A fun, exciting, and informative guide to sexual health, wellness, and pleasure for women of color

In Pleasure, Please! The Black Woman's Guide to Unapologetic Pleasure and Confidence, certified sex educator Ashley Cobb delivers a comprehensive and empowering new exploration of sexual wellness for women of color (and especially Black women). Cobb draws on her extensive experience and expertise in women's health, sexuality, and activism to walk you through everything from individual empowerment to effective ways to confront and overcome the barriers and stigma that Black women face.

You'll discover expert advice interwoven with real stories from real women who have been in your shoes and dealt with the same issues you deal with every day. You'll also find answers to the questions women most frequently ask the author to answer, as well as crystal-clear, informative guidance you can apply in your own life and relationships to help you make your life better now.

Pleasure, Please! also includes:

* Tips and advice on self-love, body positivity, and improving your sense of sexual agency
* Techniques for pleasure and self-exploration to help you enhance your sexual pleasure and explore what you desire – and how to best satisfy those desires
* Specific guidance for navigating the unique sexual health and pleasure challenges that Black women often face

Perfect for all women of color who want to improve their sexual health and get more fulfilment, enjoyment, and pleasure from their bodies, Pleasure, Please! is also an essential read for the partners of those women who want to help and support their partners' sex education and body positivity.

Celebrate the release of Pleasure Please with Ashley Cobb!

EVENT DEETS

When: Saturday, May 16 @ 6:30 PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories(2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming.

Please note outside copies of the book will not be allowed in the bookstore and you will not be eligible for the signing/photo line. You must buy a book from Kindred Stories, or purchase the I ALREADy HAVE BOOK option. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

A fun, exciting, and informative guide to sexual health, wellness, and pleasure for women of color

In Pleasure, Please! The Black Woman's Guide to Unapologetic Pleasure and Confidence, certified sex educator Ashley Cobb delivers a comprehensive and empowering new exploration of sexual wellness for women of color (and especially Black women). Cobb draws on her extensive experience and expertise in women's health, sexuality, and activism to walk you through everything from individual empowerment to effective ways to confront and overcome the barriers and stigma that Black women face.

You'll discover expert advice interwoven with real stories from real women who have been in your shoes and dealt with the same issues you deal with every day. You'll also find answers to the questions women most frequently ask the author to answer, as well as crystal-clear, informative guidance you can apply in your own life and relationships to help you make your life better now.

Pleasure, Please! also includes:

* Tips and advice on self-love, body positivity, and improving your sense of sexual agency
* Techniques for pleasure and self-exploration to help you enhance your sexual pleasure and explore what you desire – and how to best satisfy those desires
* Specific guidance for navigating the unique sexual health and pleasure challenges that Black women often face

Perfect for all women of color who want to improve their sexual health and get more fulfilment, enjoyment, and pleasure from their bodies, Pleasure, Please! is also an essential read for the partners of those women who want to help and support their partners' sex education and body positivity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ashley Cobb (she/her) is an award-winning sexual health expert and author of Pleasure Please! The Black Woman’s Guide to Unapologetic Pleasure and Confidence. Known for her inclusive and forward-thinking approach, Ashley empowers women of color and marginalized communities by offering expert guidance on sexual health, wellness, and pleasure.

With a passion for breaking stigmas and promoting sexual liberation, Ashley’s work spans from reproductive health and HIV prevention to pleasure and sexual empowerment. Her writing, featured in outlets like Essence, The New York Times, and Women's Health, provides practical advice and thought-provoking insights that encourage individuals to embrace their sexuality with confidence.

Ashley advocates for equitable access to sexual health resources, focusing on supporting those disproportionately affected by health disparities. Through her work, she continues to inspire others to lead fulfilling, liberated sexual lives, challenging social norms and promoting open conversations about pleasure and identity.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Nikquan Lewis is a licensed relationship and sex therapist, keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, and author who helps people move beyond survival and into a pleasure-centered life.

She is the founder of Intimate Connections PLLC, where she works with women and couples to understand how trauma and shame shape the way they love, communicate, and experience intimacy. Through her work, she teaches people how to reconnect with their bodies, identify their wants, needs, and desires, and reauthor their relationship with sex and connection.

Nikquan is the creator of the S.A.D. Framework and the author of When Trauma Is Your Author. Her expertise has been featured in Essence, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, and she has appeared on national television, including TV One, as well as radio and news platforms, where she continues to advocate for culturally relevant healing and transformational conversations.

A dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South, from the award-winning author of Family

"Rendered with compassion and beautiful simplicity."--The Washington Post Book World

"[A] provocative and at times painful family portrait . . . It should be required reading."--Detroit Free Press

Opening in Texas during the waning years of the Civil War, The Wake of the Wind tells the epic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When news of Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only to survive but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustices become a plague across the region, time and time again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.

Land, however, is the least of their worldly possessions. Lifee and Mor are the descendants of a long and vital line. Having used their intelligence, strength, and ingenuity to make their place in the new post-Civil War world, they in turn pass those talents along to their children--the next generation to surge forward, accomplishing more than their parents could ever dream.

At once tragic and triumphant, The Wake of the Wind is a penetrating look at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home and a future for themselves and their families.

The beloved novel about a New York City girlhood that heralded a renaissance in Black women’s literature, with a new foreword by Nicole Dennis-Benn, the bestselling author of Patsy and Here Comes the Sun

One of The New York Times Magazine’s 25 Most Significant New York City Novels from the Last 100 Years

A Penguin Classic

Selina Boyce comes of age in 1940s New York as the daughter of two immigrants from Barbados: a free-spirited father she adores and who dreams of returning to his Caribbean island home, and a disciplined, hardworking mother she admires and who is determined to purchase their Brooklyn brownstone. When her father comes into an unexpected inheritance, Selina is torn between his nostalgia for the past and her mother’s ambition for the future, all while negotiating racism, sexuality, Depression-era poverty, and the competing values of African Americans and her West Indian immigrant community.

First published in 1959, Brown Girl, Brownstones opened a window into the rich inner life of Black women and today ranks with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as one of the great New York City novels. With her autobiographical debut, Paule Marshall paved the way for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Maya Angelou—and took her place in the American literary canon.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Two homicide detectives track a brazen killer who's dropping bodies at historical Philadelphia landmarks in this action-packed crime thriller.

Two homicide detectives track a brazen killer who's dropping bodies at historical Philadelphia landmarks in this action-packed crime thriller.

"Marc did a great job setting the table. Looking forward to the next course." -K'WAN, national bestselling author of Animal

"Avery delivers a heart-stopping thriller. Giuseppe "Discipline" Cain is a one-man crime wave." -Dennis Tafoya, author of Dope Thief, an Apple+ TV series

"Discipline is everything you want in a buddy cop story. Gritty, action-packed, clever, and funny." -Delaware Today Magazine

"Has Netflix series written all over it." -Philadelphia Magazine

Giuseppe "Discipline" Cain is a cold-hearted, calculated, and resentful murderer who turns Philadelphia into his own personal killing ground. As the death toll rises, city officials and the police department clamor to calm the fears of the citizens about this brazen serial killer. When an elected official's family member is found dead, no one in the city is safe.

Detective Aaden Bravo is a highly decorated officer with a legendary clearance rate. Detective Christian Bennett is flashy, reckless, and a serial womanizer. After Christian's transfer to the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide division, these two starkly contrasting officers are forced to work together. Despite their disdain for each other, Aaden and Christian's skill sets complement each other. While Aaden is all about the job and Christian is all about the women, their next case is all about survival.

Will they succumb to the pressure of maintaining their partnership, or can they cast aside their differences and stay alive long enough to bring Discipline to justice?

This lyrical celebration of Juneteenth, deeply rooted in Black American history, spans centuries and reverberates loudly and proudly today.

After 300 years of forced bondage;
hands bound, descendants of Africa
picked up their souls—all that they owned—
leaving shackles where they fell on the ground,
headed for the nearest resting place to be found.

Deeply emotional, evocative free verse by poet and activist Sojourner Kincaid Rolle traces the solemnity and celebration of Juneteenth from its 1865 origins in Galveston, Texas to contemporary observances all over the United States. This is an ode to the strength of Black Americans and a call to remember and honor a holiday whose importance reverberates far beyond the borders of Texas.

Leading Binnizá and Maya Ch'orti' scientist Jessica Hernandez, PhD, weaves together Indigenous knowledge, environmental science, and personal family stories in her highly anticipated follow-up to the LA Times best-seller Fresh Banana Leaves.

Not every environmental problem is a result of climate change, but every environmental and climate change problem is a result of colonialism.

Dr. Jessica Hernandez offers readers an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs. She shares how the impacts of colonial climate catastrophe—from warming oceans to forced displacement of settler ontologies—can only be addressed at the root if we reorient toward Indigenous science and follow the lead of Indigenous peoples and communities.

Growing Papaya Trees explores:

* Energy as a sociopolitical issue
* The interconnectedness of natural disasters, sociopolitical turmoil, and forced migration
* Our oceans, our forests, and our Indigenous futures
* Moving Indigenous science from mere acknowledgement into real action
* How to nourish Indigenous roots when displaced beyond borders

Dr. Hernandez asks: what does it mean to be Indigenous when we’re separated from our lands? How do we nurture future generations knowing they, too, will have to live away from their ancestral places? She illuminates that cultures are not lost, even amid genocide, turmoil, war, and climate displacement—and shows us how to be better kin to each other against the ecological violence, colonial oppression, and distorted status quo of the Global North.

From one of our most distinguished historians comes a groundbreaking new examination of the myths and realities of the period after the Civil War.

Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on black experiences and roles during the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in shaping Reconstruction, and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. He compellingly refutes long-standing misconceptions of Reconstruction, and shows how the failures of the time sowed the seeds of the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s. Richly illustrated and movingly written, this is an illuminating and essential addition to our understanding of this momentous era.

The classic, New York Times-bestselling book on the psychology of racism that shows us how to talk about race in America.

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? How can we get past our reluctance to discuss racial issues?

Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about communicating across racial and ethnic divides and pursuing antiracism. These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand dynamics of race and racial inequality in America.

Three years ago, I decided to have my first one-night stand. The plan was simple: research how to do it and meet a man at the bar before nerves playing with my guts got the best of me. I wanted to ring in the new year between a stranger's legs. Someone with good hygiene and exceptional tensile strength to take the edge off of studying mechanical engineering.

Then he walked in.

I'd heard whispers about "a night with Knight," tales of toe cramps and matted hair. Antonio is the biggest player and not the man to relieve me of my pent-up tension. His thick thighs, veiny forearms, and charming smile promised a trip to the hospital.

I shouldn't have followed him back to his condo, but I did.

Dinner turned into a kiss, and that kiss led to accidental humping. That's how we ended up in the emergency room. He had a broken nose, and my wig was stuck on his watch.

Three years and a PhD later, Antonio has cemented himself in my life as my best friend. Moving to the city where my sister lives-and where he plays professional rugby-wasn't a big deal at first. But everything changed when we hugged. His cologne surrounded me, and his eyes stayed locked on mine.

Our friendship is platonic, ironclad after the one-night stand gone wrong. So why can't I shake the feeling that we've barely scratched the surface?

The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in American history. As we commemorate its 150th anniversary, what do we really know about those who experienced slavery?

In their pioneering book, Envisioning Emancipation, renowned photographic historian Deborah Willis and historian of slavery Barbara Krauthamer have amassed 150 photographs—some never before published—from the antebellum days of the 1850s through the New Deal era of the 1930s. The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration.

Envisioning Emancipation illustrates what freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era. From photos of the enslaved on plantations and African American soldiers and camp workers in the Union Army to Juneteenth celebrations, slave reunions, and portraits of black families and workers in the American South, the images in this book challenge perceptions of slavery. They show not only what the subjects emphasized about themselves but also the ways Americans of all colors and genders opposed slavery and marked its end.

Filled with powerful images of lives too often ignored or erased from historical records, Envisioning Emancipation provides a new perspective on American culture.

Amazon Editors' Pick - August 2024
Gizmodo's New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books Releasing in August
Screenrant #1 Most Anticipated Book in Sci-fi Coming Out in August

⭐ "Readers will devour this." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
⭐ "While this book may be short, its impact is anything but small." —Kirkus (starred review)

Part science fiction, part fantasy, and entirely infused with West African culture and spirituality, this novella offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a teenager whose coming of age will herald a new age for her world. Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, this is the first in the She Who Knows trilogy

When there is a call, there is often a response.

Najeeba knows.

She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village. But it’s not a terrible thing, just strange. So when she leaves with her father and brothers to mine salt at the Dead Lake, there’s neither fanfare nor protest. For Najeeba, it’s a dream come true: travel by camel, open skies, and a chance to see a spectacular place she’s only heard about. However, there must have been something to the rule, because Najeeba’s presence on the road changes everything and her family will never be the same.

Small, intimate, up close, and deceptively quiet, this is the beginning of the Kponyungo Sorceress.