"A bombastic coming-of-age novel....The White Boy Shuffle has the uncanny ability to make readers want to laugh and cry at the same time."--Los Angeles Times

The first novel from National Book Critics Circle Award and Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout

Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people."

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize

Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction

Named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal

A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.

Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

The bookclub meeting is on April 25, 2024 at 7 PM. We're be in the Kindred Stories Reading. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court

Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since the '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is told that his father's work will lead to a memoir that will solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in front of the Supreme Court.
Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the U.S. Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant.

A wild, rollicking, firsthand account of the good ole days of funk from Bootsy Collins, the legendary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame bass guitarist for James Brown, George Clinton, and Parliament-Funkadelic. Funky foreword courtesy of Snoop Dogg.

He’s a bona fide funk legend, a rhinestone-clad style icon, and arguably one of the best bassists to ever live. (At least, according to Rolling Stone.) His career has spanned five decades: from rising to stardom playing alongside James Brown; to setting the bar, the groove, and the look of Parliament-Funkadelic; to collaborating with today’s most innovative and beloved musicians, like Anderson .Paak, Snoop Dogg, and Bruno Mars. Bootsy Collins has more than a few stories to tell.

He is no stranger to the spotlight, and tales of his escapades are whispered among music nerds and the general public. Yet Bootsy’s story has never been put on the page.

Now, in his own words — “the straight up, real deal, if I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’, and I ain’t ready to go yet”— Bootsy is ready to share with fans legendary stories about:

* the ins and outs of his three-decade relationship with mentor and sometimes tormentor James Brown—including dropping acid with the Godfather of Soul himself
* how a one-night stand almost resulted in him being killed by a member of Florida’s Black Mafia
* when he and the Parliament-Funkadelic crew were mistaken for a group of escaped convicts, and during a detailed cavity search, the LAPD found George Clinton’s a**-stash
* his collaborative and tumultuous relationship with funk legend George Clinton
* eventually getting clean and becoming the favorite OG for a new crop of musicians and artists

Bootsy’s story is full of heart, humor, joy, sorrow, and a whooooole lot of funk. True to its iconic creator, Funked Around, Found Out includes psychedelic photos, costumes, guitars, and other surprises that are as closely associated with Bootsy as his thumping grooves. Music fans, pop culture aficionados, and other acolytes will rejoice.

“American Spy updates the espionage thriller with blazing originality.”—Entertainment Weekly
“There has never been anything like it.”—Marlon James, GQ
“So much fun . . . Like the best of John le Carré, it’s extremely tough to put down.”—NPR

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • Entertainment Weekly • Esquire • BuzzFeed • Vulture • Real Simple • Good Housekeeping • The New York Public Library

What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love? 

It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. Yes, even though she secretly admires the work Sankara is doing for his country. Yes, even though she is still grieving the mysterious death of her sister, whose example led Marie to this career path in the first place. Yes, even though a furious part of her suspects she’s being offered the job because of her appearance and not her talent.

In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American.

Inspired by true events—Thomas Sankara is known as “Africa’s Che Guevara”—American Spy knits together a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a passionate romance. This is a face of the Cold War you’ve never seen before, and it introduces a powerful new literary voice.

NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

“Spy fiction plus allegory, and a splash of pan-Africanism. What could go wrong? As it happens, very little. Clever, bracing, darkly funny, and really, really good.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Inspired by real events, this espionage thriller ticks all the right boxes, delivering a sexually charged interrogation of both politics and race.”—Esquire

“Echoing the stoic cynicism of Hurston and Ellison, and the verve of Conan Doyle, American Spy lays our complicities—political, racial, and sexual—bare. Packed with unforgettable characters, it’s a stunning book, timely as it is timeless.”—Paul Beatty, Man Booker Prizewinning author of The Sellout

An essential history of modern Black cinema, as led by avant-garde filmmaker, director, novelist, composer, and playwright Melvin Van Peebles.

Beg Borrow Steal, a title inspired by Black artists’ make-a-way-out-of-no-way ethos, is a stirring and remarkable deep dive into Black independent film and culture, as modeled by raconteur and iconoclast Melvin Van Peebles. Award-winning writer Santi Elijah Holley enriches the extraordinary history with interviews from today’s most innovative Black independent filmmakers and actors, such as Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, and Samuel L. Jackson, as well as Van Peebles’s published and unpublished manuscripts, critical reviews, analyses, and reflections.

Independent Black artists across all disciplines—from music and theater to literature and poetry—continue to push boundaries, challenge stereotypes, and pursue their own vision, away from traditional gatekeepers. The success of artists like Spike Lee, Barry Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, Jordan Peele, and Ryan Coogler can be traced directly to the pioneering work of Van Peebles, whose ambitious and innovative multidisciplinary artistry never yielded to anybody else’s vision but his own.

As a Black American who’d overcome poverty, discrimination, and other obstacles, Van Peebles refused to let White America take advantage of him and his talent. It’s made him a beacon for every Black auteur and independent filmmaker of the past 50 years. Sinners, Black Panther, Sorry to Bother You, Get Out, She's Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, Boyz n the Hood, Shaft, Superfly, Daughters of the Dust, Selma, the list goes on. It is impossible to imagine any of these culturally defining films existing, if not for the groundwork laid by Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. It is canon in Black film.

Beg Borrow Steal is the story of the legendary man who provided the blueprint for independent Black cinema, and a tribute to the power of radical Black creativity in American art and culture.

From 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.

A sweeping history of the African American struggle against police brutality, exposing how state violence underpins the capitalist economy and tracing the long resistance movement in pursuit of racial justice and freedom for all

Rekia Boyd, Timothy Thomas, Jonathan Sanders, Breonna Taylor, Jordan Neely, and Michael Brown were casualties of war. Whether we call it a war on crime, a war on militants, or a war on drugs, law enforcement at every level has made Black neighborhoods across the country into killing fields and open-air prisons, stripping vulnerable people of equal rights, freedom of movement, and even protection from torture. In a smoldering indictment, Robin D. G. Kelley excavates the deep history of this war through the lives of the victims and their communities, drawing a direct line from today’s fatalities to the “blood at the root”―the racial terror at the heart of America’s system of exploitation and wealth accumulation.

It is a system, Kelley shows, that depends on racial and economic inequality and is maintained through not only tools of force but also tools of wealth extraction, from lynch law in Georgia to segregated housing in St. Louis to gentrification, predatory lending, civil forfeiture, and even today’s militarization of ICE.

At the same time, Making a Killing is a history of the counterwar, the legacy of collective Black resistance―the movements, tactics, thinkers, and leaders―that has long been a catalyst for change and the tip of the spear in a broader fight against rising fascism. Demanding not only justice for Black victims but also vast and visionary social transformation, these movements, from Reconstruction to the present day, hold out the possibility that we may lay to rest the America we know so that a new world may be born.

From high fashion to everyday clothes, this book looks at the personal and political importance of Black style from the 1880s to the present.

Both during and after slavery in North America, “Sunday best” referred to clothes reserved for church or special occasions. Dressing in one’s Sunday best conveyed a sense of dignity and self-worth. Sunday best styling evolved after emancipation into the twentieth century, reflecting subsequent periods of Black cultural liberation, empowerment, and upward mobility. It is emblematic of the ways that self-fashioning in African-diasporic communities affirms humanity and communicates identity.

With examples from Canada, the Caribbean, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Sunday Best features archival and contemporary fashion alongside photography, painting, sculpture, and time-based media, looking at the significance of Black style. Essays by an interdisciplinary group of curators, designers, and scholars consider how communities throughout the African diaspora have used style as a reminder of one’s value, visibility, and agency, and the enduring influence of Sunday best dressing on artistic expression.

This richly illustrated volume is organized around the following themes:

• Origins, featuring fashion design by Christopher John Rogers and photography by James Van Der Zee
• Black church, with art by Coreen Simpson, Gordon Parks, and Laura Wheeler Waring
• Migration, through designers such as Foday Dumbuya
• Liberation, with fashion design by Spencer Badu and photography by Chantal Regnault
• Call and response, including fashion design by Patrick Kelly and photography by Melodie McDaniel

Published in association with the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Exhibition Schedule

Art Gallery of Ontario
(October 6, 2026–February 28, 2027)

Philadelphia Museum of Art
(May 1, 2027–August 8, 2027)

Now available in trade paper!

Love isn't about finding the right person—it's about becoming the right person.

No matter your relationships status—single, dating, engaged, married, or divorced—Student of Love invites you back into the classroom to learn what it truly takes to build healthy, loving and long-lasting relationships. From Laterras R. Whitfield, the host of the Dear Future Wifey Podcast and widely regarded as "The Relationship Whisperer," comes an essential guide—offering a God-centered perspective on healthy relationships—packed with refreshing wisdom and heartfelt lessons designed to equip you to make the right decisions in all your relationships.

In a world fixated on finding love, Student of Love shifts the focus to becoming love—offering raw, relatable lessons and hopeful perspectives that resonate with healing, growth, and self-discovery.

What makes this book a must-read?

Laterras steps into the classroom not as a professor, but as a fellow student—creating a space where vulnerability meets wisdom. Here's what's in the curriculum:

* A fresh approach to relationships: Learn from your mistakes and use them as steppingstones to build a more intentional and fulfilling love life.
* Recognize and define the types of Love: Gain the clarity, knowledge, and courage to seek the right connections.
* Guidance for every stage of love: Whether you're navigating the early days of dating, strengthening a marriage, or healing from heartbreak, or focusing on yourself, this book meets you where you are.
* Courageous conversations: Laterras tackles the tough topics with compassion and candor, offering profound insights that challenge and heal.
* Find the roadmap to self-awareness: Discover how to show up in your relationships with confidence, clarity, and authenticity.
* Hope after heartbreak: Heartache isn't the end of your story—it's a chance to rewrite it. Learn how to reassess, rediscover, and rebuild from a place of strength and self-love.

With brutal honesty and heartfelt authenticity, Student of Love explores the complexities of love in all its forms. It's not just a book—it's a guide to uncovering the love you deserve, starting with the love you give yourself.

Your love story isn't over. It's just beginning. So, grab your backpack, open your heart, and let Student of Love help you write the next chapter—one lesson at a time.

CORETTA SCOTT KING HONOR ARTIST, SEAN QUALLS

From Coretta Scott King Honor artist and illustrator of Questlove's The Idea in You, Sean Qualls comes a captivating introduction on how Black people have influenced music throughout history and what music means to Black culture.

The people sing; the people dance. The people have the music, and the music is the people.

Music has been embedded into the fabric of Black life since the first notes rang out and found their way into the souls of the first African inhabitants. From the melancholic blues to the funkifyingly upbeat disco, from earth-shattering rock ’n’ roll to groundbreaking jazz and hip-hop, music has been the bedrock of Black hope and culture. From its earliest arrival in the Americas, Black music has shaped American music and the world has never been the same because of it.

Coretta Scott King Honor illustrator Sean Qualls brings us the electrifying history of Black music and moves from one ground-breaking era to another, giving his own vibrant and hip spin on the rhythm and blues that will always have the power to comfort, guide, inspire, and remind us all.

The Music, The People will make for the most fun Black music history guide as it’s:

* A Picture Book That Makes History Fun: The fun, funky, and lively voice present in The Music, The People is unlike any other and delivers the history of music genres created, influenced, and loved by Black individuals in a way that is sure to readily engage and enlighten readers as they move through music history.
* Filled with Important Messages About Music: The Music, The People infuses its pages with important messages regarding music’s ability to uplift, transcend, break barriers, and lead revolutions. Music feeds the soul, and Qualls gratifyingly depicts that.
* Features Art Like No Other: Each page of The Music, The People features Qualls’ signature breathtaking art as he moves through each musical era, making for a reading experience that’s as gratifying as it is captivating.