Search results: 102 results for “by les payne”
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102 results
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PRE-ORDER: Life is a K Drama: A Heartfelt Slow-Burn Contemporary RomCom from a Duo of Bestselling Authors
PRE-ORDER: Life is a K Drama: A Heartfelt Slow-Burn Contemporary RomCom from a Duo of Bestselling Authors
$29.00A heartfelt, interracial, contemporary romance debut--and a love letter to K dramas--featuring a single mom whose chance to turn her neighborhood restaurant into a household name is upended by an unexpected spark with a swoon-worthy Korean business magnate, for fans of Kennedy Ryan, Tia Williams, and Susan Lee.
Keisha Thomson loves K-Dramas, but she never thought her life would turn into one. Keisha is a 37-year-old, divorced mom of her beloved autistic son, Kai, and the ambitious owner of True Soul, a Harlem soul-food restaurant. Set between Harlem and Seoul, the novel follows bold and pragmatic Keisha, charming yet duty-bound Han Seojun, and the viral red velvet cake that brings them together. What begins as a cultural and culinary clash becomes a whirlwind romance that upends everything they thought they knew about love, ambition, and what it means to put yourself first.
Life is a K Drama brings together Sherri Shepherd and Jayci Lee's complementary voices to create something truly fresh. Part escapism and part self-discovery, it’s for anyone who’s ever rebuilt themselves from scratch and for readers who crave joy that feels earned and real. With shades of Tia William’s Seven Days in June and Sally Thorne’s The Hating Game, it’s a sweeping, cinematic love story that glows with humor, heart, and hard-won hope. Importantly, it’s not just a romance between Keisha and Seojun, it’s also a love story about family, food, and culture.
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PRE-ORDER: Bad Bunny: Dembow and Dreams: A Biography
PRE-ORDER: Bad Bunny: Dembow and Dreams: A Biography
$14.99A chart-topping picture book biography about how Bad Bunny went from a small-town dreamer in Puerto Rico to one of the greatest global music icons of all time.
* A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
Right now, in any city in the world, you’ll hear the unmistakable beats of Bad Bunny’s music blasting from speakers.
A global superstar who has sold out stadiums around the world, Bad Bunny is redefining what it means to be an artist. But how did he get here? Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio grew up surrounded by the rhythms and culture of reggaeton. He has not only become an icon of the genre but has transformed it by innovating its sound and challenging the machismo culture of the genre by embracing fluidity in fashion, masculinity, and the LGBTQ+ community. Could young Benito have imagined performing at the Super Bowl, making history by becoming the first artist to win Album of the Year for a project entirely in Spanish, and becoming a voice of hope for millions across the globe?
Inspiring and groundbreaking, Bad Bunny’s story is a must-have for every fan who sings along to his hits—and a reminder that breaking the rules can lead to building a legacy.
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PRE-ORDER: Nina Simone and the World She Made: An American Muse
PRE-ORDER: Nina Simone and the World She Made: An American Muse
$30.00In a piercing blend of biography, criticism, and memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Salamishah Tillet explores Nina Simone’s life and the impact of her legacy.
In Nina Simone and the World She Made, Salamishah Tillet traces Nina Simone’s transformation from child prodigy to musical icon and fearless civil rights activist. When racism thwarted her dreams of becoming a classical pianist, Simone reinvented herself and created a sound wholly her own—one that would catapult her into stardom and the heart of the Black Power movement.
Decades later, Simone’s music inspired the hip-hop generation and Tillet’s own profound political awakening. From buying her first Nina Simone album to becoming a creative and activist, Tillet’s private encounters with Simone’s work grew into a broader exploration of her legacy. Exploring Simone’s unique impact on the American cultural landscape through the women who shaped her and those whom she shaped, Tillet reveals how art can be a powerful driver of social activism, and the struggles and sacrifices it involves.
With honest, lyrical prose, Tillet’s intimate portrait brings us close to Simone, while showing us how the singer’s voice captured the pain and promise of America and resonates in the fight for equality today. Nina Simone and the World She Made urges us to listen to Simone’s music—not just as a reflection of the past, but as a guide for the future.
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PRE-ORDER: The Search for Black Mecca: Untold Stories of America’s New Great Migration
PRE-ORDER: The Search for Black Mecca: Untold Stories of America’s New Great Migration
$30.00From the Washington Post’s first race and ethnicity reporter, a poignant investigation into the aftermath of the Great Migration, the promise of a Second Great Migration, and what future Black communities could look like across America in this eye-opening and thoughtful study, a mix of The Warmth of Other Suns and How the Word Is Passed.
Since the 1990s, demographers have been documenting a new Great Migration: millions of Black Americans leaving Northern and Western cities for the South their parents and grandparents fled during Jim Crow. Huge numbers of Black people have been moving to Memphis, Houston, Charlotte, and other booming metropolises in the hopes of recreating the vibrant communities their grandparents once left. Have they found what they were looking for? Is it possible for Black Americans to have community, economic prosperity, and safety all in one place? And if so, where?
In the Search for Black Mecca, Emmanuel Felton examines how these questions are playing out in real lives today, going into the homes of Black Americans who are weighing what they want and where they hope to find it. He identifies three archetypes—“Those Who Stay,” “Those Who Leave,” and “Those Who Build Something New”—and reveals the costs and benefits of each decision, while seeking answers to deeper questions regarding communal responsibility, what’s needed to make Black neighborhoods thrive, and how to manage the fact that white people are often threatened by Black success. He also unravels his own family’s migration story through the lives of his two grandfathers—a prominent New Orleans dentist and a troubled musician who migrated to Oakland, California.
Through these stories, Felton crystalizes our understanding of what it means to find—or to create —our own meccas: radical spaces for Black joy, freedom, and imagination, even when the external world tries to take those places away.
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PRE-ORDER: BIG. DELULU. ENERGY.: Harness the Power of Delusion, Audacity, and Inspired Action to Build the Life of Your Dreams
PRE-ORDER: BIG. DELULU. ENERGY.: Harness the Power of Delusion, Audacity, and Inspired Action to Build the Life of Your Dreams
$30.00One word is about to change everything you believe about yourself.
From sought-after coach, speaker, and author Wemi Opakunle, whose content has reached millions, a transformative guide to harnessing the power of “delulu” thinking—radical self-belief paired with bold, inspired action—to create the life, career, and opportunities you want.
For years, we've been told to be realistic, lower our expectations, and wait until we're fully qualified, fully prepared, or fully confident before going after what we want. But what if everything we've been taught is backwards? What if delulu belief is the bridge between who you are and who you want to be?
In BIG. DELULU. ENERGY., Wemi Opakunle introduces an unapologetic, powerful new approach to personal growth built on self-belief, intentional action, and the courage to think bigger than your current circumstances. Far from denying reality, “delulu” thinking is about refusing to let your fears, limitations, or past experiences define what’s possible for your future.
Through her transformative Eight Pillars of Delulu Success, Wemi shows you how to:
* Build unshakable confidence and trust yourself more deeply
* Stop waiting for certainty and move before you're ready
* Transform fear, setbacks, and self-doubt into fuel for growth
* Embody the mindset and emotions of the person you want to become
* Release perfectionism and detach from outcomes you can’t control
* Silence your inner critic and separate your identity from your inner dialogue to create lasting self-worth
* Reinvent yourself at any stage of life and create a future that feels aligned, joyful, and expansive
* Challenge the labels that have been placed on you, including the ones you've placed on yourselfWarm, practical, and passionately encouraging, BIG. DELULU. ENERGY. offers a refreshing alternative to self-help rooted in hustle and perfectionism. This is a guide to betting on yourself, embracing possibility, and becoming the person you’ve always imagined you could be.
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PRE-ORDER: It Takes a Village
PRE-ORDER: It Takes a Village
$28.99New York Times bestselling author Alyssa Cole is back with another chilling thriller, set in the world of her megahit When No One Is Watching.
It was too good to be true.
Eboni Goodman has earned her Master’s in Social Work… only to be stuck delivering groceries. So when she lands a position as Administrator for an experimental village designed to reduce homelessness, she’s thrilled. Her stubborn optimism has finally borne fruit, and she is ready to change lives―starting with her own.
Except the South Jersey town isn’t exactly welcoming of their new neighbors. Eboni is determined to prove the program works, even when the hostility outside the gates is nothing compared to the glitches happening inside the village. And the only person she can rely on is Michael, a broody security guard and former local who's only recently returned to town.
As the town's buried history comes to light and strange occurrences stack up, cracks begin to show in the organization’s philanthropic facade. Eboni and Michael are pulled into a web of intrigue that threatens not just the program but everyone living there.
After all, it takes a village…
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PRE-ORDER: Get Over Yourself: Relief from Perfection and the Lies That Keep You from Connection
PRE-ORDER: Get Over Yourself: Relief from Perfection and the Lies That Keep You from Connection
$30.99Somewhere along the way, many of us learned how to survive, but forgot how to truly live. What if the version of you that helped you survive is now keeping you from being fully known and loved Sarah Jakes Roberts reveals how perfectionism, performance, and self-protection become armor and shows you how to lay it down, embrace who God created you to be, and experience genuine connection.
We became the dependable one. The achiever. The perfectionist. The people-pleaser. The strong one who never asks for help. We built lives that look orderly and pristine on the outside while quietly carrying the exhausting weight of proving ourselves, protecting ourselves, and performing for acceptance. But the armor that once helped us survive may now be keeping us from the very connection we long for.
In Get Over Yourself, New York Times bestselling author Sarah Jakes Roberts invites readers on a compassionate journey beneath the versions of themselves they've learned to become. Blending profound biblical insight, developmental research, and her own deeply personal story, including a life-altering accident that forced her to confront the identity she'd built around survival, Sarah reveals how God gently leads us beyond perfectionism, performance, and fear into lives marked by authenticity, freedom, and genuine connection.
Through vulnerable storytelling, practical wisdom, and fresh biblical perspective, readers will discover how to:
* Recognize the survival patterns shaping their relationships and identity.
* Release the pressure to constantly prove, protect, or perfect themselves.
* Heal from shame, fear, and the hidden lies that keep them emotionally guarded.
* Experience deeper intimacy with God, healthier relationships, and lasting inner freedom.
* Become the person love, not survival, requires.Honest, hopeful, and transformative, Get Over Yourself is for anyone who's tired of carrying the weight of who they've had to become and ready to discover the freedom of becoming who God created them to be.
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PRE-ORDER: Hope in a Classroom: The Remarkable Story of Black American Students, Teachers, and Schools from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement
PRE-ORDER: Hope in a Classroom: The Remarkable Story of Black American Students, Teachers, and Schools from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement
$18.99In her first book for young readers, National Book Award winner Imani Perry chronicles the history of schools and education in Black America.
After emancipation, freed people of all ages wanted to go to school. From the story of John McCline, who learned to read as a boy serving in the Union Army, through the teachers who built one-room schoolhouses across the rural South during Reconstruction to the student-led movement to desegregate schools during the Civil Rights movement, Imani Perry’s intimate and sweeping social history narrates this powerful desire for education and literacy―and how African Americans built and maintained an education system even while segregated and unequal public education failed them. These schools taught Black children to believe in themselves and their future despite Jim Crow and the institutionally racist society they lived in.
Informed by a rich trove of letters, diaries, and other archival materials, Hope in a Classroom is a necessary, expansive new narrative of the Black American experience for young readers, delivered in a propulsive and soaring voice.
illustrations throughout
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PRE-ORDER: Kinder Than Solitude: A Novel
PRE-ORDER: Kinder Than Solitude: A Novel
$19.00Weaving back and forth between China in the 1990s and America in 2010s, three people’s lives are changed by a murder one of them may have committed in this magnificent novel from Yiyun Li, newly reissued.
When Moran, Ruyu, and Boyang were young, they were involved in a mysterious incident in which a friend of theirs was poisoned. Grown up, the three friends are separated by distance and personal estrangement. Moran and Ruyu live in the United States, Boyang in China; all of them are haunted by what happened in their youth and by doubt about themselves.
In Wisconsin, Moran visits her ex-husband, whose kindness once overcame her flight into solitude. In California, Ruyu helps a local woman care for her family and home, avoiding entanglements, as she has done all her life. In Beijing, Boyang struggles to deal with an inability to love―and with the outcome of what happened among the friends twenty years before.
Brilliantly written and a breathtaking page-turner, Kinder Than Solitude resonates with provocative observations about human nature and life. In mesmerizing prose, and with profound insight, Yiyun Li weaves a remarkable story that explores the impact of personality and the past on the shape of a person’s present and future.
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PRE-ORDER: All the Smoke: A Novel
PRE-ORDER: All the Smoke: A Novel
$18.99The Talented Mr. Ripley meets the Wu-Tang Clan: An American Saga in this dark psychological thriller.
Thomas “Maz” Kincaid lives a lavish life as a rising rap star: money, influence, and fame. But Maz’s success rests on a lie—his lyrics to his chart-topping album belong to someone else, his foster brother, Adonis.
Adonis, fresh out of prison is done watching his brother live off his talent and launches a calculated campaign of vengeance. But Maz won’t let all he’s worked for be taken away. He’s willing to lie, manipulate, and even kill to protect the fraudulent life he’s built.
As the rivalry escalates, the line between victim and villain blurs. With both men—damaged, cunning, and ruthless, locked in a psychological war where only one can survive the spotlight. Who will rule the stage, and who will end up in a grave?
Dark, complex, and suspenseful, All the Smoke is a cautionary tale, exploring identity, trauma, and the psychopathy behind stardom in the music industry.
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PRE-ORDER: The Courage to Love: The Skills and Secrets of Happy Relationships
PRE-ORDER: The Courage to Love: The Skills and Secrets of Happy Relationships
$19.00FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE COURAGE TO BE DISLIKED
What if real love isn’t a feeling to fall into, but a choice to be made? Find the courage to embrace the love you truly deserve—without fear of judgment, inadequacy, or rejection.
In The Courage to Love, celebrated philosopher and bestselling author Ichiro Kishimi invites us to question the myths about love that keep us searching for happiness in the wrong places. Stepping beyond the thrill of new romance, and drawing on the psychological insights of Alfred Adler, Kishimi presents love—in partnerships, families, and friendships—as an active commitment, a brave choice we must make every day to foster our growth and others'.
Whether you are single, dating, in a long-term relationship, or navigating the challenges of family life, Kishimi offers a new perspective on building fulfilling relationships. Readers will:
* Disentangle love from control, approval, and self-sacrifice and instead discover the foundations of equality in relationships
* Escape the trap of striving to be liked and to "earn" love
* Practice practical techniques for communication, conflict resolution, and intimacy through all stages of a relationship
* Learn to understand and practice authentic love, not as dependency, but as an act of freedom and mutual respectThe Courage to Love is an invitation to transform how you understand love, moving from a desire to be chosen to the powerful choice to love well.
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PRE-ORDER: Black Is
PRE-ORDER: Black Is
$19.99COMPANION TO NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER, BLACK GOLD
In this companion picture book to Black Gold, the NAACP Image Award winner, Laura Obuobi and Society of Illustrators’ honoree London Ladd team up to tell a story that celebrates Black life, brims with black joy, and instills an important message about Black resilience.
Black is precious.
Black is holy.
Black is powerful.
Black is many things, and its magnificence can be found all throughout the world. It’s in obsidian, in the rolling fields of calla lilies, and the birth of the universe. Most importantly, Black is a people whose strength, grace, and resilience would foster change, creativity, and a culture from which would emerge a world that would never be the same and a community whose genius continues to inspire all. Despite everything that Black people have endured, they are still present—living and thriving.
Powerhouse duo Laura Obuobi and London Ladd return with another poignant, lyrical text that celebrates all that being Black is, positively reinforcing the magnitude of possibilities that being Black can—and will—be. With its important themes, Black Is will enchant young readers with events and achievements by people in Black history and the Black diaspora, like uprisings, innovations in culture, entertainment, literature, including civil rights work by West Africans, Caribbeans, and Black Americans.· Brimming with Black Joy: This book is magical, heartwarming, and a bright reminder that diverse stories are hopeful too. Laura has created a world where all facets of Black life, especially joy, are brought to light.
· Champion for Self-Love: This uplifting, impactful, and lyrical book will empower Black children and will inspire them to love themselves exactly as they are. This book delivers the important message that Black is beautiful and powerful.
· Bedtime Story with Lyrical, Poignant Text: Laura spins a story with language that is so rich, it is as though she has captured a dream on the page. Readers will be enthralled by this sweeping, meditative tale.
· Timely and Timeless Picture Book: This is a book that will always resonate with readers as they move on through every stage of their lives, uplifting and empowering, and is the perfect baby shower gift and graduation gift.
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