Award-winning poet, theologian, and cohost of the Everything Belongs podcast Drew Jackson offers a lyrical collection of essays and poems drawn from the apocalyptic wisdom in the book of Revelation, offering readers courage and hope for an age that feels like the end of the world.

Many people today feel the world is coming apart at the seams. Climate crisis, political upheaval, technological disruption, and social division have fueled a growing sense that these are “apocalyptic” times. But what if apocalypse is not simply a catastrophe to fear, but a revelation that can teach us how to live?

In Meditations for the Apocalypse, poet and public theologian Drew Jackson turns to one of the most mysterious and popular books in the Bible—the book of Revelation—to explore how people of faith can navigate a world filled with uncertainty. Through a series of contemplative essays and original poems reflecting on Revelation’s letters to seven marginalized communities, Jackson excavates deep spiritual wisdom for what it means to live faithfully in a chaotic and passing world.

Blending theological insight and cultural reflection, Meditations for the Apocalypse offers a soulful guide for anyone wrestling with existential fear about the future. For spiritual readers searching for meaning in turbulent times, Jackson’s work reveals how the wisdom of ancient apocalyptic literature can help us face endings with courage, nurture hope, and imagine new beginnings.

Girls on the basketball court learn how to count by two and how to count on their teammates in this playful and poignant counting book from bestselling creators Ruth Forman and Olivia Duchess.

Count from two to twenty in a joyful ode to hooping with friends as Ruth Forman’s rhythmic text blends basketball shots with counting-by-twos and Olivia Duchess’s gorgeous art paints a world that is nothing but net: Swish!

A blend of fact and fiction, Growing Up Dead in Texas takes us back to new master of horror Stephen Graham Jones’s hometown and explores a decade-old crime that tore the community apart.

Prolific, award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones deftly blends fiction and reality in this captivating novel about small-town paranoia and coming home. Twenty-five years ago in Greenwood, Texas, a violent fire erupted in the tiny cotton-growing community. No one ever took responsibility and no one was ever caught. Instead, the town moved forward as if nothing happened. Today, the embers still smolder, but a reckoning may soon be on the horizon.

Determined to make friends at her new school, a girl dons a hot dog mascot costume to earn enough money to throw the perfect party in this hilarious and achingly true-to-life middle grade graphic novel from the beloved and award-winning creators of Duel.

Popular Frankie’s middle school life turns upside down when her family’s hot dog restaurant goes up in literal flames and they move to a new neighborhood with a different school. Suddenly she’s the new kid trying to figure out who her friends are when the classmates she likes most are decidedly uncool and the popular kids are kind of mean.

Frankie’s determined to win everyone over with an extravagant, super fun birthday blowout. But to earn the money for her party, she’ll have to spend her summer dressed as a giant hot dog mascot for her quirky family’s new food truck. Will Frankie’s brat summer doom her to be a loser or will she discover that wieners never quit?

Now in a gorgeous new package designed for the modern reader.

*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times*
*Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and Finalist for the Kirkus Prize*
*Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, BuzzFeed, and more*

The powerful, provocative, award-winning, and universally lauded memoir by genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon.

Defiant and vulnerable, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy is a deeply insightful memoir about what the weight of secrets, lies, and deception does to a Black body, a Black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.

From his earliest experiences to middle age, Laymon traces his complex relationships with his family, his weight, sex, gambling, and writing, naming the secrets he spent a lifetime avoiding. In the process, he challenges us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and that even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.

Award-winning and universally lauded, this fearless, often comical, and provocative memoir has pushed the boundaries of its genre.

Learn about the remarkable work of costume designers, toy makers, and architects in award-winning author Tonya Bolden and illustrator David Wilkerson’s exciting new graphic novel series about some of the most fascinating Black lives in history

Ann Lowe (fashion designer). Ed Welburn (automotive designer). Ruth E. Carter (costume designer). These aren’t names that many people learn about in school, but they’re some of the greatest designers that people should know about―and they join the ranks of toy designers, architects, and graphic designers celebrated in Icons of Design.

Each faced challenges as they rose to the top of their professions, but they didn’t back down. They kept creating and experimenting and learning, and they made significant contributions in each of their fields!

Black Lives is a new graphic novel series from award-winning author Tonya Bolden and illustrator David Wilkerson that celebrates the lives of Black innovators and legends and helps bring lesser-known histories to life.

Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant! is the go-to guide for modern pregnant Black women. In this newly updated edition in a lovely giftable package, mothers-to-be will find the sister-to-sister guidance and expert insight on pregnancy, labor, and motherhood that readers have praised, cherished, and lived by for years.

This book is the essential “what to expect when you're expecting” guide to understanding pregnancy from a millennial Black mom’s point of view. Written by Black Moms Blog founder Shanicia Boswell Jones, this book tackles hard topics in a way that truly resonates with today’s Black moms-to-be.

You’ll find answers to questions on how to financially plan for birth, how to maintain relationships and friendships during motherhood, and how to self-advocate for your rights as a pregnant Black person. With stories and lessons learned from the author's own experiences through pregnancy, labor, and motherhood, Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant! also includes interviews with professionals like OBGYNs, midwives, nutritionists, and lactation consultants. It focuses on the common knowledge Black pregnant mothers should consider when having their first baby, while also sharing topics beneficial to pregnant Black women on their second, third, or fourth-born.

If you’re looking for a pregnancy guide that speaks to your experience, Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant is the book for you!

In this thrilling young adult urban fantasy by acclaimed author L.L. McKinney, a Black boy with a bounty on his head uses his powers to protect mankind while searching for answers to his past.

Fifteen-year-old James “Jay” Mitchell has magic in his blood and one mission on his mind: protect his city from supernatural threats. He’s good at it, too—just not exactly authorized. See, hunting monsters without the Guild’s permission is a serious crime. And the Guild doesn’t do warnings. They do prison. Or execution.

When a damsel faking distress blows his cover, Jay suddenly finds himself hunted on two fronts: by the Guild and by the city’s paranormal population, some eager to settle old scores. Before long, there’s a price on his head.

Now, with vampire bounty hunters on his trail, Guild enforcers closing in, and fae knights joining the chase, Jay will need every weapon, spell, and trick in his technically illegal arsenal to survive. Because if he can’t clear his name, everything that goes bump in the night is coming to collect.

From nine-time Grammy Award–winning artist Anderson .Paak comes a kinky, surreal, and hilariously unhinged collection of stories about a fabled sex shop on Sunset Boulevard.

Peeps on Sunset is the last vestige for true freaks in Los Angeles. Rocco, the store’s reluctant heir, is yanked out of art school by his free-loving hippie parents to breathe new life into the struggling shop he grew up in. The store has questionable stains, dated design, and a weird hole in the bathroom. Now, Rocco has to fix it all while finding himself, not to mention field every fantasy and secret that walks through the door:

A woman has a dangerous sexual obsession with cactuses. A retiree Benjamin Buttons every time she has sex. A maid enjoys the perks of her job after walking in on her celebrity client mid-act. And nobody leaves the store unchanged.

Anderson .Paak’s first book lives somewhere between Goosebumps and Fifty Shades of Grey—a sexy and absurd fever-dream tour of modern desire that celebrate all the ways we come into ourselves. And each other.

Celebrate the release of Carla Bakes with Carla Hall!

EVENT DEETS

When: Friday, December 11 @ 7PM CST

Where: 2310 Elgin St. Houston, TX 77004

How: 

• RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat.

• RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and purchase a copy of Carla Bakes, supporting both the author and our store programming. The book will be available for pickup at the event.

• RSVP (I ALREADY HAVE THE BOOK) to reserve your seat and bring your copy of Carla Bakes that you purchased from another retailer. 

Please Note: Copies of Carla Bakes purchased from other retailers are not permitted in the bookstore and are not eligible for the signing or photo line unless you select the RSVP: I Already Have the Book ticket option, which allows you to bring a copy purchased elsewhere. If you already purchased your book from Kindred Stories, you may select the RSVP Only ticket option and bring your Kindred Stories copy to the event.

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

Acclaimed chef, TV host, Top Chef fan-favorite, and author Carla Hall returns to her first culinary love story—baking—with over 80 sweet and savory recipes.

For Carla Hall, baking is a creative outlet, her source of play, and her first true passion. But her journey from absolute beginner to Top Chef fan-favorite didn't start until she was well into her twenties with two careers— accounting and modeling —already behind her. Away from home and missing the Southern flavors she grew up with, she took to the kitchen and began to experiment, master, and perfect. 

Now, as a multi-cookbook author and guest judge on multiple baking competitions, Carla is ready to share all her baking knowledge that will guide you whether you're a novice baker or an expert one. Carla Bakes is filled with over 80 recipes for baking savory and sweet goods rooted in her Southern traditions and inspired by her world travels.  Carla brings her joy and playfulness to every recipe, showing you just how much fun it is to bake and bring your own twists to new recipes, including:

• breakfast treats like Sorghum Flour Drop Biscuits, Crisp Sweet Corn Waffles, and Savory Clafoutis with Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, and Smoky Tomato Curd
• cookies like Nut Butter Puffed Cereal Treats, Southern Pecan Crinkle Baklava, and Shortbread Cookie Canvas
• pastries like Giant Frosted Strawberry Pop Tart, Sweet Po-Punkin Pie, and Ham & Cheese Paris-Brest
• cakes like Double Chocolate Oat Flour Snack Cake, Lemon Meringue Cake, and Fairytale Forest Party Cake
• yeasted goods like Hot Cross Milk Buns with Port- and Hibiscus-Soaked Fruit, Butternut Squash Beignets with Spiced Sugar, and Chocolate Focaccia

If you've ever felt intimidated by baking, set those fears aside. Carla's expert guidance and encouragement in Carla Bakes will leave you feeling confident and inspired in your kitchen!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carla Hall first won over audiences on Bravo’s Top Chef, where her “cook with love” philosophy became her hallmark. Her belief that food connects us all, provides a through-line in her work both on and off camera. Carla charmed viewers as a co-host on ABC’s Emmy Award–winning The Chew for seven years, appearing on the Food Network on various baking shows and now on Next Level Baker on Fox. She is also the host of the Emmy-winning travel-food series Chasing Flavor on HBO Max. Carla is the author or co-author of five cookbooks—including the NAACP Image Award–nominated Carla Hall’s Soul Food—and two children’s books. She also hosts the hit podcast Chewed Up and created and stars in her acclaimed one-woman show, Carla Hall: Please Underestimate Me. Carla is active in many charitable endeavors and focuses her board member-level participation in organizations where she can make an impact advocating for children through Beyond Bedtime (formerly Pajama Program) and GENYOUth.

*Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

For much of American history, Black people have been conceived and legally defined as nonpersons, a subgenre of the human. In Being Property Once Myself, prize-winning poet Joshua Bennett shows that Blackness has long acted as the caesura between human and nonhuman and delves into the literary imagination and ethical concerns that have emerged from this experience. Each chapter tracks a specific animal―the rat, the cock, the mule, the dog, the shark―in the works of Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Jesmyn Ward, and Robert Hayden. The plantation, the wilderness, the kitchenette overrun with pests, the valuation and sale of animals and enslaved people―all place Black and animal life in fraught proximity.

Bennett suggests that animals are deployed to assert a theory of Black sociality and to combat dominant claims about the limits of personhood. And he turns to the Black radical tradition to challenge the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness in discourses surrounding the environment and animals. Being Property Once Myself is an incisive work of literary criticism and a groundbreaking articulation of undertheorized notions of dehumanization and the Anthropocene.

One World is proud to present THE 1619 PROJECT: A New Origin Story, a book that dramatically builds on the vision of the original magazine project with major expansions of the original essays, seven new essays by historians, and dozens of new poems and pieces of fiction. The book includes a significant elaboration of the project’s Pulitzer Prize-winning lead essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones and a new introduction that together offer a stirring rebuttal to critics. Hannah-Jones has also written a third essay that makes the case for reparative solutions to the legacy of injustice the project documents.

Edited by Hannah-Jones, along with New York Times Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein, features editor Ilena Silverman, and New York Times executive producer Caitlin Roper, the book offers work from some of the country’s most outstanding journalists, thinkers, historians and scholars, including: Michelle Alexander, Leslie Alexander, Carol Anderson, Jamelle Bouie, Anthea Butler, Matthew Desmond, Martha Jones, Ibram Kendi, Kevin Kruse, Trymaine Lee, Tiya Miles, Wesley Morris, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Dorothy Roberts, Jeneen Interlandi, Bryan Stevenson, and Linda Villarosa.

Woven throughout the book are works of fiction and poetry that bring to life four hundred years of history with imaginative writing by Joshua Bennett, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Rita Dove, Camille Dungy, Cornelius Eady, Eve L. Ewing, Nikky Finney, Vievee Francis, Yaa Gyasi, Forrest Hamer, Terrance Hayes, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Barry Jenkins, Tyehimba Jess, Robert Jones, Jr., A. Van Jordan, Yusef Komunyakaa, Kiese Laymon, Jasmine Mans, Terry McMillan, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Gregory Pardlo, Darryl Pinckney, Claudia Rankine, Jason Reynolds, Evie Shockley, Tim Siebles, Clint Smith, Danez Smith, Patricia Smith, Tracy K. Smith, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Natasha Trethewey, Jesmyn Ward and Sonia Sanchez.

The book also includes archival portrait photography of Black Americans paired with each essay, curated by Kimberly Annece Henderson.