Following on from her Sunday Times best-seller, I Wish I Knew This Earlier, Toni Tone is back again—and this time, filled with advice that goes beyond our dating and romantic lives.

‘In my opinion, change as a form of evolution is wonderful, because nobody should stay exactly the same forever. If you’re not evolving or growing, what are you doing? Embrace personal change if it means the you of today is better than you of yesterday.’

Do you wish you had more confidence in yourself?

Are your friendships changing as you get older and you’re not sure how manage it?

Is your career unfulfilling or taking over your life?

These are the kinds of issues that Toni Tone explores in her brand-new book, Take Note: Real Life Lessons. Threading in her own experiences, and in particular, what she took away from her twenties, Toni provides genuine and insightful advice on a whole array of topics.

Everything from ageing to making (and ending) friendships, to reinventing yourself and challenging your comfort zone, to ignoring ‘deadlines’ and going at your own pace – Take Note has all of the ingredients you’ll need to reach your fullest potential, in one handy, accessible place.

We’ve all been on promising dates that left us feeling worse in the long run, suffered from breakups we might have mishandled, or stayed in relationships which should have worked but didn’t. So what are we missing?

Don’t panic! Toni Tone is here to give the big sister advice we all need: discovering what we want from a connection, flourishing through heartbreak, and learning the vital importance of difficult conversations for growth and self-respect. Speaking from a place of experience and empathy, she talks through the value of intuition, asking questions, and taking responsibility for the choices we make, offering practical, simple advice to improve any relationship, and insight into our own behaviors.
 
From comfort zones and goal setting to healthy boundaries and keeping yourself centered, Toni offers the loving, healing and authentic common sense lessons that aren’t so common.
 
It may just change your life.

Discover the fascinating history of Black mixology and its enduring influence on American cocktail culture through 70 rediscovered, modernized, or celebrated recipes, by the James Beard Award–winning author of Jubilee.

Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice spotlights the creativity, hospitality, and excellence of Black drinking culture, with classic and modern recipes inspired by formulas found in two centuries’ worth of Black cookbooks. From traditional tipples, such as the Absinthe Frappe or the Clover Leaf Cocktail, to new favorites, like the Jerk-Spiced Bloody Mary and the Gin and Juice 3.0, Toni Tipton-Martin shares a variety of recipes that shine a light on her influences, including underheralded early-twentieth-century icons, like Tom Bullock, Julian Anderson, and Atholene Peyton, and modern superstars, such as Snoop Dogg and T-Pain.

Drawing on her expertise, research in historic cookbooks, and personal collection of texts and letters, Toni Tipton-Martin shows how these drinks have evolved over time and shares the stories of how Black mixology came to be—a culmination of generations of practice, skill, intelligence, and taste.

The author of Song of Solomon now sets her extraordinary novelistic powers on a striking new course. Tar Baby, audacious and hypnotic, is masterful in its mingling of tones—of longing and alarm, of urbanity and a primal, mythic force in which the landscape itself becomes animate, alive with a wild, dark complicity in the fates of the people whose drama unfolds. It is a novel suffused with a tense and passionate inquiry, revealing a whole spectrum of emotions underlying the relationships between black men and women, white men and women, and black and white people.

The place is a Caribbean island. In their mansion overlooking the sea, the cultivated millionaire Valerian Street, now retired, and his pretty, younger wife, Margaret, go through rituals of living, as if in a trance. It is the black servant couple, who have been with the Streets for years—the fastidious butler, Sydney, and his strong yet remote wife—who have arranged every detail of existence to create a surface calm broken only by sudden bursts of verbal sparring between Valerian and his wife. And there is a visitor among them—a beautiful young black woman, Jadine, who is not only the servant’s dazzling niece, but the protegée and friend of the Streets themselves; Jadine, who has been educated at the Sorbonne at Valerian’s expense and is home now for a respite from her Paris world of fashion, film and art.

Through a season of untroubled ease, the lives of these five move with a ritualized grace until, one night, a ragged, starving black American street man breaks into the house. And, in a single moment, with Valerian’s perverse decision not to call for help but instead to invite the man to sit with them and eat, everything changes. Valerian moves toward a larger abdication. Margaret’s delicate and enduring deception is shattered. The butler and his wife are forced into acknowledging their illusions. And Jadine, who at first is repelled by the intruder, finds herself moving inexorably toward him—he calls himself Son; he is a kind of black man she has dreaded since childhood; uneducated, violent, contemptuous of her privilege.

As Jadine and Son come together in the loving collision they have both welcomed and feared, the novel moves outward—to the Florida backwater town Son was raised in, fled from, yet cherishes; to her sleek New York; then back to the island people and their protective and entangling legends. As the lovers strive to hold and understand each other, as they experience the awful weight of the separate worlds that have formed them—she perceiving his vision of reality and of love as inimical to her freedom, he perceiving her as the classic lure, the tar baby set out to entrap him—all the mysterious elements, all the highly charged threads of the story converge. Everything that is at risk is made clear: how the conflicts and dramas wrought by social and cultural circumstances must ultimately be played out in the realm of the heart.

Once again, Toni Morrison has given us a novel of daring, fascination, and power.

Toni Tipton-Martin, the first African-American food editor of a daily American newspaper, is the author of the James Beard Award-winning The Jemima Code, a history of African-American cooking found in—and between—the lines of three centuries’ worth of African-American cookbooks. Tipton-Martin builds on that research in Jubilee, adapting recipes from those historic texts for the modern kitchen. What we find is a world of African-American cuisine—made by enslaved master chefs, free caterers, and black entrepreneurs and culinary stars—that goes far beyond soul food. It’s a cuisine that was developed in the homes of the elite and middle class; that takes inspiration from around the globe; that is a diverse, varied style of cooking that has created much of what we know of as American cuisine.

Honor the legacy of Toni Morrison and the transformative power of literature with our “Books Are Political Action” enamel pin. Inspired by Morrison’s iconic words, this pin celebrates the radical, world-shaping force of storytelling—and the readers who carry that truth with them.

Crafted with high-quality hard enamel and a smooth, elegant finish, this pin features a bold, beautifully lettered design that stands out on totes, denim jackets, backpacks, and lanyards. Its durable construction ensures it stays secure through every march, meeting, book club, and bookstore visit.

Perfect for educators, organizers, book lovers, and anyone who believes in the power of stories to spark change, this pin is more than an accessory—it’s a declaration.

Wear it as a reminder of the work, the beauty, and the responsibility of reading with intention.

This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines from their close-knit childhood in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation.

Nel Wright has chosen to stay in the place where she was born, to marry, raise a family, and become a pillar of the black community. Sula Peace has rejected the life Nel has embraced, escaping to college, and submerging herself in city life. When she returns to her roots, it is as a rebel and a wanton seductress. Eventually, both women must face the consequences of their choices. Together, they create an unforgettable portrait of what it means and costs to be a black woman in America.