267 results for “by complex media”

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  • AUTHOR TALK: No Sense In Wishing with Lawrence Burney - July 10 @ 6 PM
    from $5.00

    Celebrate the release of No Sense in Wishing with Lawrence Burney!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Friday July 10 @ 6 PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to grab your copy of No Sense In Wishing, 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 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A personal and analytical essay collection from culture critic Lawrence Burney that is a personal and analytical look at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him.

    There are moments in our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression. These moments inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward.

    In a time when music is spurring Black Americans’ connection with Africans on the Continent, culture critic Lawrence Burney takes us on a journey from the streets of Baltimore to the concert halls of Lagos, reminisces on seeing his mother perform as the opening act of a Gil Scott-Heron show when he was a child, and sits at a Maryland crab feast with family, assessing how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation. Burney explores these profound interactions with incisive and energizing prose, offering us a personal and critical perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him.

    No Sense in Wishing is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Burney’s search for self. With its gutsy and uncompromising criticism alongside intimate personal storytelling, this “powerful collection of essays” (Rolling Stone) is like an album that hits all the right notes, from a promising writer on the rise.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Lawrence Burney is a writer, editor, critic, and the founder of True Laurels, an independent magazine covering Baltimore’s music and culture scene. His work has appeared in publications such as New York Magazine, GQ, Washington Post and Pitchfork. He has also worked as an editor at The Fader, a staff writer at VICE, and an editor/reporter at The Baltimore Banner. His first book, No Sense in Wishing, a collection of essays, was published in July 2025 via Atria Books. His second book, Sing Back To Me, will also be published by Atria Books. Follow him on Instagram and X @TrueLaurels.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard.

    Laymon is at work on the books, Good God, and City Summer, Country Summer, and a number of other film and television projects. He is the founder of The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative, a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. He is the co-host of Reckon True Stories with Deesha Philyaw. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

  • JULY 2026: Fiction Book Club - July 30 @ 7PM
    $0.00

    We're meeting to discuss Kin by Tayari Jones!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Thursday, July 30 @ 7PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Fiction Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

    ABOUT KIN

    A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

    Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

    A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in 

  • JULY 2026: Romance Book Club - July 8 @ 7PM
    $0.00

    We're meeting to discuss The Missed Connection!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Wednesday, July 8 @ 7PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Romance Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

    *This book is currently on PRE-ORDER and has an on sale date for June 9th. You can purchase now for your book to be picked up or shipped on June 9th. 

    ABOUT THE MISSED CONNECTION

    New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams returns with an intensely romantic, deliciously sexy tale about a woman searching for her handsome seatmate on a European flight--and the unexpected places her hunt for love leads her.

    Sasha Cruz knows types. As a booked-and-busy casting agent, she's always casting -- at happy hour, the post office, the grocery store, everywhere. She's all about finding the perfect person to slot into the perfect role. What she doesn't do, however, are relationships. Too much energy, not enough time. Men find her intimidating, and she likes it that way.

    But when Sasha's seated next to a mysterious, broodingly handsome Italian man on the way to a work trip in Paris, sparks fly - but they miss the chance to exchange contact information. Now, convinced that she's lost out on her soulmate, Sasha is on a manhunt to find Seat F.

    Sasha enlists her work friend for help in the search, but when she accidentally emails the entire global company, colleagues around the world begin looking for Seat F, too - with some finding love along the way. Meanwhile, Sasha takes matters into her own hands, hiring a smoldering detective who complicates matters in unforeseen ways

  • JULY 2026: Horror Book Club - July 21 @ 7PM
    $0.00

    We're meeting to discuss Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Tuesday, July 21 @ 7PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Horror Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

    ABOUT BLOOD SLAVES

    For readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.

    What if nobody ever freed the slaves…because they freed themselves – 150 years before the Civil War?

    In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

    Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

    One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

    Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.

  • JULY 2026: NO NAME BOOK CLUB - JuLY 26 @ 3 PM CST
    $0.00
    No Name is a Black-owned worker cooperative connecting community members both inside and outside carceral facilities with radical books. Each month, No Name uplifts two books written by Black, indigenous, and other people of color. No Name believes building community through political education is crucial for our liberation and should be accessible to everyone—which is why all programming is free. 

    MEETING DEETS
    When: Sunday, July 26 @ 3 PM
    Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)
    How: RSVP to let us know you're coming! Support No Name Bookclub by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

    ABOUT RAZORBLADE TEARS

    A black father and a white father join forces on a crusade for revenge against the people who murdered their gay sons, by the award-winning author of Blacktop Wasteland.

    Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

    The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband Derek. Isiah was a gay black man in the American South; Ike couldn’t bring himself to attend his son’s wedding. Isiah was a man Ike never understood. A boy he was never there for the way he should have been.

    Derek’s father Buddy Lee is also suffering. He’d barely spoken to his son in five years; he was as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

  • JULY 2026: Mystery & Thriller Book Club - July 28 @ 7PM
    $0.00

    We're meeting to discuss Judge Stone by Viola Davis!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Tuesday, July 28 @ 7PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Mystery/Thriller Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

    ABOUT JUDGE STONE

    The most respected citizen in Union Springs, Alabama (population 3,314), is Judge Mary Stone. She holds two responsibilities sacred: running her family farm and presiding over her courtroom. It's there she draws the most controversial case in the history of the South.

    Criminally, it’s open-and-shut.

    Ethically, there is no middle ground. Essentially, it’s a choice between life and death.
     
    No judge can satisfy everyone. It would be dangerous to try. But Judge Stone is willing to fight to bring justice to the people and place she loves.

  • Complex Presents: Sneaker of the Year: The Best Since '85

    by Complex Media

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    In 1985, Nike released Michael Jordan’s first sneaker, the Air Jordan 1, and sneaker culture was born. Now thousands of people wait in line at Supreme, and companies throw millions of dollars at LeBron James to keep him in their marketing plans. The trend that saw steady growth for decades with the emergence of sports, hip-hop, and sportswear advertising has exploded into a phenomenon. And no one has watched that phenomenon more closely than Complex.
     
    Sneaker of the Year explores the past 35 years of sneaker culture with the expertise, authority, and passion that only Complex can offer. With vibrant photographs and illustrations throughout, as well as input from some of the sneaker world’s most important voices, this compilation is a must-have for hypebeasts and sneakerheads everywhere.
  • Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”

    by Héctor Tobar

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    A new book by the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity.

    "Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about "illegals" and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.

    Investigating topics that include the US-Mexico border "wall," Frida Kahlo, urban segregation, gangs, queer Latino utopias, and the emergence of the cartel genre in TV and film, Tobar journeys across the country to expose something truer about the meaning of "Latino" in the twenty-first century.

  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR TALK: Homebodies with Tembe Denton-Hurst-May 15 at 6 PM CST
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    Celebrate Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut novel, Homebodies:A Novel with the Black Bookstore Collective!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: May 15 at 6 PM CST
    Where: Virtual 
    How: RSVP ONLY to get your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our programming! We'll send the link to view the talk 24 hours before the event. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Urgent, propulsive, and deeply insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her job in media and her searing manifesto about racism in the industry goes viral.

    Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list media parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, everything finally seems to be falling into place—until she finds out she’s being replaced.

    Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is—including the uncertainty of her relationship—she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, her hometown, desperate for a break from her troubles.

    Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her old life—and the flirtation of a former flame—but the life she left behind in New York refuses to be forgotten. When a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say. It’s what she’s always wanted—isn’t it?

    Insightful, funny, and deeply sexy, Homebodies is a testament to those trying to be heard and loved in a world that refuses to make space, and introduces a standout new writer.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Tembe Denton-Hurst is a staff writer at New York magazine’s The Strategist and has written for Nylon magazine, them, and Elle. When she’s not writing, Tembe can be found on her couch in Queens, New York, where she lives with her partner and their two cats, Stella and Dakota.
  • Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Updated and Expanded 5th Edition cover image

    Donald Bogle

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    This classic iconic study of black images in American motion pictures has been updated and revised, as Donald Bogle continues to enlighten us with his historical and social reflections on the relationship between African Americans and Hollywood. He notes the remarkable shifts that have come about in the new millennium when such filmmakers as Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and Ava DuVernay (Selma) examined America's turbulent racial history and the particular dilemma of black actresses in Hollywood, including Halle Berry, Lupita Nyong'o, Octavia Spencer, Jennifer Hudson, and Viola Davis. Bogle also looks at the ongoing careers of such stars as Denzel Washington and Will Smith and such directors as Spike Lee and John Singleton, observing that questions of diversity in the film industry continue. From The Birth of a Nation, the 1934 Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, and Carmen Jones to Shaft, Do the Right Thing, and Boyz N the Hood to Training Day, Dreamgirls, The Help, Django Unchained, and Straight Outta Compton, Donald Bogle compellingly reveals the way in which the images of blacks in American movies have significantly changed-and also the shocking way in which those images have often remained the same.

  • The Kindest Lie: A Novel

    by Nancy Johnson

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    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    A promise could betray you.

    It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past.

    Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a traumatic incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives.

    Powerful and revealing, The Kindest Lie captures the heartbreaking divide between Black and white communities and offers both an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.

  • Token Black Girl: A Memoir

    by Danielle Prescod

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    *ships in 7-10 business days

    Racial identity, pop culture, and delusions of perfection collide in an eye-opening and refreshingly frank memoir by fashion and beauty insider Danielle Prescod.

    Danielle Prescod grew up Black in an elite and overwhelmingly white community, her identity made more invisible by the whitewashed movies, television, magazines, and books she and her classmates voraciously consumed. Danielle took her cue from the world around her and aspired to shrink her identity into that box, setting increasingly poisonous goals. She started painful and damaging chemical hair treatments in elementary school, began depriving herself of food when puberty hit, and tried to control her image through the most unimpeachable, impeccable fashion choices.

    Those obsessions led her to relentlessly pursue a career in beauty and fashion—the eye of the racist and sexist beauty standard storm. Assimilating was hard, but she was practiced. And she was an asset. Their “Token Black Girl.” Toxic, sure. But Danielle was striving to achieve social cache and working her way up the ladder of coveted media jobs, and she looked great, right? So what if she had to endure executives’ questions like “What was it like to drive to school from the ghetto?” Or coworkers’ eager curiosity to know if her parents were on welfare. But after decades of burying her emotions, resentment, and true self, Danielle turned a critical eye inward and confronted the factors that motivated her self-destructive behaviors.

    Sharp witted and bracingly candid, Token Black Girl unpacks the adverse effects of insidious white supremacy in the media—both unconscious and strategic—to tell a personal story about recovery from damaging concepts of perfection, celebrating identity, and demolishing social conditioning.

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