and sidebarsWith its diversity of insights,practical skills and multigenerational focus, Bloom How You Must is a love letter to the millions of Black women who want a less stressful life but don’t know where to begin. Bloom How You Must gives them the tools they need to improve their health and their daily lives.
- No Place to Bury the Dead: A Novel
No Place to Bury the Dead: A Novel
Karina Sainz Borgo
$17.99“[A] rich and lyrical tale of desperation and redemption . . . Throughout, Sainz Borgo applies stark poetry to the terrifying setting, where 'moans and cries attributed to ghosts sometimes masked executions and beatings.' It’s a stunner.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[A] deeply felt meditation on migration, mourning and the simultaneous entanglement and estrangement of the living and the dead” —Los Angeles Times
Winner of the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize, a searing novel of loss and resilience that illuminates the often-overlooked human dimension of the migrant crisis, re-imagining the border as a dreamlike purgatory bridging life and death.
In an unnamed Latin American country, a mysterious plague quickly spreads, erasing the memory of anyone infected. Angustias Romero flees with her family, but their flight is tragically cut short when she loses both her children. Consumed by grief, she finds herself within the hallucinatory expanse of Mezquite––a town corrupted by greed and populated by storytellers, refugees, and violent, predatory gangs.
Here, Angustias is finally able to lay her children to rest at the Third Country, a cemetery run by the larger-than-life Visitación Salazar and a refuge beyond suffering and fear. While Visitación remains defiant in her mission to care for the dead, the cemetery she oversees is the focal point of a bitter land dispute with Alcides Abundio, the most feared landowner of the border. Caught in this power struggle, Angustias and Visitación–friends and sometimes rivals– stand their ground on a frontier where the law is dictated by violence; a surreal territory whose very nature blurs the boundaries between life and death.
Exploring what we are capable of and how far we will go when we have nothing to lose, No Place to Bury the Dead confirms Karina Sainz Borgo’s importance amongst the voices of modern Latin American literature, merging thriller, western, and classic tragedy in an unforgettable and urgent novel that won the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize.
Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer
- Everyone in the Group Chat Dies: A Novel
Everyone in the Group Chat Dies: A Novel
L.M. Chilton
Sold outFrom the breakout author of Swiped comes a compulsively readable, surprisingly funny, and genuinely thrilling pageturner about a TikTok true crime investigator, a ’90s serial killer that may not be as dead as everyone would like, a text thread from hell, and long buried secrets that just won’t stay in the grave where they belong.
Kirby Cornell needs a break from everything:
- Her crumbling apartment in the sleepy town of Crowhurst (famous for its bucolic countryside and a second-rate serial killer from the ’90s).
- Her dead-end job.
- Her sleazy landlord
- Her messy roommates.
- And, most of all, the terrible thing they all did.Luckily, that hasn’t caught up with her just yet. Until a new message on their old group chat pops up: Everyone in the group chat dies.
It’s the first text her ex-roommate Esme has sent for ages, but that’s not the really weird thing.
The really weird thing is, Esme died twelve months ago…
Don’t miss the new laugh-out-loud thriller from L.M. Chilton, Everyone in the Group Chat Dies—a murder mystery that fuses the comedy of Friends with the serial killer thrills of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- Sweet Little Hearts
Sweet Little Hearts
Shanora Williams
Sold outFrom New York Times bestselling author Shanora Williams comes a deeply heartfelt romance about the tragedies that put our lives on hold―and the love that makes us want to start again.
Javier Valdez hasn’t had much luck with nannies, and he can’t imagine this one will be any different. Octavia Klein is all sass to his stoicism, free spirit to his hard work. But he’s a widower, and with a career in the NBA, he can’t keep doing this alone.
Despite Javier’s reservations, Octavia turns out to be the best thing for his four-year-old daughter…and for him. But he’s reluctant to admit it. Javier swore off love after his wife died, and Octavia has her own reasons for avoiding relationships.
As their bond deepens far past professionalism or even friendship, it’s hard to deny the crackling tension of something more. They’re both toeing lines they said they wouldn’t cross―and when their pasts come rushing back, there’s no telling which way they’ll fall.
With old wounds reopened, can Javier and Octavia overcome the pain once again? Or will their future together become just another scar?
- Jordan Casteel (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series)
Jordan Casteel (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series)
Legacy Russell
$54.95The first monograph on Jordan Casteel, one of the most critically acclaimed artists working today
Jordan Casteel is a New York-based artist known for her larger-than-life paintings, which highlight the humanity of her subjects while affirming ideas of social justice.
At once tender and powerful, Casteel’s intimate portraits include friends, family members, and classmates as well as diverse subjects whom she meets and photographs on the streets of her neighborhood, thus effectively transforming strangers into close friends and collaborators. This near-anthropological pursuit puts viewers into a position where they are asked to contend with their preconceived notions of masculinity and race.
Casteel’s debut monograph features nearly 150 beautifully reproduced images, with sections specially conceived and designed by the artist herself.
- Abolition and the African American Story (Race to the Truth)
Abolition and the African American Story (Race to the Truth)
Patricia Williams Dockery
Sold outUntil now, you've only heard one side of the story: how Abraham Lincoln defeated the Confederacy to end slavery, but the truth involves a vast network of abolitionists who would keep fighting for freedom long after the end of the war. Here's the true story of the Civil War and Reconstruction, from the African American perspective.
By 1850, Africans had already been in the United States for nearly 300 years. Their labor created a strong economy and defined American society in profound ways, but their rights nearly tore the country apart, a century after its founding.
The beginning of the Civil War marked a turning point: the beginning of a public fight to recognize African Americans as Americans. Though much of this played out on the battlefield, the real fight was going on in every corner of the country: North and South, free households and enslaved, in the halls of government and secret meetings. That fight didn't end when the South surrendered, and young people were central to the way abolitionists envisioned the future. From soldiers to public speakers to the Underground Railroad, this is the true story of the African American experience of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
- Abrazos for Baby: A Little Book of Hugs (Little Libros of Love, 3)
Abrazos for Baby: A Little Book of Hugs (Little Libros of Love, 3)
$8.99This cozy, cheerful read-aloud board book companion to Besos for Baby uses a rhythmic mix of English and Spanish to celebrate all kinds of hugs!
Everyone has hugs for Baby, and Baby has hugs for them too—from su abuelo and su hermano to su mascota and el árbol! Simple Spanish words and a rhythmic read-aloud help teach vocabulary and show that a loving hug is the same in any language.
The spare and simple Spanish is accessible for both bilingual parents and those who wish to introduce Spanish to their little ones. Either way, parents won't be able to resist giving abrazos as they share this bilingual read aloud, filled with bold, graphic illustrations, with their little bébé!
Don't miss:
Besos for Baby
Sonrisas for Baby - The House Guests: A Novel
The House Guests: A Novel
Amber and Danielle Brown
$18.99NO ONE’S AROUND FOR MILES…
One year ago, Iris’s world turned upside down. Haunted by nightmares of her mother’s traumatic death, Iris has become a sleep-deprived, jittery version of herself who she hardly recognizes anymore. So when she’s given the opportunity to get away from the crushing grind of reality for a relaxing week with her partner and his close-knit group of friends, she jumps at the chance.
But after she arrives early to the remote lake house in the Catskills, things take a dark turn. Alone in the cabin in the middle of the night, Iris sees a blood-covered man burying something—or someone—in the mud behind the deck before entering the house. But the daylight reveals nothing, the dirt unturned and the house pristine.
As strange and increasingly disturbing discoveries begin to stack up, her fellow house guests refuse to take anything Iris has to say seriously, and she begins to suspect that someone might be gaslighting her. If the stress hasn’t finally gotten to her, that is. Determined to uncover the truth, Iris finds herself drawn into a terrifying game of cat and mouse. Is it all in her head, or is there really a killer among them? Can she trust anyone…even herself?
- Sparks Fly
Sparks Fly
Zakiya N. Jamal
$19.00A late bloomer thought a visit to a sex club might jump start her love life, but instead makes an instant connection that turns her whole world upside down, in this adult debut from author Zakiya N. Jamal.
When Stella Renee Johnson's roommate invites her to a sex club party but bails at the last minute, Stella decides to use the opportunity to finally cash in her V-card. But just when things are heating up between Stella and a sexy stranger, they realize they don’t have protection and Stella, taking it as a sign this wasn't meant to be, flees.
Frustrated in more ways than one, Stella is shocked to learn that the digital media website where she works is partnering with an AI company. She's even more shocked when the alluring man from the previous night walks in. Max Williams is the CEO's brother and the creator of the AI program now threatening her job.
Despite the conflict of interest, Stella and Max can't resist their magnetic attraction toward each other, and agree to keep their personal lives separate from what’s happening at work. But the more similarities they discover at home—both Black, book smart, and bisexual—the more they butt heads at work. Stella and Max must decide whether to think with their heads and walk away from their budding relationship, or follow their hearts and take a chance on love, no matter the cost.
- Black Photojournalism
Black Photojournalism
Charlene Foggie-Barnett
$65.00A landmark survey of Black American photojournalism spanning 1945 to 1984, chronicling a critical period in the civil rights movements in the United States
This volume presents work by 57 Black photographers and contributions from scholars such as Joy Bivins, Tina M. Campt and Gerald Horne, chronicling historic events and daily life in the United States from the conclusion of World War II in 1945 to the presidential campaigns of 1984, including the civil rights movements through the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Drawn from archives and collections in the care of journalists, libraries, museums, newspapers, photographers and universities, the photographs in the catalog were circulated and reviewed in publishing offices across the country.
Responding to a dearth of stories about Black lives told from the perspectives of Black people, Black publishers and their staff created groundbreaking editorial and photojournalistic methods and news networks. During a period of urgent social change and civil rights advocacy, newspapers and magazines, including the Afro American News, Atlanta Daily World, Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender and Ebony, transformed how people were able to access seeing themselves and their communities. Their impact on the media landscape continues into the digital present.
The catalog is published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at Carnegie Museum of Art. The exhibition and catalog are both designed by artist David Hartt, and organized and edited by Charlene Foggie-Barnett, Charles ""Teenie"" Harris, community archivist, and Dan Leers, curator of photography, in dialogue with an expanded network of archivists, curators, historians and scholars.
Photographers include: Harry Adams, Anthony Barboza, Kwame Brathwaite, Don Hogan Charles, Adger Cowans, Guy Crowder, Roy DeCarava, Doris Derby, Bob Douglas, Louis Draper, Theodore Gaffney, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Chester Higgins, Kojo Kamau, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Marilyn Nance, Gordon Parks, Ming Smith, Bruce Talamon, Deborah Willis-Ryan. - Pastor E. F. Ledbetter and The Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953
Pastor E. F. Ledbetter and The Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church, 1953
Gordon Parks
Sold outIn 1953, Gordon Parks returned to Chicago on assignment for Life magazine to photograph the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church for a series on American religious life. After the success of his recent work for Life, Parks approached the Near West Side church with a decisive eye toward composing compelling images that conveyed simultaneously the universal humanity and local specificity of the religious community. This would be the first assignment for which he was both writer as well as photographer. His photographs and essay were never published by Life, yet as this book demonstrates, Parks’ visual and textual representation of Black religious life powerfully documents the dynamism of a community shaped by the Great Migration and Chicago’s industrial landscape. Parks embarked on a significant chapter of his aesthetic and conceptual development through his engagement with the pastor, the Reverend Ernest F. Ledbetter, Sr., and the members of his church. This publication features more than 65 previously unpublished photographs and contact sheets, complemented by Parks’ unseen manuscript and ephemeral material from the private collection of the Ledbetter family. A range of scholarly essays provides further insight and contextual analysis in art history, cultural geography, Black religious studies, and creative writing. Co-published with The Gordon Parks Foundation and Howard University, Washington DC
- Dear Cycle Breaker: Wisdom and Practical Magic for Reclaiming the Wild Divine Feminine
Dear Cycle Breaker: Wisdom and Practical Magic for Reclaiming the Wild Divine Feminine
Dusah Wiseman
Sold outTransformational rituals and channeled messages for unlocking your true potential, healing through the divine feminine, and making the everyday sacred.
The practices and channeled messages within this book support you in going deep within your shadows to unlock the potent medicine of combining your light and dark, reclaiming your inner magic, and unmasking the true potential of your wild, wise, and whole self. When you reconnect with the divine feminine and tap into the ancient wisdom of the powerful women who came before you, you become a walking embodiment of love, magic, compassion, and power.
Writes Dusah, "My divine mission is to be a guiding light for those who are ready to unmask their true power and potential. This is the book that would have saved me from repetitive unwanted cycles. It is a beacon that will resurrect the Goddess who has been playing small for reasons that span previous lifetimes. It will empower the Queen who is finally ready to claim her legacy."
Peel back the layers covering up your true greatness: the lies, the past experiences, the trauma, the masks that your family or society has forced you to don. This is your initiation into a divine co-creation with Spirit—a pathway back to your highest self and a deep connection with Source.
- There’s Always Next Year
There’s Always Next Year
George M. Johnson
$19.99From New York Times-bestselling author George M. Johnson and USA Today-bestselling author Leah Johnson comes a revolutionary new holiday romcom for fans of Lynn Painter, Alice Oseman, and Nicola Yoon.
Andy was supposed to shed her too-serious student journalist persona and reinvent herself on New Year's Eve. Instead, she puked on her crush, dropped her phone in a fish tank, and managed to get her car stolen. Now, she only has the first day of the year to stop the gentrification that’s threatening her family’s business, right her wrongs from the night before, and figure out why she feels so drawn to the electric new-girl-next-door. How can Andy find her voice when everything’s being turned upside down?
Dominique is an influencer on the verge of securing a major brand deal that will ensure his future and family legacy. But when he runs into his former best friend, unresolved feelings emerge -- and in a small town, there's nowhere to hide. Not from his cousin, Andy, who has always seen him for his true self, not from his busybody manager, Kim, whose favorite color is money green, and certainly not from himself. When all the world’s a stage, can Dominique rise to superstardom without leaving the ones he loves behind?
There’s Always Next Year is a dual POV, double love story about what it means to nearly blow your life up, and race to put it back together before your time runs out. And if they fail? Well, there’s always next year.
- Down Came the Spiders
Down Came the Spiders
Ally Russell
Sold outArachnophobia meets Five Nights at Freddy’s in this middle grade horror novel perfect for fans of K.R. Alexander and Mary Downing Hahn.
Can you outrun eight legs?
Twelve-year-old Andi loves everything about spiders ― they’re endlessly fascinating creatures. So when she finds a species she’s never seen before at a classmate’s Halloween party, she’s over the moon. Until the spiders start to behave in unusual and threatening ways, that is. They can camouflage themselves incredibly well, they can jump higher than she’s ever seen, and their webs are strong. Maybe even strong enough to trap a person . . .
Andi and her friends Carly and Devon try to find an adult to help, but make a terrifying discovery: the parent chaperones have been immobilized by the spiders. As the only ones who know what’s going on, Andi, Carly, and Devon will have to take on the spiders themselves ― before it’s too late!
- Through the Telescope: Mae Jemison dreams of space
Through the Telescope: Mae Jemison dreams of space
Charles R. Smith Jr.
Sold outExplore the wonders of the universe in this mesmerizing, poetic ode to trailblazing astronaut Mae Jemison, from Coretta Scott King Honor author Charles R. Smith, Jr.
How far to the stars?
This is what a little girl named Mae Jemison wonders as she peers through her telescope and dreams of space. Someday she will make it there, but for now she wonders, learns, and is inspired by the vastness of the universe.
Astronaut, physician, and engineer Mae Jemison's passion would eventually lead to her becoming the first Black woman in space!
Through the Telescope focuses on what first inspired a young Mae Jemison to reach for the stars. Charles R. Smith, Jr. is the award-winning author of the Coretta Scott King Honor Book, Twelve Rounds of Glory, and many other popular and acclaimed titles. His gorgeous text places a spotlight on an American trailblazer who inspires kids everywhere to follow their dreams. Debut illustrator Evening Monteiro's captivating portrayal of a young Mae Jemison is sure to grab young readers' attention!
Perfect for kids who love space exploration and for readers of Hidden Figures and The Undefeated.
- A Quick & Easy Guide to Healthy Relationships (Quick & Easy Guides)
A Quick & Easy Guide to Healthy Relationships (Quick & Easy Guides)
Mariah-Rose Marie
Sold outIt can be difficult to navigate a lifetime’s worth of relationship patterns to clearly see the best ways to treat the folks we care about—and be treated well in return.
In A Quick & Easy Guide to Healthy Relationships, Mariah-Rose Marie offers a cheery, articulate, and fun-to-read guide to navigating, recognizing, and reenforcing positive patterns in friendships, romances, families, and work connections, all while taking care of your own head and heart in the process. From tips for engaging in difficult conversations, advice on communicating boundaries, and resources for strengthening bonds, this guide can help you make your relationships stronger and healthier than ever.
The latest volume of the critically acclaimed, bestselling A Quick & Easy Guide series of educational comics.
- Kerry James Marshall: The Histories
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories
Kerry James Marshall
$55.00Accompanying the largest UK survey to date of work by the legendary Chicago-based figurative painter
This volume is the most extensive publication on Kerry James Marshall to date, celebrating half a century of his work. It reveals the complex ways in which Marshall has transformed histories of Western painting, centering Black bodies in ambitious compositions set in barber shops, public housing projects, parks and beauty salons. It charts his use of portraiture to memorialize individuals such as Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman and Olaudah Equiano. A new series, illustrated here for the first time, looks at under-acknowledged aspects of the history of Africa. With lavish illustrations of all the works in the accompanying exhibition, the book also includes chapters on Marshall's Rythm Mastr project and his various public commissions, including his stained-glass windows for the cathedral in Washington, DC. A survey by Mark Godfrey is accompanied by shorter essays by Aria Dean, Darby English and others, plus an interview between Kerry James Marshall and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh.
Kerry James Marshall was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955, and later moved to Los Angeles. He taught painting for many years at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2013, he was named for the Committee on the Arts and the Humanities by President Barack Obama. In 2017, Marshall was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, is currently working with Marshall to create two new stained-glass windows. Marshall lives and works in Chicago. - Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art
Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art
Phoebe Hoban
Sold outIn 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.
- I, Medusa: A Novel
I, Medusa: A Novel
Ayana Gray
Sold outFrom New York Times bestselling author Ayana Gray comes a new kind of villain origin story, reimagining one of the most iconic monsters in Greek mythology as a provocative and powerful young heroine.
The first edition hardcover will feature stunning sprayed edges, a premium dust jacket with foil, and a gorgeous custom-stamped case—while supplies last!
Meddy has spent her whole life as a footnote in someone else’s story. Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters and her parents—both gods, albeit minor ones—she dreams of leaving her family’s island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as an esteemed priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home.
In the colorful market streets of Athens and the clandestine chambers of the temple, Meddy flourishes in her role as Athena’s favored acolyte, getting her first tastes of purpose and power. But when she is noticed by another Olympian, Poseidon, the course of Meddy’s promising future is suddenly and irrevocably altered.
When her locs are transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Medusa must embrace a new identity—not as a victim, but as a vigilante—and with it, the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr, and myth.
Exploding with rage, heartbreak, and love, I, Medusa portrays a young woman caught in the crosscurrents between her heart’s deepest desires and the cruel, careless games the Olympian gods play.
- Simply More
Simply More
Cynthia Erivo
$28.99In this vulnerable and enlightening book of life lessons, globally renowned performer Cynthia Erivo draws from her singular experience to show us how to embrace being “too much” and to live up to the fullest iteration of ourselves.
It is never too late to build the life you’re seeking.
Cynthia Erivo learned the music to Wicked a decade before she needed it, not knowing those same lyrics would change her life. Now she has performed those songs on the world stage, showing us there is always time to keep discovering ourselves. And to illustrate that it’s often the parts of ourselves we are told to bury that make us shine.
In a series of powerful, personal vignettes, Cynthia reflects on the ways she has grown as an actor and human and the practices she’s learned over years of performing and reminds us all we are capable of so much more than we think.
We all have hopes and dreams that we want to bring across the finish line. We all falter and take missteps. In this book, Cynthia draws from her experiences running marathons, both real and metaphorical, onstage and onscreen, to show how each challenge can help us. She urges readers to lean into the wisdom of their bodies, to understand and strive for a physical and mental balance. Because when we chase our deepest desires, each small step leads us closer to where we want to go.Upload proof of your pre order here to receive your custom bookmark.
- Mamba & Mambacita Forever
Mamba & Mambacita Forever
Vanessa Bryant
$40.00A beautiful and moving testament to the enduring life of Kobe Bryant and the Mamba Mentality.
When Kobe and Gianna Bryant died, tragically and unexpectedly, in 2020, the world mourned with a wholehearted ferocity. In perhaps the largest and most intense outpouring of public art the world has ever seen, murals went up on seemingly every available wall in Los Angeles and around the globe. The paintings were both professional and amateur, some public and some private, many of them colossal. All of them expressed love and respect for Kobe and Gianna Bryant as athletes, as a father and daughter, as heroes who will not be forgotten.
In Mamba & Mambacita Forever, Vanessa Bryant brings together the images and stories of more than a hundred murals honoring her husband and daughter. Taken together, what emerges is the story of a man who became even more than he himself could have imagined, an avatar of determination, discipline, and competitiveness. He was also a worldwide icon, one of the greatest athletes of our time, a man committed to his family and to fatherhood. Kobe was a figure of transformation and hope.
Mamba & Mambacita Forever ensures that the legacy of Kobe and Gianna Bryant will live on even after the most monumental murals themselves have all crumbled.
Stay Informed. We're building a community committed to celebrating Black authors + artisans. Subscribe to keep up with all things Kindred Stories.