From New York Times bestselling author Ryan Douglass comes a gripping and tender reimagining of The Great Gatsby about the pursuit of happiness—and love—in a society built on cruelty and secrets. 

Seventeen-year-old Nick Carrington wants nothing more than to leave Greenwood, Oklahoma, behind and make a name for himself in the papers. But when tragedy strikes, dreams turn into a twisted reality. Forced to start anew in Harlem, only a letter of acceptance from the prestigious West Egg Academy is able to pull him back into the world.

But the supposedly integrated private boys’ school is more of a catchy headline than a fact, with the same prejudices Nick left behind back home. And his secret but growing feelings for the founder’s wickedly charismatic son, Jay Gatsby Jr.— who dances past society’s conventions with practiced ease—only add more complications.

When Nick’s cutting pen exposes dangerous truths about West Egg and leads to perilous consequences, he and Jay must decide whether to spend a lifetime outrunning trouble or be the ones to light the match. Can they not only fight back but triumph? Or will the powers that be win yet again?

For the first printing only! This hardcover features sprayed stenciled edges while the special edition supply lasts.

Teen influencers compete in a horror movie–themed overnight competition, only to realize the real test is staying alive in this chilling, blood-soaked horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Taking of Jake Livingston and the production company behind Clown in a Cornfield.

Mara is a horror buff whose only fond memories of her dad are bonding over movies by Jack Stanley—the producer of the eighties. Stanley’s campy slasher movies may have kept Mara’s fraught parental relationship on life support and gained a cult following, but the man himself has faded from the public eye…until he announces a contest centered around Asylum, his most terrifying film. Five teen influencers will be invited to spend the night on the fully constructed set; whoever sticks it out until morning wins a hundred thousand dollars.

Stuck in a dead-end job, Mara seriously needs that cash. She may not be a famous influencer, but there has to be a way to manufacture an online presence that will capture Stanley’s attention. With the help of her brother and best friend, Mara finds some creative solutions to her dilemma and lands herself onto the roster of the lucky chosen few by way of her engaging authenticity.

When Mara and the other contestants arrive on set, it’s a horror fan’s dream being immersed in the asylum setting, but as the night wears on, they realize the danger is more than movie magic… They’re not there to win or lose but to live or die. As Mara fights to survive, she discovers an inner ruthlessness she didn’t know she had. Just how far will she go to see the sunrise—and will she still recognize herself by the end?

An updated edition of a classic African American autobiography, with new supplementary materials

A Penguin Vitae Edition

The preeminent American slave narrative first published in 1845, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838, how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and driver, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die. In addition to Douglass’s classic autobiography, this new edition also includes his most famous speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” and his only known work of fiction, The Heroic Slave, which was written, in part, as a response to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Penguin Classics presents Penguin Vitae, loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life,” a deluxe hardcover series featuring a dynamic landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction that has shaped the course of our readers' lives. Penguin Vitae invites readers to find themselves in a diverse world of storytellers, with beautifully designed classic editions of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

A new collection of the seminal writings and speeches of a legendary writer, orator, and civil rights leader
 
This compact volume offers a full course on the remarkable, diverse career of Frederick Douglass, letting us hear once more a necessary historical figure whose guiding voice is needed now as urgently as ever. Edited by renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Pulitzer Prize–nominated historian John Stauffer, The Portable Frederick Douglass includes the full range of Douglass’s works: the complete Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, as well as extracts from My Bondage and My Freedom and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass; The Heroic Slave, one of the first works of African American fiction; the brilliant speeches that launched his political career and that constitute the greatest oratory of the Civil War era; and his journalism, which ranges from cultural and political critique (including his early support for women’s equality) to law, history, philosophy, literature, art, and international affairs, including a never-before-published essay on Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture.
 
The Portable Frederick Douglass is the latest addition in a series of African American classics curated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. First published in 2008, the series reflects a selection of great works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by African and African American authors introduced and annotated by leading scholars and acclaimed writers in new or updated editions for Penguin Classics. In his series essay, “What Is an African American Classic?” Gates provides a broader view of the canon of classics of African American literature available from Penguin Classics and beyond. Gates writes, “These texts reveal the human universal through the African American particular: all true art, all classics do this; this is what ‘art’ is, a revelation of that which makes each of us sublimely human, rendered in the minute details of the actions and thoughts and feelings of a compelling character embedded in a time and place.”
 
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents 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.

Douglass’s letters from the 1880s reveal both his unrelenting efforts to protect African American rights and little-known details about his personal life
 
The fourth volume of the Correspondence Series presents Frederick Douglass as a still-influential public figure but also as a man aware that the gains African Americans made during the Civil War and Reconstruction were not as well secured as he had hoped.
 
For this volume, the editors selected 247 of the 914 known letters sent to or from Douglass between 1881 and 1888. An active partisan, Douglass corresponded regularly with Republican party leaders from the local to national level about campaign tactics and strategies. Douglass also often received letters from African Americans who detailed the deteriorating state of race relations across the South in the 1880s. Douglass used his correspondence to advance the political stature of Republicans he regarded as most sympathetic to protecting African American rights.
 
Douglass wrote about his taste in reading; his fondness for carriage riding; his feuds with family members and neighbors; his first wife, Anna Murray; and his remarriage, to Helen Pitts, and the controversy that the interracial marriage generated. Douglass’s correspondence details the seven-month honeymoon the couple took in Europe and Egypt, the reunion with old abolitionist friends in Great Britain, and candid appraisals of places he visited and people he met overseas.

Use discount code: SALE to receive 30% off. 

Night of the Living Queers is a YA horror anthology that explores a night when anything is possible exclusively featuring queer authors of color putting fresh spins on classic horror tropes and tales.

No matter its name or occasion, Halloween is more than a Hallmark holiday, it’s a symbol of transformation. NIGHT OF THE LIVING QUEERS is a YA horror anthology that explores how Halloween can be more than just candies and frights, but a night where anything is possible. Each short story will be told through the lens of a different BIPOC teen and the Halloween night that changes their lives forever. Creative, creepy, and queer, this collection will bring fresh terror, heart, and humor to young adult literature.

Contributors include editors Alex Brown and Shelly Page, Kalynn Bayron, Ryan Douglass, Sara Farizan, Maya Gittelman, Kosoko Jackson, Em Liu, Vanessa Montalban, Ayida Shonibar, Tara Sim, Trang Thanh Tran, and Rebecca Kim Wells.

Celebrate the release of Love Cake with author, Douglas Bell!

EVENT DEETS

When: Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 2 PM

Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat. RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Love Cake is contemporary fiction about Bryan Hicks and his transgender girlfriend, Nadia Brooks. Together they own and operate a bakery in conservative Texas. At its red velvet core, Love Cake is a story about how love persists in the face of prejudice and about the value of found family. It speaks to the power of loving people despite the mistakes they make.

With thought-provoking insight, Douglas Bell in Love Cake, the second book of The Cakes Series duology and the sequel to Cake Walk, rings a bell again on an untold story that teaches how we can find the courage to show up for each other as the world tries to tear us apart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Douglas Bell is a fiction writer based in the bustling city of Houston, Texas. He draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including the teachings of Buddha and the Dalai Lama, as well as the powerful storytelling of James Baldwin. When he's not writing, you can usually find him hitting the gym, experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen, or staying up to date with the latest fashion trends. 

My Bondage and My Freedom is the second of three published autobiographies from one of the most brilliant and eloquent abolitionists and human rights activists in American history. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was published ten years before in 1845, while The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was published twenty-five years later.

One of the most memorable speeches in American history, Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? is now available in an elegant hardcover edition.

Douglass first delivered the famous speech on July 5, 1852, to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. After paying respect to the patriotic architects of America’s independence, Douglass exposed the hypocrisy of a nation that enshrined the inalienable rights of man yet enslaved millions. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was meaningless to slaves, Douglass argued, and the annual celebration of a freedom not afforded to them was the worst possible insult.

Throughout the speech, Douglass directly quoted passages from the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bible to support his argument that slavery must be abolished in the United States. Douglass was especially critical of the faith leaders in America that used the church to justify slavery rather than to spearhead positive societal change.

Despite Douglass’s condemnation of the institutions that protected slavery, the speech also emphasized America’s young age and her potential to change for the better. In keeping with this belief in an America that would one day guarantee freedom for all, Douglass delivered “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” to audiences nationwide in the decade preceding the Civil War.

Famous figures such as James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Douglass’s descendants have performed small sections of the hour-long speech. Abridged editions of the speech are also disseminated for educational purposes. Because “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” is an incredibly nuanced speech, it is often misrepresented or shared out of context. Now you can read the speech as it was meant to be experienced, in its entirety.

Frederick Douglass’s most famous speech is as relevant today as when it was first delivered in 1852. A defining document of the United States, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? is essential reading for all Americans.

In this “masterful, inspiring evocation of an era” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), ALSC Children’s Literature Legacy Award–winning author Carole Boston Weatherford “wields the power of poetry to tell [the] gripping historical story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) of the Tuskegee Airmen.

I WANT YOU! says the poster of Uncle Sam. But if you’re a young black man in 1940, he doesn’t want you in the cockpit of a war plane. Yet you are determined not to let that stop your dream of flying.

So when you hear of a civilian pilot training program at Tuskegee Institute, you leap at the chance. Soon you are learning engineering and mechanics, how to communicate in code, how to read a map. At last the day you’ve longed for is here: you are flying!

From training days in Alabama to combat on the front lines in Europe, this is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the groundbreaking African-American pilots of World War II. In vibrant second-person poems, Carole Boston Weatherford teams up for the first time with her son, artist Jeffery Weatherford, in a powerful and inspiring book that allows readers to fly, too.

A little Black boy finds the courage to go after his dreams in this empowering and inspirational picture book by actress Kirby Howell-Baptiste (The Sandman) with actor Larry Fields.

With vivid, dimensional illustrations by Paul Davey, this encouraging and hopeful picture book celebrates the joy of being a little Black boy and their bright futures.

Fascinated by marine wildlife, a little Black boy dreams of one day swimming in the ocean alongside all the creatures that make it their home. It will take courage to move from the safety of the swimming pool to the vastness of the ocean, but as he begins his journey of discovery, he soon finds there’s nothing he can’t do. He realizes if he cares about the animals in the ocean, he must also care about their home and sets out to preserve the beaches he loves by picking up trash. This little boy is determined not only to reach his dream of becoming a marine biologist, but to make a difference in the world and to share his passion of environmental conservation with everyone.

Little Black Boy, Oh the things you will do.
Has anyone mentioned the world’s open to you?

“Provocative and engaging ... indispensable for those seeking to understand the malignancy and toxicity of US imperialism” Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776

“Skillfully details how radicalism and Black freedom struggles have been betrayed and diminished. This insightful book offers a clarity that is desperately needed in these times” Joy James, editor of Confronting Counterinsurgency

“Tells the story of a Black radical archive as it dismantles the perpetual counterinsurgency of US nation-building” Dylan Rodríguez, author of Counterinsurgency Machine

Since the founding of the United States, the white power structure has engaged in an unceasing effort to disorganize and sedate its Black population through incremental concessions and symbolic gestures.

Joshua Briond shows how these “colonial lullabies” have shaped the course of American history. Recontextualizing major historical events—from the Civil War through to the civil rights movement, the expansion of the carceral state and even the Obama presidency—he argues that each period produced distinct types of reform, all deployed to neutralize Black struggles and sustain white hegemony.

Taming the Revolution builds a schematic genealogy of the white power structures and their shapeshifting capacities. By addressing the political and cultural technologies of present-day neoliberal reformism—an ever-evolving toolkit of pacification, domestication and cooptation—Briond demystifies different forms of state and extra-state adaptation to the insurgencies of oppressed peoples.

Joshua Briond is a writer, and the co-founder and co-host of the podcast Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. He is a PhD student based between New York, Charlotte, and Chicago.