39 results for “by Viola Davis”

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  • Girl, I Think My Grandma's a Spy cover image
    $17.99

    From Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony winner Viola Davis and New York Times-bestselling publisher, editor, and author Lavaille Lavette comes an action-packed series filled with humor, heart, and undercover hijinks!

    Discovering your grandma is a spy is easy. The hard part is proving it…and staying alive in the process.

    When Jazzlyn discovers that her estranged grandmother is moving in, she's beyond frustrated. Being 13-years old is hard enough with an annoying brother and an overbearing mother ― and now she must deal with a grandma who is taking over her bedroom?!

    Jazz has better things to do like hanging out with her best friend, getting stellar grades, and of course, finding the perfect dress – and the perfect date – for the Sadie Hawkins dance. She has big goals and doesn’t need grandma cramping her style.

    Before long, Jazz starts to notice peculiar things Grandma does like sneaking out at night and popping up as a substitute phys ed teacher at school. Her instincts tell her that Grandma Mae is up to something, and she decides to prove it. One night, Jazz follows her grandmother into the city and the adventure begins. Caught up in a world of high speed car chases, a ninja fight in an alley, a kidnapping at the school dance, and mysterious money transfers, can Jazz prove her grandma is a spy?

    As for Mae, laying low isn’t exactly her strong suit, and, she discovers, neither is playing a grandma. Keeping her nosy granddaughter in the dark is child’s play. But an old nemesis has returned and is on the hunt for Mae’s whereabouts. Can she keep her family safe and separate from her secret life… before it’s too late?

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  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: We are a Haunting with Tyriek White & Kiese Laymon-June 1 @7PM CST
    from $0.00
    Come swoon over We are a Haunting with us! 
    EVENT DEETS
    WHEN: June 1 at 7PM CST
    WHERE: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX 77004)
    HOW: RSVP to reserve your free ticket or RSVP with book to support our store and programming. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK
    A poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation. 

    In 1980’s Brooklyn, Key is enchanted with her world, glowing with her dreams. A charming and tender doula serving the Black women of her East New York neighborhood, she lives, like her mother, among the departed and learns to speak to and for them. Her untimely death leaves behind her mother Audrey, who is on the verge of losing the public housing apartment they once shared. Colly, Key’s grieving son, soon learns that he too has inherited this sacred gift and begins to slip into the liminal space between the living and the dead on his journey to self-realization.

    In the present, an expulsion from school forces Colly across town where, feeling increasingly detached and disenchanted with the condition of his community, he begins to realize that he must, ultimately, be accountable to the place he is from. After college, having forged an understanding of friendship, kinship, community, and how to foster love in places where it seems impossible, Colly returns to East New York to work toward addressing structural neglect and the crumbling blocks of New York City public housing he was born to; discovering a collective path forward from the wreckages of the past. A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise.
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
    Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, where he served at-risk and marginalized youth, artists, and scholars in the classroom. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Lit, a literary foundation which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writers Institute, and Key West Writers’ Workshop, among other honors. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College, and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the forthcoming novel, WE ARE A HAUNTING (Astra House, 2023).
    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is also the  author of Long Division, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and  Heavy: An American Memoir.  Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Spilling the Tea with Brenda Jackson - May 15 @ 7PM
    from $5.00

    Celebrate Brenda Jackson's 150th book, Spilling the Tea! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Tuesday, May 15 @ 7PM

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP WITH BOOK

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Ninety-something Mama Laverne is determined to find all of her great-grandchildren their perfect match before going home to glory. So far, her success rate is 100 percent—and she intends to keep it that way.

    Ninety-something-year-old Felicia Laverne Madaris, known in the family as Mama Laverne, is determined to find all of her great-grandchildren the perfect match before she goes home to glory. So far, her success rate is 100 percent, and she intends to keep it that way.

    After sustaining injuries in Iraq, US Army Ranger Chancellor (Chance) Madaris was told he’d never walk again. Chance credits his great-grandmother, Mama Laverne, with giving him the will and fortitude to heal and prove the doctors wrong. He has a healthy respect for her meddling ways and knows he’ll eventually end up next on her matchmaker’s list.

    When Zoey Pritchard was eight, she survived a car accident that left both her parents dead. She was sent to live with her great-aunt who refused to speak about her parents. Zoey has no memory from before the crash, but she’s been having the same dream over and over…

    Guided by nothing but a hunch and images from her dream, Zoey travels to Houston. Searching for answers, Zoey uncovers a scandal involving her parents and the wealthy and powerful Madaris family. Her trail leads her straight to Chance’s door. The dislike and intense attraction are instant and simultaneous. Was it chance or Mama Laverne’s plan to throw this pair together?

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    BRENDA JACKSON is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than one hundred contemporary multicultural romance novels, including the Madaris Family series, the Westmorelands series, and The Playas series. She was the first African-American author to have a book published under the Harlequin/Silhouette Desire line and the first African-American romance author to hit both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists in the series romance genre. Many of her books have been adapted into movies. Brenda lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and divides her time between family, writing and traveling. brendajackson.net.

  • AUTHOR TALK: If This World We're Mine with Arriel Vinson - January 28 @ 7 PM
    from $0.00

    Celebrate the release of If This World We're Mine with Arriel Vinson!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Thursday, January 28 @ 7 PM CST

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

    How: 

    • RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat.

    • RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and purchase a copy If This World We're Mine, supporting both the author and our store programming. The book will be available for pickup at the event.

    Please Note: Books purchased from other retailers are not permitted in the bookstore and are not eligible for the signing or photo line. To participate in the signing and photo opportunity, you must purchase a copy from Kindred Stories.If you already have a copy from Kindred Stories feel free to choose the RSVP only option. 

    If you purchase a ticket and are unable to attend the event, your ticket is non-refundable. If your ticket includes a book, an email will be sent to all attendees before and after the event with instructions on how to receive your book. Books must be claimed within 14 days following the event. If your book is not retrieved it will be returned to the publisher and will not be available for pick up in the future.

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A dazzling and heartfelt YA novel in verse by Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, Arriel Vinson, about a Black girl majorette healing from loss, while discovering how to dance to her own beat.

    It's hard to plan for the future when the one you envisioned is now a thing of the past.

    Seventeen-year-old Sky Simms should be riding high. It's senior year, and she's the dance team captain with a shot at a competition that could change her life. But Sky is still reeling from her older brother's sudden, tragic death and the collapse of their shared HBCU dreams—she as majorette, he as drum major.

    With the memory of her brother ever-present, Sky struggles to manage all the moving parts of her life—school, college prep, dance--let alone find excitement for them. Once practice is in full swing, Sky’s distracted from her woes when forced to work with Meech, the cute but annoying drumline captain. And she slowly discovers they can help each other with more than the competition.

    But she can only run from her grief for so long. Sky might not know what life looks like without her brother, but if she doesn’t learn to deal with the present, she could fumble her future before she can imagine a new one.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Arriel Vinson is a Midwesterner who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. Her debut YA novel-in-verse, Under the Neon Lights, is a 2026 Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, a Reese’s Book Club LitUp selection, and a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection. Arriel earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and is a Tin House YA Scholar, Highlights Foundation scholarship recipient, and Walter Grant recipient. Her sophomore novel, If This World Were Mine, is forthcoming in spring 2027. You can connect with her on social media at @arriwrites and find her work at arriwrites.com

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    LIARA TAMANI grew up in Houston, Texas, where every spring meant one thing: rodeo season. She loved getting decked out in her best cowgirl gear and soaking up the music, food, and electric energy of the rodeo, a joy she now shares with her daughter and husband. Her deep Texas roots shine through her storytelling, capturing the spirit and rhythms of the state in all her acclaimed novels: Calling My Name, All the Things We Never Knew, and What She Missed. Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets and Comets, television production assistant, home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University.

  • Kindred Stories - Lapel Enamel Pin
    $12.00

    Now you can support your favorite independent bookstore everywhere you go!

    Wear our little bookshop with Love and Pride.

  • Virtual Author Talk: Finding Me with Viola Davis - April 26 @ 6:00 PM CST
    Sold out

    Join Viola Davis for a virtual discussion about her incredible life, career, and new memoir, FINDING ME. She’ll be in conversation with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.  

    Event Details

    When: Tuesday, April 26 @ 6:00 PM CST

    Where: Virtual via Zoom

    How:  After purchasing the book you’ll be registered and will receive an email confirming your event registration. Please allow at least one week between time of purchase and when you will receive the confirmation email. Your book will ship on April 26, 2022, the book's release date.

    About Finding Me:

    In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life changing decision to stop running forever.

    This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose and my strength, but also to finding my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

    As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. They are bogarted, reinvented to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone who is searching for a way to understand and overcome a complicated past, let go of shame, and find acceptance. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be...you.

    Finding Me is a deep reflection on my past and a promise for my future. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

    About Viola Davis: 

     VIOLA DAVIS is an internationally acclaimed actress and producer, known for her exceptional performances in television shows like 'How to Get Away with Murder' and movies like 'Fences' and 'The Help.' She is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, and in 2021 she won a Screen Actors Guild award for her role in 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'. In both 2012 and 2017, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Davis is also the founder and CEO of JuVee Productions, an artist driven production company that develops and produces independent film, theater, television, and digital content.

     


  • JULY 2026: Mystery & Thriller Book Club - July 28 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    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.

  • Fences

    by August Wilson

    Sold out
    *ships in 7-10 business days*
    Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. 

    Now an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis.
  • Miles

    by Miles Davis

    Sold out
    Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles Davis was one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. Here, Miles speaks out about his extraordinary life.

    Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.

    The man who gave us some of the most exciting music of the twentieth century here gives us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.
  • Blue in Green

    by Wesley Brown

    Sold out

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

    The latest work from the veteran novelist called “one hell of a writer” by James Baldwin and “wonderfully wry” by Donald Barthelme: a timely meditation on the psychological impact of police brutality, through the lens of a day in the life of Miles Davis

    Written by playwright and novelist Wesley Brown, Blue in Green narrates one evening in August 1959, when, mere weeks after the release of his landmark album Kind of Blue, Miles Davis is assaulted by a member of the New York City Police Department outside of the Birdland jazz club. In the aftermath, we enter the strained relationship between Davis and his wife, Frances Taylor, whom he has recently cajoled into ending her run as a performer on Broadway and retiring from modern dance and ballet altogether. Frances, who is increasingly subject to Davis’ temper—fueled by both his professional envy and substance abuse—reckons with her upbringing in Christian Science and, through a fateful meeting with Lena Horne, the conflicting demands of motherhood and artistic vocation. Meanwhile, blowing off steam from his beating, Miles speeds across Manhattan in his sports car. Racing alongside him are recollections of a stony, young John Coltrane, a combative Charlie Parker and the stilted world of the Black middle class he’s left behind.

  • Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Updated and Expanded 5th Edition cover image

    Donald Bogle

    Sold out

    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.

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