*ships in 5-7 business days*

Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret.

Celebrating the Centenary of James Baldwin's birth, a box set of Baldwin's principal novels, featuring Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni's Room, and If Beale Street Could Talk.

These deluxe editions feature new introductions by Roxane Gay, Kevin Young, and Brit Bennett.

Originally published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain was James Baldwin's first major work, based in part on his own childhood. With lyrical precision and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem.

Giovanni's Room is set in the Paris of the 1950s, where a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. One of the first novels to openly explore the theme of homosexuality, it paved the way for generations of gay and lesbian novelists.

And If Beale Street Could Talk is a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime --a profoundly moving novel about love in the face of injustice that is as socially resonant today as it was when it was first published.

This stunningly designed slipcase with art by Baldwin's friend and contemporary Beauford Delaney will make the perfect perennial gift and keepsake.

"Wonderfully ambitious.... Flournoy explores the complexity of friendship, family, and home in a voice that is expansive yet intimate, humorous yet devastating. I loved this book." — Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half and The Mothers

An era-defining novel about five Black women over the course of their twenty-year friendship, as they move through the dizzying and sometimes precarious period between young adulthood and midlife—in the much-anticipated second book from National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy.

Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning. Of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood—overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences—swoops in and stays.

Desiree and Danielle, sisters whose shared history has done little to prevent their estrangement, nurse bitter family wounds in different ways. January’s got a relationship with a “good” man she feels ambivalent about, even after her surprise pregnancy. Monique, a librarian and aspiring blogger, finds unexpected online fame after calling out the university where she works for its plans to whitewash fraught history. And Nakia is trying to get her restaurant off the ground, without relying on the largesse of her upper middle-class family who wonder aloud if she should be doing something better with her life.

As these friends move from the late 2000’s into the late 2020’s, from young adults to grown women, they must figure out what they mean to one another—amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life.

The Wilderness is Angela Flournoy’s masterful and kaleidoscopic follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut The Turner House. A generational talent, she captures with disarming wit and electric language how the most profound connections over a lifetime can lie in the tangled, uncertain thicket of friendship.

They're making an album. Not love. (Yet.)

Bishop's album is a disaster, and the only person who can fix it is Shiloh Ellis, the woman she ghosted four years ago.

Shiloh's the best producer in the business now. Button-downs sharp, studio pristine, boundaries ironclad. She doesn't do chaos, second chances, or Bishop. But when she hears that dying demo, she knows exactly what's missing: the raw honesty they used to create together. Before the fame. Before Bishop left without a word.

Four months to salvage the record. Two masculine-of-center women who used to finish each other's sentences, now barely able to tolerate sharing studio air. Bishop's all swagger and deflection. Shiloh's all logic, control, and precision. But in the booth, with nowhere left to hide, the music demands the truth they've been avoiding.

The album's coming together. So is everything they buried.

Some love you have to earn back-one track at a time.

The debut collection from a 2021 Whiting Award and Guggenheim Fellow recipient whose “astounding, dolorous, rejoicing voice is indispensable” (Tracy K. Smith)
  
The Sobbing School, Joshua Bennett’s mesmerizing debut collection of poetry, presents songs for the living and the dead that destabilize and de-familiarize representations of black history and contemporary black experience. What animates these poems is a desire to assert life, and interiority, where there is said to be none. Figures as widely divergent as Bobby Brown, Martin Heidegger, and the 19th-century performance artist Henry Box Brown, as well as Bennett’s own family and childhood best friends, appear and are placed in conversation in order to show that there is always a world beyond what we are socialized to see value in, always alternative ways of thinking about relation that explode easy binaries.

The beloved novel about a New York City girlhood that heralded a renaissance in Black women’s literature, with a new foreword by Nicole Dennis-Benn, the bestselling author of Patsy and Here Comes the Sun

One of The New York Times Magazine’s 25 Most Significant New York City Novels from the Last 100 Years

A Penguin Classic

Selina Boyce comes of age in 1940s New York as the daughter of two immigrants from Barbados: a free-spirited father she adores and who dreams of returning to his Caribbean island home, and a disciplined, hardworking mother she admires and who is determined to purchase their Brooklyn brownstone. When her father comes into an unexpected inheritance, Selina is torn between his nostalgia for the past and her mother’s ambition for the future, all while negotiating racism, sexuality, Depression-era poverty, and the competing values of African Americans and her West Indian immigrant community.

First published in 1959, Brown Girl, Brownstones opened a window into the rich inner life of Black women and today ranks with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as one of the great New York City novels. With her autobiographical debut, Paule Marshall paved the way for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Maya Angelou—and took her place in the American literary canon.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South, from the award-winning author of Family

"Rendered with compassion and beautiful simplicity."--The Washington Post Book World

"[A] provocative and at times painful family portrait . . . It should be required reading."--Detroit Free Press

Opening in Texas during the waning years of the Civil War, The Wake of the Wind tells the epic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When news of Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only to survive but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustices become a plague across the region, time and time again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.

Land, however, is the least of their worldly possessions. Lifee and Mor are the descendants of a long and vital line. Having used their intelligence, strength, and ingenuity to make their place in the new post-Civil War world, they in turn pass those talents along to their children--the next generation to surge forward, accomplishing more than their parents could ever dream.

At once tragic and triumphant, The Wake of the Wind is a penetrating look at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home and a future for themselves and their families.

This lyrical celebration of Juneteenth, deeply rooted in Black American history, spans centuries and reverberates loudly and proudly today.

After 300 years of forced bondage;
hands bound, descendants of Africa
picked up their souls—all that they owned—
leaving shackles where they fell on the ground,
headed for the nearest resting place to be found.

Deeply emotional, evocative free verse by poet and activist Sojourner Kincaid Rolle traces the solemnity and celebration of Juneteenth from its 1865 origins in Galveston, Texas to contemporary observances all over the United States. This is an ode to the strength of Black Americans and a call to remember and honor a holiday whose importance reverberates far beyond the borders of Texas.

Two homicide detectives track a brazen killer who's dropping bodies at historical Philadelphia landmarks in this action-packed crime thriller.

Two homicide detectives track a brazen killer who's dropping bodies at historical Philadelphia landmarks in this action-packed crime thriller.

"Marc did a great job setting the table. Looking forward to the next course." -K'WAN, national bestselling author of Animal

"Avery delivers a heart-stopping thriller. Giuseppe "Discipline" Cain is a one-man crime wave." -Dennis Tafoya, author of Dope Thief, an Apple+ TV series

"Discipline is everything you want in a buddy cop story. Gritty, action-packed, clever, and funny." -Delaware Today Magazine

"Has Netflix series written all over it." -Philadelphia Magazine

Giuseppe "Discipline" Cain is a cold-hearted, calculated, and resentful murderer who turns Philadelphia into his own personal killing ground. As the death toll rises, city officials and the police department clamor to calm the fears of the citizens about this brazen serial killer. When an elected official's family member is found dead, no one in the city is safe.

Detective Aaden Bravo is a highly decorated officer with a legendary clearance rate. Detective Christian Bennett is flashy, reckless, and a serial womanizer. After Christian's transfer to the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide division, these two starkly contrasting officers are forced to work together. Despite their disdain for each other, Aaden and Christian's skill sets complement each other. While Aaden is all about the job and Christian is all about the women, their next case is all about survival.

Will they succumb to the pressure of maintaining their partnership, or can they cast aside their differences and stay alive long enough to bring Discipline to justice?

Celebrate the release of No Sense in Wishing with Lawrence Burney!

EVENT DEETS

When: Friday July 10 @ 6 PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to grab your copy of No Sense In Wishing, support the author and our store programming.

Please note outside copies of the book will not be allowed in the bookstore and you will not be eligible for the signing/photo line. You must buy a book from Kindred Stories 

ABOUT THE BOOK

A personal and analytical essay collection from culture critic Lawrence Burney that is a personal and analytical look at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him.

There are moments in our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression. These moments inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward.

In a time when music is spurring Black Americans’ connection with Africans on the Continent, culture critic Lawrence Burney takes us on a journey from the streets of Baltimore to the concert halls of Lagos, reminisces on seeing his mother perform as the opening act of a Gil Scott-Heron show when he was a child, and sits at a Maryland crab feast with family, assessing how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation. Burney explores these profound interactions with incisive and energizing prose, offering us a personal and critical perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him.

No Sense in Wishing is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Burney’s search for self. With its gutsy and uncompromising criticism alongside intimate personal storytelling, this “powerful collection of essays” (Rolling Stone) is like an album that hits all the right notes, from a promising writer on the rise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lawrence Burney is a writer, editor, critic, and the founder of True Laurels, an independent magazine covering Baltimore’s music and culture scene. His work has appeared in publications such as New York Magazine, GQ, Washington Post and Pitchfork. He has also worked as an editor at The Fader, a staff writer at VICE, and an editor/reporter at The Baltimore Banner. His first book, No Sense in Wishing, a collection of essays, was published in July 2025 via Atria Books. His second book, Sing Back To Me, will also be published by Atria Books. Follow him on Instagram and X @TrueLaurels.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard.

Laymon is at work on the books, Good God, and City Summer, Country Summer, and a number of other film and television projects. He is the founder of The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative, a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. He is the co-host of Reckon True Stories with Deesha Philyaw. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

Three years ago, I decided to have my first one-night stand. The plan was simple: research how to do it and meet a man at the bar before nerves playing with my guts got the best of me. I wanted to ring in the new year between a stranger's legs. Someone with good hygiene and exceptional tensile strength to take the edge off of studying mechanical engineering.

Then he walked in.

I'd heard whispers about "a night with Knight," tales of toe cramps and matted hair. Antonio is the biggest player and not the man to relieve me of my pent-up tension. His thick thighs, veiny forearms, and charming smile promised a trip to the hospital.

I shouldn't have followed him back to his condo, but I did.

Dinner turned into a kiss, and that kiss led to accidental humping. That's how we ended up in the emergency room. He had a broken nose, and my wig was stuck on his watch.

Three years and a PhD later, Antonio has cemented himself in my life as my best friend. Moving to the city where my sister lives-and where he plays professional rugby-wasn't a big deal at first. But everything changed when we hugged. His cologne surrounded me, and his eyes stayed locked on mine.

Our friendship is platonic, ironclad after the one-night stand gone wrong. So why can't I shake the feeling that we've barely scratched the surface?

Leading Binnizá and Maya Ch'orti' scientist Jessica Hernandez, PhD, weaves together Indigenous knowledge, environmental science, and personal family stories in her highly anticipated follow-up to the LA Times best-seller Fresh Banana Leaves.

Not every environmental problem is a result of climate change, but every environmental and climate change problem is a result of colonialism.

Dr. Jessica Hernandez offers readers an Indigenous, Global-South lens on the climate crisis, delivering a compelling and urgent exploration of its causes—and its costs. She shares how the impacts of colonial climate catastrophe—from warming oceans to forced displacement of settler ontologies—can only be addressed at the root if we reorient toward Indigenous science and follow the lead of Indigenous peoples and communities.

Growing Papaya Trees explores:

* Energy as a sociopolitical issue
* The interconnectedness of natural disasters, sociopolitical turmoil, and forced migration
* Our oceans, our forests, and our Indigenous futures
* Moving Indigenous science from mere acknowledgement into real action
* How to nourish Indigenous roots when displaced beyond borders

Dr. Hernandez asks: what does it mean to be Indigenous when we’re separated from our lands? How do we nurture future generations knowing they, too, will have to live away from their ancestral places? She illuminates that cultures are not lost, even amid genocide, turmoil, war, and climate displacement—and shows us how to be better kin to each other against the ecological violence, colonial oppression, and distorted status quo of the Global North.