When The Souls of Black Folk was first published in 1903, it had a galvanizing effect on the conversation about race in America—and it remains both a touchstone in the literature of African America and a beacon in the fight for civil rights. Believing that one can know the “soul” of a race by knowing the souls of individuals, W. E. B. Du Bois combines history and stirring autobiography to reflect on the magnitude of American racism and to chart a path forward against oppression, and introduces the now-famous concepts of the color line, the veil, and double-consciousness.

With "The Talented Tenth" and "The Souls of White Folk"

A collection of prayers, poems, and spiritual practices centering Black interior lives, from the New York Times bestselling author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies

For years, Cole Arthur Riley was desperate for a spirituality she could trust. Amid ongoing national racial violence, the isolation of the pandemic, and a surge of anti-Black rhetoric in many Christian spaces, she began dreaming of a more human, more liberating expression of faith. She went on to create Black Liturgies, a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body.

In this book, she brings together hundreds of new prayers, along with letters, poems, meditation questions, breath practices, scripture, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer forty-three liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community. Inviting readers to reflect on their shared experiences of wonder, rest, rage, and repair, and creating rituals for holidays like Lent and Juneteenth, Arthur Riley writes with a poet’s touch and a sensitivity that has made her one of the most important spiritual voices at work today.

For anyone healing from communities that were more violent than loving; for anyone who has escaped the trauma of white Christian nationalism, religious homophobia, or transphobia; for anyone asking what it means to be human in a world of both beauty and terror, Black Liturgies is a work of healing and empowerment, and a vision for what might be.

Analyzing how artists reimagine migrant disappearance and visibility at the US–Mexico border.

In the mid-1990s, the US government implemented Prevention through Deterrence, a major buildup of troops, walls, and surveillance around El Paso and San Diego. Cut off from these crucial urban crossings, migrants flowed into the dangerous surrounding deserts, where some ten thousand have since died. This is all according to plan: Pentagon documents describe the strategy of funneling migrants toward “mortal danger.”

In this bracing critique, China Medel explores the aesthetics enabling and resisting the crisis of migrant death. The nation-state’s performance of sovereignty along the border, predicated on mass casualties, is tolerated and even celebrated, thanks to the images in our heads of racialized and therefore criminal bodies, made invisible as they disintegrate in the baking sand. Spectral Aesthetics shows how state officials and mainstream media, relying on postracial ideologies and white-supremacist agendas, collectively foster this picture of a brown body so abject that it is disposable. In close readings of artworks contesting this murderous visual regime, Medel discovers an alternative kind of sight, one emphasizing the ghostly traces of the dead. These are images not of the individual “alien” but of life itself, indisposable.

From award-winning author Rhonda McKnight comes a new story of faith, history, and the power of legacy that merges the romance of The Bookshop Sisterhood with the rich Lowcountry setting of Mary Alice Monroe.

Alexandra Chambers is a writer who has run out of words. Struggling with writer's block and the pressure to secure a new book deal, she wins a week in a writer-friendly cabin through a drawing held at a Lowcountry literacy center.

What she finds is far more than she expected--a vibrant community brimming with inspiration, a past steeped in history and culture, and a man who both intrigues and unsettles her.

Gabe Scott, a bestselling author and the former writer-in-residence, is everything Alex feels she's not--acclaimed, award-winning, and unshakably confident. When their paths cross at the center, his literary brilliance and dedication to helping struggling Gullah students stir feelings Alex isn't ready to confront. Though undeniably attracted to him, Alex wrestles with the fear that her books pale beside his celebrated work.

When a surprising family connection unearths long-hidden truths about her past, Alex is forced to confront a lie that has shaped her life. Guided by the quiet wisdom of Ms. Kate, an elderly Gullah cleaning woman with losses of her own, Alex finds the strength to forgive truths long withheld, embrace her voice, and write the story only she can tell.

Writer in Residence is a rich and layered choice for book clubs eager to explore themes of identity, family secrets, creative reinvention, and the power of place. McKnight's lush Lowcountry setting and unforgettable cast of characters spark meaningful conversation about Gullah Geechee culture, the stories we inherit, and the courage it takes to tell our own truth. An included discussion guide makes it easy for groups to dig deeper into Alex's journey of rediscovery--and perhaps reflect on the hidden roots in their own lives.

This pioneering and pathbreaking book brings together the rich spirituality of Black literary giants with the profound spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. Never before have we been informed and transformed with this unprecedented encounter—and our catastrophic times require it! —Dr. Cornel West

Black, queer, feminist, Buddhist: The Fire Inside casts a fresh new light on the radical literary legacies of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde

Includes meditation exercises

The Fire Inside explores the writings of Audre Lord and James Baldwin through a Dharmic lens, revealing for the first time how two of America’s greatest literary voices reflect—and expand—Buddhism’s most timeless truths toward justice and liberation.

Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad dives deeply into a dharma of liberation as lived by Baldwin and Lorde, offering timely lessons to help us each meet this moment. She explores the writers’ enduring legacies to show that liberation depends not only on organizing and mass movements, but the generative power of inner well-being, authenticity, art, and embodiment. Each chapter shares how looking inward is the way forward, examining Baldwin and Lorde through key Buddhist principles:

* Suffering as a teacher: how Baldwin and Lorde investigated suffering in their own lives—and how expanded and disrupted interpretations of the Dharma
* Denial, impermanence, and death: on Baldwin’s exploration of white supremacy and fear of death and Lorde’s understanding of illness and inevitable change
* Ultimate and relative reality: how honoring race, gender, sexuality, and difference lies at the heart of Buddhist liberation
* Karma and not-self: how the doctrine of karma can be reclaimed to cultivate inner liberation and support activists working to dismantle oppression
* Anger and compassion: how we metabolize internalized rage, reject hatred, and embrace compassion toward transformation
* Erotic paths to enlightenment: on the power of sensuality and erotic energy; rejecting dominant heteronormativity; and attaining enlightenment through sexual union

This book offers space for emerging conversations within spiritual communities—ones that don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths; that center—and celebrate—Black, queer, radical thought; and that embrace the ways our inner lives, creative fire, sensuality, and expressions of love can ignite and sustain revolutionary liberation.

James Beard Award-winning chef Nina Compton shares recipes that tell the story of her thrilling culinary journey from St. Lucia to Jamaica, Miami, and New Orleans, and celebrate the diverse African heritage that threads these cuisines together.

Growing up in St. Lucia, a small island in the Eastern Caribbean, chef Nina Compton developed a strong sense of community through cooking and food. As she traveled and worked in restaurants abroad, she was eager to learn, improvise, and innovate by doing what transplants like herself do best: Bring the best of home with them wherever they go. Kwéyòl / Creole explores the cuisines and pivotal locales that form the basis of Nina’s unique culinary perspective: from her birthplace in St. Lucia, to Jamaica where her view of Caribbean cuisines broadened, to Miami where she was immersed in Afro-Latin influences and continued to hone her cooking style, and finally New Orleans, her adopted city whose Creole cuisine brought her home in new ways.

In St. Lucia, when they say “Creole,” they don’t mean French-influenced. The St. Lucian Creole, or Kwéyol, celebrates a diverse African heritage, beautifully reflected in the 100 recipes presented here. The dishes are both transportive and irresistible, each telling a story of its multi-faceted history and influences: steamed snapper with a peppery ginger sauce, slow-cooked curried goat, green fig and saltfish, coconut-braised collard greens, Creole-stewed conch, the countless possibilities of the beloved plantain. In these pages, the weather is warm and tropical, and the vibe is easygoing, just like the places Nina’s lived. The dishes are full of flavor and the mood is chill.

Full of stunning travel photography and anchored by Nina’s singular culinary vision, Kwéyòl / Creole celebrates the rich history of where she comes from, while forging something that feels a little new, a little hers. And now, with this book, a little yours, too.

From a preeminent King scholar, the origin story of the man, minister, and civil rights hero who would lead the nation and change the world.

We know who Martin Luther King, Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism?

Before Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights leader, a Nobel Laureate, and a global hero, he was an emotional boy, a middling high school student devoted to fashion, dancing, and dating. Lerone A. Martin, Faculty Director of the Martin Luther King Institute at Stanford University, traces these roots to develop a fuller understanding of the influential preacher’s emotional life, his youthful confusion about his future and career direction, his teenage missteps, and his inspiration to fight for justice.

Revelatory, humanizing, and compassionate, Young King unearths:

* MLK's Childhood on Auburn Avenue: his days as “Little Mike"—the ever-eager middle child and a precocious prankster—spent at Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Auburn Avenue Library in Atlanta
* Early Encounters with Racism: his early experiences of segregation and the summers he spent on a Connecticut tobacco farm, his first trip outside the Jim Crow South
* College Life at Morehouse: his transformative time at Morehouse, playing basketball, hosting parties, studying sociology, and joining the Ministers’ Union
* Path to Seminary and Activism: his winding path to seminary and the co-development of his activist consciousness, his spiritual devotion, and his relationship with Coretta, his wife-to-be

As America undergoes another era of turmoil and change, this powerful biography provides a vital roadmap for how greatness comes to light. This essential work is a testament to how history shapes a leader.

Young King includes rarely seen black-and-white photographs of an adolescent MLK from his high school days and college years.

Millie's grandma, her Lao Lao, passes down her dumpling recipe in this heartwarming story about community, culture, and belonging.

Millie loves cooking with her Lao Lao, and together they walk through Chinatown collecting fresh ingredients to make a steaming hot batch of dumplings. Chives from Auntie Lim, shrimp from Uncle Lee, and enough lychee to last all day make for the perfect dumplings and the perfect summer together for Millie and Lao Lao.

However, when winter rolls around and Lao Lao falls ill, it's up to Millie to remember Lao Lao's recipe and return to Chinatown to get all the right ingredients. With two teaspoons of patience, a pinch of luck, and a whole lot of love, Millie and her parents make a batch of dumplings that Lao Lao will never forget.

This is a celebration not only of good food, but of the loved ones we get to share good food with.

A derangeddeity, powerful nations, and heretic cultists clash. Meanwhile…

A girl with missing memories must find a way to survive this calamity

Set in a world shaped by powerful deities known as Oriṣa, Àyànmọ́ follows Iniọla, a teenage girl searching for purpose in a life clouded by sealed memories and hidden truths. As she unravels the mystery of her past, she must challenge the very forces that bind her and humanity’s fate to a divine design.

A collectible hardcover edition of our greatest African American poet's award-winning first novel, about a black boy's coming-of-age in a largely white Kansas town, featuring an introduction by National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy

A Penguin Vitae Edition

When first published in 1930, Not Without Laughter established Langston Hughes as not only a brilliant poet and leading light of the Harlem Renaissance but also a gifted novelist. In telling the story of Sandy Rogers, a young African American boy in small-town Kansas, and of his family--his mother, Annjee, a housekeeper for a wealthy white family; his irresponsible father, Jimboy, who plays the guitar and travels the country in search of employment; his strong-willed grandmother Hager, who clings to her faith; his Aunt Tempy, who marries a rich man; and his Aunt Harriet, who struggles to make it as a blues singer--Hughes gives the longings and lineaments of black life in the early twentieth century an important place in the history of racially divided America.

Penguin Vitae--loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life”--is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.