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  • Black Crossword: 100 Midi Puzzles Connecting the African Diaspora

    Juliana Pache

    $15.99

    Frustrated by the dearth of Black people creating puzzles or appearing as clues, media professional and entrepreneur Juliana Pache launched blackcrossword.com at the beginning of 2023. The site took off at once and was met with an overwhelmingly positive reception from new and seasoned solvers alike.

    This second collection offers even more challenges and choice, featuring different grid sizes from 6 x 6 to 8 x 8. Highlighting terms and clues from across the diaspora—topics include prominent cultural figures and movements, artistic achievements, history, and Black vernacular from around the globe—Black Crossword: 100 Midi Puzzles Connecting The African Diaspora covers popular culture, the arts, literature, and more, and follows the form of the original Black Crossword, but with more letters, and more room to highlight the Diaspora’s rich history

  • Family Spirit : A Novel

    Diane McKinney-Whetstone

    $26.99

    The eccentric Mace family believes that the Philadelphia rowhouse they’ve lived in for decades is built on sacred ground, and that the space enhances the clairvoyance passed down to them through generations. But developers, viewing the family’s lifestyle an impediment to gentrification efforts, begin a campaign to displace them. Meanwhile, a prodigal daughter’s return deepens family schisms and exposes betrayals. Can she also help them battle the havoc, both internal and external, that would ruin them?

    The Maces believe that a clairvoyant gene, they refer to as the knowing, has been passed down in their family to at least one girl child in every generation from as far back as they can trace—they claim Harriet Tubman in their family tree. Main character Lil, considered the most gifted of her generation, has returned to Philadelphia for cancer treatment. Lil is painfully estranged from her mother and aunts and cousins. Decades ago, after too much brandy and cocaine, Lil acquiesces to her boyfriends’ request to prove her clairvoyance by advising him on a business venture. Doing so, Lil violates a sacred family code because the Maces believe a knowing is an act of community where they agree through storytelling and rituals that invoke the ancestors, that their prognostications contribute to a greater good. Lil’s boyfriend benefits from her breach of faith and in an act of gratitude—and exploitation—books Lil on the Mike Douglass show. Lil’s mother and grandmother are mortified as they watch Lil predict trivialities in a game-like format for some fawning white man, making a mockery of their sacrosanct practice. They sever all contact with Lil and ban her from the family home.

    Lil becomes a media darling for a time after her appearance on The Mike Douglas Show, and since then has been paid handsomely as a consultant, advisor, counselor, coach, or similar titles that legitimate entities use to obscure that they’re paying for fortunetelling.

    Lil has remained close with her brother Miles and when she returns to Philadelphia, settles into the chaos of his household. Miles is an aspiring novelist in search of a book deal; Mile’s wife Jetta, a once local model, is now trying her hand at interior decorating. Jetta and Miles are teetertottering on Bankruptcy, their marriage is disintegrating, and they can’t agree on how to help their twenty-one-year-old daughter Ayana work through her issues. Lil offers Miles and Jetta money and advice, but she primarily concentrates on Ayana in whom she recognizes her younger self.

    Ayana is back home with her parents following an abysmal six years trying to finish college. After a dearth of girl babies on her father’s side, she feels pressured to manifest and carry on the family gift. She’s conflicted. Her entire life, her mother, who doesn’t believe in a clairvoyant gene, has tried to persuade Ayana that she is not like the Maces. Though Ayana craves a normal life and wishes Jetta was right, she knows that she is very much like her father’s people. Plus, she adores them with their unapologetic authenticity, and color-clashing outfits, and free-standing crinkly hair.  She loves the stories her grandmother tells about the ancestors, bringing them to life. She especially loves the rituals.

    Still, Ayana pretends to her family that the knowing gene has bypassed her, disappointing her grandmother and aunts, greatly relieving her mother, and causing Ayana enormous guilt. She distracts herself from the guilt by jumping in and out of relationships. Her latest guy lives in his car.

    More complications arise for Ayana when she thinks she experiences a knowing about Lil’s treatment and doesn’t want to out herself by exposing it.

    Meanwhile, the man who exploited Lil years ago has also returned to Philly after a lucrative run as a Black man purveying anti-Black rhetoric. He again contacts Lil for help. As appalled as she is by his brazenness, she considers his appeal an opportunity to right her past wrong and pave a way back home to her mother. She tussles with whether and how to bring him down as she prepares to start her cancer treatment. Ayana begs her to get a second opinion, and Lil relents and discovers the radiologist’s error, and Ayana’s deceit.

    Ayana’s unhoused boyfriend learns through his internship with a gentrifying housing development corporation that a campaign is underway to remove Ayana’s grandmother, aunts, and cousins from the home they’ve occupied for decades. The threat fuels the internal struggles of the main characters. Ayana, just trying to live a normal life, and Lil, just trying to keep living, become a formidable duo in the climactic battle to save the family home, their block, their culture, and their traditions.

    Each chapter of Family Spirit opens with a text message thread that captures the chapter’s focus—hence the title Family Spirit. Told in an omniscient voice, and primarily set in the current day, Family Spirit dips into the past with depictions of enslaved ancestors through the stories Ayana’s grandmother tells.

  • Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art

    Phoebe Hoban

    $19.99

    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.

  • Specs

    Van G. Garrett, Reggie Brown (Illustrated by)

    $19.99

    In this follow-up to Kicks, dynamic duo Van G. Garrett and New York Times bestselling artist Reggie Brown reunite to celebrate kids who wear glasses, or specs, and all the amazing, stylish things they can do and be while being true to themselves—in spectacular fashion!

    You shouldn’t pick SPECS carelessly. No rough-and-ready, unsteady, speedily selected pair of glasses will do.

    This is a love letter to glasses. But not just any glasses. Only the shiniest, flyest, you-est specs you can find—the ones that let you see things in a whole new way!

    In this playful and joyful ode to specs of all kinds, young readers follow one girl on her journey of acceptance and join the fun of picking the perfect pair of glasses. 

  • Duels (The French List)

    Néhémy Dahomey

    $25.00

    PRE-ORDER:ON SALE DATE: Oct 6, 2025

    A gripping tale of education, violence, and hope, in which one man's dream for a better future collides with a community on the edge of transformation.

    Set in 1842, this novel foregrounds a Haiti that is grappling with the weight of an onerous debt imposed by France, forcing its citizens to pay reparations to French colonists in exchange for diplomatic recognition of the first Black republic of the Americas. In the town of Boën, a prosperous notary, Ludovic Possible, decides to take a bold step to secure the future of his community. He opens a schoolhouse where local children can learn both artisanal skills and the essential ability to read and write. For Ludovic, education represents the best chance for the people of Boën to rise above their hardships and build a prosperous future—especially for Aïda, a quiet and enigmatic girl whose mother’s marvelous stories captivate him.

    The tranquility of Boën is soon shattered, however, by a series of duels that pit families, neighbors, and even animals against each other. As tensions rise, Ludovic’s vision for a better future is threatened by the escalating violence. In Duels, Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey introduces readers to a rich and unforgettable cast of characters—Aïda, Ludovic, Balthazar Possible, Pépé the Tempest, and many others—who find themselves at the crossroads of a nation on the brink of transformative change.

  • Simply More

    Cynthia Erivo

    from $18.99

    *Paperback Release Date - 10/27/2026*

    In 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. 

  • The Echo of Forever

    Asia Monique

    $33.00

    The King of Rejectors

    The Collective took from me…

    Demetrius Cannon had everything to lose and nothing to gain if he allowed the society to walk all over him. He was determined to eliminate every threat to his family’s bloodline, even if it meant going up against a group more powerful than he could ever be.

    …and it was time I took it all back.

    The Broker of Assassins

    I bled for the Collective…

    Forever James had the world at her fingertips, but couldn’t fathom what real freedom looked like. She was determined to break away from the society her family had been loyal to for generations, even if it meant she died trying.

    …and it was time I made them bleed for me.

  • Successful Failure : Lessons Learned Flat on My Face

    Kevin Fredericks

    $28.00
    Kevin Fredericks (aka KevOnStage) is a viral stand-up star, an NAACP Image Award–winning comedian, the founder of KevOnStage Studios, a New York Times bestselling author, and a superstar on social media. But his path to success wasn’t always smooth. As a kid, Kevin noticed something useful: If he made people laugh, the grown-ups would let him stay up late. In church plays, his commitment to the role of Goliath led to a busted lip, and the audience couldn’t get enough. He dreamed of becoming a performer, of finding that big break that would launch him into the bright lights of pop culture fame. But as he soon found, the road to the life we want is longer, weirder, more embarrassing, and more entertaining than we think it will be.

    In Successful Failure, the comedian recounts hilarious stories and sincere insight from his adventures (and misadventures) trying to make it in life. From performing under an alias to avoid getting fired from his suit-and-tie day job to breaking a chair onstage and quitting stand-up for six months, from pooping his pants on a bus next to his future wife to starting a clothing line called Dreams Don’t Die (they sure do if the merch doesn’t sell), Kevin reminds readers that while we might not be The Rock, Warren Buffett, or Kevin Hart, we’re all out here trying, and that’s okay.

    Laugh-out-loud in one moment and perceptive in the next, Successful Failure is a wild ride from one of America’s funniest comics and a sendup of our ideals around hustle culture and success.
  • This Ain't Our First Rodeo
    $19.99

    When life lassoes Josie and Shawn back together three years after their dreamy first date, their second chance at love is anything but easy. A big-hearted rodeo romance set in Houston, Texas, by the critically acclaimed Liara Tamani, author of What She Missed, All The Things We Never Knew, and Calling My Name. This bold first-love story is for fans of Nothing Like the Movies and Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute.

    This ain’t Josie’s first rodeo. Her parents own several fancy restaurants in Houston, and they just opened a new one right outside the stadium. Josie is expected to stay inside the restaurant and help, and maybe take over their growing empire one day, but that isn’t what Josie wants. She’d rather be at the rodeo itself than in a high-end restaurant next to it. Or eating funnel cakes and Texas-sized corn dogs at the carnival on the grounds. Or better yet, riding her horse at her grandparents’ ranch, the very place her mom wants to sell.

    It ain’t Shawn’s first rodeo either. He’s been riding bulls since his mom died, doing everything he can to live up to his rodeo-champion stepfather’s sky-high expectations. But as Shawn’s stardom rises, so do tensions in their relationship. His stepfather’s drinking and gambling problems sure don’t help.

    After one unforgettable night leaves Josie and Shawn wanting nothing but each other, their lives become entwined in increasingly complex ways. Can they save Josie’s family land? Or will Shawn’s stepfather and his shady plan be the ranch’s ruin? Will one wrong move cost them everything? Rodeo after rodeo, year after year, can Josie and Shawn keep their hearts open through the secrets, twists, and turns?

    This Ain’t Our First Rodeo is a contemporary western love story full of bulls, brawls, and horses. It’s a tender second chance cowboy romance about family, friendship, mistakes, and the blessings of choosing to love anyway. Black cowboys and cowgirls like Josie and Shawn have long helped shape the American West—a legacy that shines in Liara Tamani’s storytelling. Her writing is quick-witted, swoony, and authentic, with characters who are easy to love and hard to forget.

  • Give Him to Me
    $17.99

    'Master of the jaw-dropping twist' S MAGAZINE

    'An edge-of-your-seat thriller that'll keep you guessing right until the end, get this to the top of your reading pile' HEAT

    ** Pre-order the new heart-stopping emotional thriller from the Queen of the Big Reveal **

    Robyn 'Avril' Managa was twelve when she witnessed her controlling and abusive father murder her mother. Put into care while her well-connected father was given a new identity in Witness Protection, Robyn has lived with the trauma of that day ever since.

    Now in her twenties, Robyn has decided she wants a family reunion - so is killing people connected to her father's case, leaving on their bodies the note: GIVE HIM TO ME.

    Dr Kez Lanyon is called onto the case. But can Kez get into Robyn's mind before she kills again? Or is she about to become Avril's latest victim?

    Profiler and therapist Kez Lanyon returns in a gripping new stand-alone novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Dorothy Koomson.

    Readers love Dorothy Koomson:

    'Raw, emotive and chilling'

    'Full of shocks and surprises . . . another hard hitting, psychologically thrilling page turner'

    'Jaw-dropping, totally unexpected'

    'Terrifyingly authentic, twisty and compelling'

    'A must read!'

  • Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas
    $20.00

    “We turn to poetry in our greatest moments of joy and sorrow to help us tune in to our emotions and connect with others,” writes Johnston. In Praisesong for the People, poetry brings us together to celebrate the people across the state who make this land feel like home.

    Edited by Amanda Johnston, the 61st Texas Poet Laureate and first Black woman to receive this honor, this vibrant anthology collects the work of 70 emerging and established poets across the state. Commissioned to write original poems celebrating everyday people, the poets in Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas are as diverse as the landscapes they inhabit, and reflect the intersecting identities of Texas’s population across age, gender, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disability, and immigrant communities. In these poems, their voices gather in a heartfelt chorus to praise the people in their communities who offer small kindnesses, asking nothing in return. 

    Praise the bus driver who ferries us safely across town. Praise the abuela who dries our tears. Praise the librarian who protects young curiosity. Praise the therapist with an open door, the teacher fluent in the language of affirmation. With story, testimony, and song, these poets give our unsung community heroes their flowers.

    With an introduction by Texas Poet Laureate Amanda Johnston. 

    Featuring praise poems by Kendra Allen, C. Prudence Arceneaux, Sara Bawany, Gaby Benitez, Claire Bowman, Lauren Brazeal Garza, KB Brookins, drea brown, Marie Brown, Jenny Browne, Joe Brundidge, Cloud Delfina Cardona, Paola Carrasco, Camari Carter Hawkins, Avery C. Castillo, Julieta Corpus, Victor Leo Cruz, Logen Cure, Terry Dawson, Audrea Diaz, Tarfia Faizullah, Icess Fernandez Rojas, Carrie Fountain, Mag Gabbert, Jasmine Games, Daniel García Ordaz, Chera Hammons, Alicia Harmon, SG Huerta, Amanda Johnston, Katelin Kelly, Aris Kian, Ella Kim, Jennine “DOC” Krueger, Dr. Rosalee Martin, Kaitlyn Marzetta McClung, Jasminne Mendez, Lupe Mendez, Zell Miller III, Jonathan Moody, Bo Hee Moon, Lisa L. Moore, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton, mónica teresa ortiz, Sebastian Páramo, Bianca Alyssa Pérez, Emmy Pérez, Phillip Periman, Kenan Phillip, Julie Poole, Amanda Puryear El, Octavio Quintanilla, jo reyes-boitel, Gerard Robledo,  Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, Jan Seale, ire’ne lara silva, Shasparay, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ebony Stewart, Nomi Stone, Robert Tinajero, Sam Treviño, Pat Tyrer, Alexandra van de Kamp, Eddie Vega, Annar Veröld-Miranda, Edward Vidaurre, April Sojourner Truth Walker, and Sasha West. 

  • PRE-ORDER: False Prophet
    $19.99

    The cult drama of The Girls meets Yellowface’s searing exploration of lies, immigration, and identity in this propulsive literary thriller debut.

    A grieving actor-turned-memoirist reimagines his mother’s encounter with Jim Jones, the deadliest cult leader of all time—the only problem is, it’s mostly all lies . . .

    Actor Jal Persad is enjoying moderate success when the death of his mother, Rita, sends him into a tailspin—after all, how could he grieve a woman he barely knew? Rita had grown up in Guyana during the rise and fall of the Jonestown cult, but never spoke of her home to Jal, always keeping him at a distance.

    After months of avoiding work, a misunderstanding at lunch with his manager leads Jal into a web of lies. He soon finds himself writing a memoir of his mother’s adolescence, one that places her in direct contact with Jim Jones himself. There’s just one issue–Rita never met the man. Suddenly, the book goes viral, and Jal must face the looming threat of exposure, and his own guilt.

    Alternating between Jal’s rapid rise and Rita’s distorted story, False Prophet confronts the intergenerational legacy of colonialism, the allure of power, and the age-old question–how much of yourself are you willing to lose in order to succeed?

  • PRE-ORDER: Good Weed Good Women: A Feminist Celebration of Cannabis
    $40.00

    Women and weed--welcome to the revolution!

    Good Weed Good Women is a bold collection of writing and photos celebrating the women who have taken the weed industry by storm, from cannabis entrepreneur and Buy Weed from Women founder Jasmine Mans. The book tells the full story of cannabis and how cannabis is being used both as a symbol and in its many physical forms by women in their journey towards greater mental, financial, sexual, spiritual, political, and societal freedom.

    This book is a loud, feminist gathering of personal narratives, interviews, photos, illustrations, recipes, poetry, and more from many different intersections of the cannabis industry. Good Weed Good Women explores cannabis in relation to everything from spirituality and motherhood to money, race, and the law.

    This beautifully packaged book features a vibrant mix of media, with author Jasmine Mans' voice threaded throughout to unify and cohere the collection. In addition to sharing the stories of other women through interviews and case studies, her personal essays and poetry appear in every chapter.

  • PRE-ORDER: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
    $19.95

    How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an ambitious masterwork of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of international capitalism. In this classic book, Rodney makes the unflinching case that African maldevelopment is not a natural feature of geography, but a direct product of imperial extraction from the continent, a practice that continues up into the present. Meticulously researched, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains an unshakably relevant study of the so-called "great divergence" between Africa and Europe, just as it remains a prescient resource for grasping the the multiplication of global inequality today.

    In this new edition, Angela Davis offers a striking foreword to the book, exploring its lasting contributions to a revolutionary and feminist practice of anti-imperialism.

  • PRE-ORDER: Give Them Their Flowers: Reflections on Women, Film, and Friendship
    $27.99

    “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.”

  • PRE-ORDER: Palestine: A Primer
    $17.99

    Come for a walk with me, if you would, along the streets of Jerusalem.

    My family has walked has walked these streets for more than a thousand years. . .

    Come for a walk with me, if you would, along the streets of Jerusalem.

    My family has walked has walked these streets for more than a thousand years. . .

    Rashid Khalidi invites readers to learn more about Palestine in what is both a deeply personal and yet expansive account of the last hundred years of the country's history. By blending detailed research with firsthand experiences, this book is equal parts compelling and informative―the perfect educational resource for all ages. From the Balfour Declaration to Israel's siege of the Gaza strip, Khalidi delivers a thorough portrait of the intricacies of the geopolitical conflict occurring in the middle east while keeping the text broadly accessible.

  • PRE-ORDER: The Black Shield: An American Memoir of Family and Power
    $32.00

    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.

  • PRE-ORDER: License to Thrill
    $17.99

    Don’t miss out on the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run in the US and Canada only, a must-have for any book lover.

    The Bodyguard meets Romancing the Stone, in this adventure romcom by New York Times bestselling author, Debbie Rigaud, where an R&B singer is recruited to lure a foreign warlord out of hiding after the CIA discovers he is her number one fan.

  • PRE-ORDER: Mazywood
    $32.00

    S. A. Cosby's All the Sinners Bleed meets Percival Everett's Erasure in this literary thriller following the grandson of a famous Black actress from the 1920s to the 1940s, now a filmmaker himself, who returns to his grandmother's cabin retreat in the California mountains only to encounter the legacy of her rage born in Old Hollywood.

    Award-winning author Tananarive Due returns with the follow-up to the multi-award-winning The Reformatory in this generational novel of rage. With flashbacks to Johnny’s grandmother—who brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel—this novel explores three generations, beginning with Mazelle Washington’s life as a young actress. Fifty years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny will discover the secret she kept and nurtured since she was a child, when she had a dark wish come true.

    A monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds.

  • PRE-ORDER: Curdle Creek: A Novel
    $18.99

    Winner of a Shirley Jackson Award

    For fans of “The Lottery” and The Hunger Games, this novel set in a small town with a sinister tradition is chilling in the best possible way.

    “Curdle Creek is a thoughtful, sinister tour-de-force.”
    ―Tananarive Due, L.A. Times Book Prize-winning author of The Reformatory

    Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home.

    Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of the remote all-Black town that’s stuck in the past and governed by ominous rituals including a one in, one out population policy. Though she’s always been considered blessed, her luck changes when her grown children run off to parts unknown, she comes in second to last in the Running of the Widows, and her father flees after his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony.

    Forced to jump into a well in a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported first back in time, and then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to jump realms again, landing Osira even farther away from home, in rural England. Safe there as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere, but will she ever find a place to call home?

    Curdle Creek is an American Gothic in the tradition of Shirley Jackson that offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Salt Grows Heavy, and Lovecraft Country. Yvonne Battle-Felton’s propulsive tale is layered and eerie and quite unlike anything else.

  • PRE-ORDER: Men Like Ours
    $28.99

    "The most promising debut I've read in decades." --Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends

    From brilliant new voice in fiction Bindu Bansinath, a darkly funny and moving story about death, life, and community in a South Asian suburban enclave of New Jersey.

    When Matthew Pillai is found dead, slumped over the wheel of his BMW, the women of Willow Road are roped into the investigation of their friend's death.

    At the center of the case are the Sharmas--Anita, a widow whose husband introduced Matthew to the neighborhood, and her boundary-pushing daughter, Leila, who called him Uncle. To Anita, who has been in freefall since her arrival in America as a young woman, Matthew's presence offered hope, including a promise of betterment for Leila. The truth, however, is far stranger.

    In this darkly funny debut, the women of Willow Road find that despite their internecine quarrels, casual backstabbing, and generational feuds, in the end, there is no one to turn to but each other.

  • PRE-ORDER: The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman: A Novel
    $32.00

    Paperback Release Date - 9/29/2026

    A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by PEN America, Lit Hub, BookPage, and Ms. Magazine

    The wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed “rags-to-Rolex” life when her secret past comes roaring into the spotlight—in this "funny and juicy and sexy and delicious peek behind the pulpit" (Samantha Irby) from the acclaimed and beloved author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.

    From the moment Scharisse Freeman ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she’s been labeled too brash and too “of the world” by church folks who grudgingly accepted her into their fold, and too holy by her estranged childhood bestie Petra. Schar doesn’t have many allies, but that hasn’t stopped her from building an enviable business empire spanning books to clothing to branded products, and living the comfortable life her husband's power affords her.

    On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the final bit of validation she’s always dreamt of: a coveted invitation to participate in the First Lady USA pageant. This is her chance to be accepted by the other pastors’ wives—First Ladies—who are “like Jesus’ disciples if they had been a group of mean girls.” Finally, blissfully, the ice between Schar and the other First Ladies begins to thaw.

    But as the pageant nears, a sensational scandal breaks with Schar at its center, and her carefully curated life implodes. Schar faces down shame and terrible secrets from her childhood and is reminded that in the eyes of the church, optics can matter more than the truth.

    Unflinchingly funny, frank, and packed with surprising turns, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman exults in the luscious, messy pleasure of finally feeling free.

    "Deesha Philyaw has already established herself as one of the greatest short story writers, but in The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman she cements herself as the most soulfully entertaining writer of her era." - Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Long Division

  • PRE-ORDER: Rodney McMillian: A Son of the Soil
    $60.00

    "McMillian endows simple objects with affecting political resonances...There is anger in them, but there is hope too." ―Frieze

    Published with Columbia Museum of Art.

    Multimedia artist Rodney McMillian (born 1969) conjoins political texts, found domestic materials and archival footage into assemblages that confront the complex histories of class, race, landscape and region that inform American identity. In A Son of the Soil, McMillian trains his eye on the history of landscape representation in the South. Through large-scale abstract expanses painted on old bedding, sculptures constructed from post-consumer objects and archival film footage, McMillian evokes the land's tillage and spoilage, histories of ownership and the charged relationship between land and the body. A Son of the Soil presents a bevy of scholarly essays that examine McMillian's oeuvre, focusing on the artist's interplay between urban industrialism and domestic space, his visual culture and art historical sources and, more broadly, the relationship between a region and a nation.

  • PRE-ORDER: Worofila Street: Building African Architecture
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    "WOROFILA Worofila Street: Building African Architecture" "The first book by Senegalese practice Worofila, bringing together their research processes and projects to suggest an approach to making in architecture in contemporary Africa This collection of critical texts and project presentations reflects on the legacy of colonialism in building practices in West Africa, and explores local pre-colonial histories to forge a contemporary bioclimatic and ecological architectural language Worofila are a celebrated emerging practice based in Dakar and headed by principals Nzinga B. Mboup and Nicolas Rondet, whose work has been widely exhibited and discussed" "This irst book by celebrated Senegalese practice Woroila addresses the challenge facing the African city of today: to build in a way that is adapted to the lives of cur- rent inhabitants without compromising those of future generations. Drawing on abundant but often ignored pre-colonial methods and models of building, Woroila create bioclimatic architecture based around local, non-polluting materials, ances- tral knowledge, and democratic systems of construction and maintenance. Their work moves beyond the legacy of colonial-era architecture, imposed from other cultures and climates and frequently ill-suited, to recover and develop a sustainable African architectural language that reflects the continent's climate, ecology, and identity. Worofila Street: Building African Architecture offers an overview of Woroila's proliic work to date, with detailed explorations of the research, ideas, and tech- niques that structure it. Texts on the histories of building in Senegal and the pre- and post-colonial conditions of architecture on the African continent are accompanied by presentations of projects spanning housing, public buildings, infrastructure, landscapes, and experiments with materials. Together these propose a new typol- ogy of building in Senegal and inspire approaches to develop local and sustainable architectures across the world." "WOROFILA are a Dakar-based architectural practice founded in 2019 and headed by Nzinga B. Mboup and Nicolas Rondet. Woroila specialises in bioclimatic architecture and construction using local materials such as raw earth and typha, with the aim of promoting an architecture that is durable and in harmony with the climate."

  • PRE-ORDER: Survivor (Patternist, 4)
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    Returning to print after nearly 50 years, Survivor completes Octavia E. Butler’s thrilling Patternist series, including a short story from the Patternist saga and new historical essays from a major Butler scholar.

    This deluxe edition includes: 
    * An incredible new cover and package
    * Premium French flaps and newly designed, full color interior covers
    *  High-quality paper with elegant deckled-edges  

    The Patternist books (Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster) comprise Butler's longest, most complex series, stretching from late 17th century Africa to outer space in the far future, as rival factions of humanity develop incredible powers—only to use them to subjugate others. For nearly half a century, the fourth volume, Survivor, has been out of print at Octavia E. Butler's request.

    It tells the story of Alanna, a colonist fleeing a plague-scarred Earth. But the planet she lands on is inhabited by the alien Kohn, whose battling tribes soon trap Alanna in their war. She must make alliances—while plotting betrayals. She must protect her heart—while putting it at risk. And she must decide if the best way to retain her humanity . . . is to leave it behind.

    Now returning to print, Survivor is put into its proper historical context thanks to contributions from scholar and Octavia E. Butler Fellow Alyssa Collins.
    This long-awaited volume also contains "A Necessary Being," the only short fiction set in the Patternist universe, to finally, fully bring together and complete the Patternist series for readers everywhere.

  • PRE-ORDER: Ashes at the Altar (Blood at the Root)
    $20.99

    At a hidden magical HBCU a teen boy must confront evil spirits, family secrets and tested loyalties. In this haunting finale to the New York Times bestselling Blood at the Root trilogy, bloodlines, betrayal, and legacy collide in a battle that may cost everything.

    Malik Baron has learned a lot since he first came to Caiman University: History is power. Family is more than just blood. You can't escape your past. And magic always comes with a price.

    But nothing he's been taught could have prepared him for what this semester will bring. Even after he risked it all to trap the evil spirit Marinette that has been possessing his mother, her power continues to grow. And with her and the Bokors still at large, the cracks in the magical community have reached a breaking point. Just as Malik begins to get to know his father's family, the Bonclairs' power is challenged, leaving him to decide where his loyalties lie. And it's not just the future of Caiman at stake, but the very magic that runs in his veins.

    In the propulsive and emotional conclusion to this powerful trilogy, the future and the family Malik has fought so hard to build and protect is in greater danger than ever. But with the power of ancestors and the strength of his loved ones behind him, can he fight for what the world has always said is impossible for a Black boy like him—a happy ending?

  • PRE-ORDER: The Disappearers: A Novel
    $32.00

    From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings: a propulsive novel about the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its tragic consequences

    In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable truth: All of them are gay―a “battyman” in Jamaican argot―and all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare.

    One night a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is physical. As their bodies heal, each man grapples with the violence, the hatred, and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack has unearthed, while others double down on retribution.

    In The Disappearers, Marlon James has written a riveting and deeply human story of men forced to make compromises to survive what the society they live in demands. It is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s.

  • PRE-ORDER: The Antinomies of Black Marxism: Critique of the Racial Capitalism Paradigm
    $56.99

    Cedric Robinson’s widely acclaimed study on Marxism and race has enjoyed a celebratory renaissance in recent years, becoming commonplace across the disciplines and beyond to activist and left circles. The Antinomies of Black Marxism contests its now‑enormous influence, bringing together leading scholars of Marxism to reassess the decisive question of race and Marxist thought and practice.

    While varied in their approaches, the contributors all affirm that racism is a modern production of capitalist class exploitation. They put forth a trenchant and uncompressing critique of Black Marxism. They see Robinson’s transhistoric racialism and hostility to Marxism as politically dangerous to the extent that it propagates a race over a class consciousness that undermines working‑class unity. They place a premium on multiethnic, transnational proletarian struggle against capitalism at a time of epochal crisis in the global capitalist system.

    This indispensable compendium makes a timely contribution to contemporary debates on race, class, capitalism, and social inequality and is essential to classes on Black Studies and black social thought, as it provides a thorough analysis and critique of one of the landmark contemporary critical theorists in US political and social theory.

  • PRE-ORDER: The World Wasn't Ready for You
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    “The most profound terror is rooted in love—the terror of losing love, of love betrayed, of love in peril. Justin C. Key’s work is a cold knife through a hot heart, a surgical blade unleashing gouts of searing fear.”—Cory Doctorow, author of Red Team Blues, Little Brother, and Radicalized

    “An electrifying collection of stories that would make Octavia E. Butler smile.”—Ebony

    Black Mirror meets Get Out in this gripping story collection reminiscent of the work of Octavia E. Butler, deftly blending science fiction, horror, and fantasy to examine issues of race, class, and prejudice—an electrifying, oftentimes heartbreaking debut from an extraordinary new voice—
    now available as a limited Olive Edition from Harper Perennial.

    In The World Wasn’t Ready for You, Justin C. Key builds on his lifelong obsession with monsters as he expands and subverts the horror genre to expertly explore issues of race, class, prejudice, love, exclusion, loneliness, and what it means to be a person in the world, while revealing the horrifying nature inherent in all of us.

    In the opening story, “The Perfection of Theresa Watkins,” a sci-fi love story turned nightmare, a husband uses new technology to download the consciousness of his recently deceased Black wife into the body of a white woman. In “Spider King,” an inmate agrees to participate in an experimental medical study offered to Black prisoners in exchange for early release, only to find his body reacting with disturbing symptoms. And in the title story, a father tries to protect his son, teaching him how to navigate a racist world that does not understand him and sees him as a threat.

    The World Wasn’t Ready for You is a gripping, provocative, and distinctly original collection that demonstrates Key’s remarkable literary gifts—a skill at crafting science fiction stories equaled by an ability to sculpt characters and narrative—as well as his utterly fresh take on how genre can be used to delight, awe, frighten, and ultimately challenge our perceptions. Wildly imaginative and powerfully resonant, it introduces an unforgettable new voice in fiction.

    The full set of books in the 2026 Olive Editions series include:

    * Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
    * Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
    * Island by Aldous Huxley
    * Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
    * The Princess Bride by William Goldman
    * The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
    * Highfire by Eoin Colfer
    * The World Wasn’t Ready for You by Justin Key

  • PRE-ORDER: Back to Green: Rediscovering a World of Delicious, Healthy Eating
    $40.00

    Marcus Samuelsson, Award-Winning Chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author explores plant-forward eating around the globe, learning from chefs and farmers from the Caribbean and South America to East Asia and Africa.

    In recent years, Marcus Samuelsson has reimagined the way he cooks, focusing more and more on nourishing, healthy, “of-the-earth" ingredients from around the world: coconut, rice, corn, acai, plantains, teff, chillis and more. As Marcus illuminates, these ancient ingredients are heirlooms, telling stories of ancestry, migration, and resilience. They bind communities, and if we look closer, they also offer a path toward healthy living.

    In Back to Green, Marcus inspires readers to rediscover the cuisines of the globe that have provided us with healthy, delicious food for centuries. Countries in the Caribbean, the Americas, the Pacific, Asia, and Africa have long incorporated “superfoods” into their diets. The diverse and delicious recipes in this book include:

    * Papaya Passion Fruit Smoothie
    * Steamed Black Cod with Spicy Pineapple Salsa
    * Eggplant Omelet with Banana Ketchup
    * Rice Noodle Bowl with Ginger and Garlic Broth
    * Lentil Salad with Coconut Turmeric Vinaigrette
    * Vegetarian Injera Lasagna

    With profiles of chefs and producers all over the world, Back to Green is a sweeping and groundbreaking celebration of cultures that have long looked at food through the lens of sustainability, ritual, and healing. It is a trek around the globe that will lead you back home to your kitchen, armed with soul-nourishing recipes that are waiting to be honored and passed down through generations once more.

  • PRE-ORDER: Who We Are: Our Buried History of Anti-Black Racism
    $35.00

    A blistering exposé of how anti-Black racism has influenced the most essential cornerstones of American life — from where we live and where we go to school to our opportunities to vote and our relationship with law enforcement— from the founder of the Who We Are Project and former director of the ACLU and the Trone Center for Justice and Equality

    Featuring a foreword by Tom Hanks

    One of America’s darkest myths is that the abolition of slavery and the 1960s’ dismantling of legalized racial segregation created a racially equitable and just society. But in this illuminating work, Jeffery Robinson uncovers just how deeply anti-Black racism is still woven into the fabric of our nation. White supremacy fueled the country for over a century after the Civil War and is still deeply ingrained in our culture, and racist laws that were banned and deemed unconstitutional have been replaced by more covert ones. Robinson argues that if our country is to change for the better, we must confront this truth.

    Robinson takes us on a dramatic journey through America’s past, from the first group of people captured in Africa and enslaved on American soil to the racist policies and practices still impacting our country today. He argues that anti-Black racism is not just a series of isolated acts but a highly sophisticated system, in which centuries of racial segregation have resulted in flagrant disparities in public school funding, voter turnout, policing, and criminal sentencing.

    Clear-eyed, explosive, and stirring, Who We Are is a powerful correction of American history that shines a light on our country’s darkest stain, revealing who we are in an effort to heal our country and improve who we become.

  • PRE-ORDER: Girl Number 8
    $30.00

    In a bustling and class-divided Nigerian state, a strong-willed female detective is called to the mansion of a wealthy politician to investigate the disappearance of a house girl’s daughter.

    Olori’s four-year-old daughter, Frieda, has vanished. Working as a house girl for wealthy politician Samson Buzugbe, Olori suspects his wife knows more than she’s saying. But no one—certainly not the police—listens to domestic workers. And Olori has so much regret when it comes to her girl.

    What begins as a missing child case takes a sinister turn when Detective Sola Adeyemi, head of the police’s Department of Ritualistic Murders and Human Sacrifice, is called to investigate. Frieda is the eighth child to disappear in the lead-up to an important election day. And for the superstitious in Nigeria, the girl’s light green eyes put her in particular danger.

    As the election looms and Sola’s personal life unravels, she discovers the crime may just reach the highest levels of power. It’s up to her to find Frieda. But proving ritualistic involvement won’t be easy.

    Fans of Tana French and Oyinkan Braithwaite will be captivated by this electrifying exploration of maternal guilt, systemic corruption, and the deadly price of superstition.

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