96 results for “by Robert Jones, Jr.”

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  • The Darkest Child cover image

    Delores Phillips

    $18.00

    A new edition of this award-winning modern classic, with an introduction by Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), an excerpt from the never before seen follow-up, and discussion guide.
     
    Pakersfield, Georgia, 1958: Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn is the sixth of ten fatherless siblings. She is the darkest-skinned among them and therefore the ugliest in her mother, Rozelle’s, estimation, but she’s also the brightest. Rozelle—beautiful, charismatic, and light-skinned—exercises a violent hold over her children. Fearing abandonment, she pulls them from school at the age of twelve and sends them to earn their keep for the household, whether in domestic service, in the fields, or at “the farmhouse” on the edge of town, where Rozelle beds local men for money.
     
    But Tangy Mae has been selected to be part of the first integrated class at a nearby white high school. She has a chance to change her life, but can she break from Rozelle’s grasp without ruinous—even fatal—consequences?

  • The Untelling

    by Tayari Jones

    $17.99

    Aria is no stranger to tragedy -- as a young girl, she and her older sister and mother survived a car crash that took the lives of their father and beloved baby sister. And although relations with her remaining family are strained, she's done her best to establish a solid, normal life for herself, living in Atlanta and teaching literacy to girls who have fallen on hard times.

    But now she has a secret that she's not yet ready to share with Dwayne, her devoted boyfriend, or Rochelle, her roommate and best friend: Aria is pregnant. Or so she thinks. The truth is about to make her question her every assumption and reevaluate the life she has worked so hard to build for herself...as it sends her reeling in a direction she had no idea she was destined to go.

  • The Known World cover image

    Edward P. Jones

    $16.99

    Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the best book of fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times, Edward P. Jones's The Known World is a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power and continues to show its importance to the American literary canon.

    Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation—as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave “speculators” sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.

    An ambitious, courageous, luminously written masterwork, The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved—and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. The Known World not only marks the return of an extraordinarily gifted writer, it heralds the publication of a remarkable contribution to the canon of American classic literature.

  • The Dream Builder's Blueprint: Dr. King's Message to Young People cover image
    $19.99

    ★ Publishers Weekly, starred review
    ★ Booklist, starred review

    This riveting found poem for kids based on Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Street Sweeper" speech is creatively interpreted in this nonfiction picture book written by acclaimed author Alice Faye Duncan, accompanied by gorgeous artwork by award-winning illustrator E. B. Lewis.

    In a speech delivered in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. provided his young audience with life lessons:
    * You count.
    * Black is beautiful.
    * Achieve excellence.
    * Make a better world.
    * Believe in nonviolence.
    * Keep going!

    Today, award-winning author Alice Faye Duncan reinterprets King's speech as a motivational erasure poem in The Dream Builder's Blueprint, accompanied by spirited and inspired art by Philadelphia-born illustrator E. B. Lewis. Highlighting principles of excellence, activism, and compassion that remain relevant and necessary today, this book has a universal message that's ideal for parents, librarians, and teachers looking for a book that distills Dr. King's principles to a level that kids can understand.

    Included in the book is an author's note that explains found poetry forms like the erasure poem and provides background information on the Civil Rights movement and Dr. King's inspiring speech at Philadelphia's Barratt Junior High School.

  • Mouths of Rain

    by Briona Simone Jones

    $22.99

    A Ms. magazine, Refinery29, and Lambda Literary Most Anticipated Read of 2021

    A groundbreaking collection tracing the history of intellectual thought by Black Lesbian writers, in the tradition of The New Press's perennial seller Words of Fire

    African American lesbian writers and theorists have made extraordinary contributions to feminist theory, activism, and writing. Mouths of Rain, the companion anthology to Beverly Guy-Sheftall's classic Words of Fire, traces the long history of intellectual thought produced by Black Lesbian writers, spanning the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century.

    Using “Black Lesbian” as a capacious signifier, Mouths of Rain includes writing by Black women who have shared intimate and loving relationships with other women, as well as Black women who see bonding as mutual, Black women who have self-identified as lesbian, Black women who have written about Black Lesbians, and Black women who theorize about and see the word lesbian as a political descriptor that disrupts and critiques capitalism, heterosexism, and heteropatriarchy. Taking its title from a poem by Audre Lorde, Mouths of Rain addresses pervasive issues such as misogynoir and anti-blackness while also attending to love, romance, “coming out,” and the erotic.

  • Zara in the Middle

    Erika Lynne Jones, Erika Lynne Jones (Illustrated by)

    $19.99

    Acclaimed artist Erika Lynne Jones's author-illustrator debut picture book! A young girl named Zara would rather say she doesn't know what she wants than choose between her two grandmothers' ideas.

    Zara loves living next door to her Grandma Jane and Granny Gladys, but sometimes it’s tough being stuck in the middle of them! Both her grandmas think they know what’s best for her, and Zara is worried she might upset them if she says what she really wants.

    Find out what it will take for Zara to speak up for herself in this multigenerational story about finding your voice and the strength of family.

  • Mosquito

    by Gayl Jones

    $19.95

    “Jones’s great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them.”—Anna Wiener, The New Yorker


    From the highly acclaimed author of Palmares, Corregidora, and The Healing—a rare and unforgettable journey set along the US-Mexico border about identity, immigration, and “the new underground railroad.”

    First discovered and edited by Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century. In Mosquito, she examines the US-Mexico border crisis through the eyes of Sojourner Nadine Jane Johnson, an African American truck driver known as Mosquito. Her journey begins after she discovers a stowaway who nearly gives birth in the back of her truck, sparking Mosquito’s accidental yet growing involvement in “the new underground railroad,” a sanctuary movement for Mexican immigrants.

    As Mosquito’s understanding of the immigrants’ need to forge new lives and identities deepens, so too does Mosquito’s romance with Ray, a gentle revolutionary, a philosopher, and, perhaps, a priest. Along the road, Mosquito introduces us to Delgadina, a Chicana bartender who fries cactus, writes haunting stories, and studies to become a detective; Monkey Bread, a childhood pal who is, improbably, assistant to a blonde star in Hollywood; Maria, the stowaway who names her baby Journal, a misspelled tribute to her unwitting benefactor Sojourner; and many more.

  • Why We Can't Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    $9.99

    *ships in 7 - 10 business days*

    Martin Luther King’s classic exploration of the events and forces behind the Civil Rights Movement—including his Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

    “There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”

    In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States. The campaign launched by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement on the segregated streets of Birmingham demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.

    In this remarkable book—winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—Dr. King recounts the story of Birmingham in vivid detail, tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future, assessing the work to be done beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African Americans. Above all, Dr. King offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.

    Since its publication in the 1960s, Why We Can’t Wait has become an indisputable classic. Now, more than ever, it is an enduring testament to the wise and courageous vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Includes photographs and an Afterword by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

  • The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

    by James Weldon Johnson

    $24.00
    A Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of the groundbreaking classic novel of the Black experience in America that is still remarkably relevant more than a century later.

    First published anonymously in 1912, this resolutely unsentimental novel gave many white readers their first glimpse of the double standards—and double consciousness—experienced by Black people in modern America. Republished in 1927, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, with an introduction by Carl Van Vechten, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man became a pioneering document of African-American culture and an eloquent model for later novelists ranging from Zora Neale Hurston to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison.

    Narrated by a man whose light skin enables him to "pass" for white, the novel describes a journey through the strata of Black society at the turn of the century—from a cigar factory in Jacksonville to an elite gambling club in New York, from genteel aristocrats to the musicians who hammered out the rhythms of ragtime. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a complex and moving examination of the question of race and an unsparing look at what it meant to forge an identity as a man in a culture that recognized nothing but color.

    Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.
  • Butter: Novellas, Stories, and Fragments

    by Gayl Jones

    $24.95

    *Ships in 7-10 Business Days*

     

    A wide-ranging collection, including two novellas and ten stories exploring complex identities, from the acclaimed author of Corregidora, The Healing, and Palmares.


    “Gayl Jones’s work represents a watershed in American literature. From a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable . . . and as a Black woman writer, her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humor, and incisiveness, is unmatched.”
    —Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine and Breathe

    Gayl Jones, who was first edited by Toni Morrison, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century and was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. This new collection of short fiction is only the second in her rich career and one that displays her strengths in the genre in many facets. Opening with two novella-length works, “Butter” and “Sophia,” this collection features Jones’s legendary talents in a range of settings and styles, from the hyperrealist to the mystical, in intricate multipart stories, in more traditional forms, and even in short fragments.

    Her narrators are women and men, Black, Brown, Indigenous; her settings are historical and contemporary, in South America, Mexico, and the US; her themes center on complex identities, unorthodox longings and aspirations. She writes about spies, photographers, playground designers, cartoonists, and baristas; about workers and revolutionaries, about environmentalism, feminism, poetry, film, and love, but above all about our multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial society.

  • Through Mom's Eyes: Simple Wisdom From Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans cover image
    $29.00

    From the beloved Today show host Sheinelle Jones comes an inspiring collection of heartfelt life-lessons from hard working moms who raised some of our favorite celebrities.

    When Sheinelle Jones launched “Through Mom’s Eyes,” a recurring Today show segment interviewing celebrities’ mothers about raising successful kids, she had an ulterior motive—she wanted to bring all their wisdom to bear on raising her own three children. So she asked Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mom about staying present with kids while balancing a demanding career, talked with Lady Gaga’s mom about how to recognize bullying, and got tips from Steph Curry’s mom on making sure even future NBA royalty does his chores. She has since interviewed dozens of remarkable women and gathered a candid, warm, and insightful collection of valuable lessons about life, love, and parenthood.

    Now in her first book, Through Mom’s Eyes, Sheinelle is ready to share even more of those life-changing secrets with the world. Combining insights from celebrity mothers with her own journey through modern parenting, Sheinelle reveals how to make it through the hard parts of motherhood and still tap into the joys of it with empathy, generosity, and solidarity. Through Mom’s Eyes is a beautiful celebration of those who are the guiding light for their loved ones—mothers.

    Featuring advice from the moms of:
    Lady Gaga * Kevin Durant * Matthew McConaughey * Venus and Serena Williams * Lin-Manuel Miranda * Steph Curry * Padma Lakshmi * Tyra Banks * Donnie and Mark Wahlberg * Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski * Jessica and Ashlee Simpson * Shaquille O’Neal * Brandon Maxwell * The Jonas Brothers * Thomas Rhett

  • The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family cover image
    $30.00

    From Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and a writer who “has brilliantly illuminated the Black experience in America for decades” (Bryan Stevenson), comes a spirited and riveting memoir of growing up in an interracial family in 1960s Chicago and a daughter’s journey to understand her parents’ marriage—and her own identity.

    Dorothy Roberts grew up in a deeply segregated Chicago of the 1960s where relationships barely crossed the “colorline.” Yet inside her own home, where her father was white and her mother a Black Jamaican immigrant, interracial marriage wasn’t just a part of her upbringing, it was a shared mission. Her father, an anthropologist, spent her entire childhood working on a book about Black-white marriages—a project he never finished but shaped every aspect of their family life.

    As a 21-year-old graduate student, Dorothy’s father dedicated himself to the study of interracial marriage and her mother soon became his full-time partner in that work. Together over the years they interviewed over 500 couples and assembled stunning stories about interracial marriages that took place as early as the 1880s—studying, but also living, championing, and believing in their power to advance social equality.

    Decades later, while sorting through her father’s papers, Roberts uncovers a truth that upends everything she thought she knew about her family: her father’s research didn’t begin with her parents’ love story—it came long before it. This discovery forces her to wrestle with her father’s intentions, her own views about interracial relationships, and where she fits in that story. Rather than finish the book her father never published, Roberts immerses herself in their archive of interviews to trace the story of her parents and to better understand her own.

    Though grounded in her parents’ research, it’s Roberts’ captivating storytelling that drives this memoir. In following the arc of her parents’ interviews and marriage, The Mixed Marriage Project invites us into the everyday lives of interracial couples in Chicago over four decades. Along the way, Roberts reflects on her own childhood as a Black girl with a white father, and how those experiences shaped her into one of today’s most prominent public thinkers and scholars on race. Blurring the boundaries between the political and the personal, between memoir and history, The Mixed Marriage Project is a deeply moving meditation on family, race, identity, and love.

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