Нэнси Роулз0.0 To help her granddaughter accept the risks of loving, Sadie Watson mines her memory for the tale of the unquenchable love of her life, Jim. Sadie’s Jim was an ambitious young slave and seer who, when faced with the prospect of being sold, escaped down the Mississippi with a white boy named Huck Finn. Sadie is suddenly left alone, worried about her children, reviled as a witch, punished for Jim’s escape, and convinced her husband is dead. But Sadie’s will and her love for Jim animate her life and see her through.
Told with spare eloquence and mirroring the true stories of countless slave women, My Jim recreates one of the most controversial characters in American literature. A nuanced critique of the great American novel, My Jim is a haunting and inspiring story about freedom, longing, and the remarkable endurance of love.
Look for the Reader’s Group Guide at the back of this book.
Дэвид Энтони Дарем2.5 In ancient Rome, parents used to silence misbehaving children with the utterance 'Hannibal ad portas' (Hannibal is at the door). Such was the fear and awe that Hannibal Barca instilled...
Told in arcing, epic technicolour, this is the story of one of the ancient world's most remarkable figures and the long, bloody conflict between the two 'superpowers' of the times - the Second Punic War (218-202BC) - that hinged on the genius, the ambition and the personal tragedies of Hannibal Barca of Carthage, whose military prowess became the stuff of legend, and Publius Scipio of Rome. History, of course, tells us the outcome: that Rome would be the victor, surviving to become a colossal imperial power, while Carthage would be all but erased from history. It was, however, a close run thing. And the world might have been a very different place had Hannibal succeeded in thwarting the might of Rome.
Pride of Carthage is a sweeping, thrilling story of ancient warfare, of armies traversing frozen snow-covered mountains, of battles won or lost by brilliant generals fighting in ingenious, cunning ways. And it's a story teeming with superbly drawn, memorable characters and players, historical and imagined - from Numidian horsemen and the Roman legions to the slaves and freemen from all corners of the ancient Mediterranean world...
Tayari Jones0.0 Aria Jackson lived through the car crash that killed her father and baby sister when she was nine. At 25 she begins to unearth secrets about family, friends, her past, and her altered reality in this journey through truth and forgiveness.
Кэрил Филиппс0.0 In this searing novel, Caryl Phillips reimagines the life of the first black entertainer in the U.S. to reach the highest levels of fame and fortune. After years of struggling for success on the stage, Bert Williams (1874—1922), the child of recent immigrants from the Bahamas, made the radical decision to don blackface makeup and play the “coon.” Behind this mask he became a Broadway headliner – as influential a comedian as Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and W. C. Fields, who called him “the funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest man I ever knew.” It is this dichotomy at Williams’ core that Phillips explores in this richly nuanced, brilliantly written novel, unblinking in its attention to the sinister compromises that make up an identity.
Tananarive Due0.0 The life of Phoenix Smalls spins horrifically out of control as a long-dead music legend chooses her to continue his legacy, in this historical novel—part love story, part ghost story—from acclaimed horror novelist Tananarive Due.
When Phoenix Smalls was ten, she nearly died at her parents' jazz club when she was crushed by a turn-of-the-century piano. Now twenty-four, Phoenix is launching a career as an R&B singer. She's living out her dreams and seems destined for fame and fortune. But a chance visit to a historical site in St. Louis ignites a series of bizarre, erotic encounters with a spirit who may be the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin.
The sound of Scott Joplin is strange enough to the ears of the hip-hop generation. But the idea that these antique sounds are being channeled through Phoenix? Her life is suddenly hanging in the balance. How will she find her true voice and calling? Can the power of her own inner song give Phoenix the strength to fight to live out her own future? Or will she be forever trapped in Scott Joplin's doomed, tragic past? Stunningly original, Joplin's Ghost is a novel filled with art and intrigue—and is sure to bring music to readers' ears.
Марта Саутгейт0.0 Book DescriptionThe New York Times hailed Martha Southgate"s previous novel, The Fall of Rome, as "powerful," O, the Oprah Magazine called it "quietly accomplished," and Essence lauded it as "a bracingly honest look at race, class, and
Дениз Николас0.0 When University of Michigan sophomore Celeste Tyree travels to Mississippi to volunteer her efforts in Freedom Summer, she's assigned to help register voters in the small town of Pineyville, a place best known for a notorious lynching that occurred
Дорин Байнгана0.0 In her fiction debut, Doreen Baingana follows a Ugandan girl as she navigates the uncertain terrain of adolescence. Set mostly in pastoral Entebbe with stops in the cities Kampala and Los Angeles, Tropical Fish depicts the reality of life for
Калиша Букханон0.0 "Baby, the first thing I need to know from you is do you believe I killed my father?"
So begins Upstate, a powerful story told through letters between seventeen-year-old Antonio and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Natasha, set in the 1990's in New York. Antonio and Natasha's world is turned upside down, and their young love is put to the test, when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of a shocking crime. Antonio fights to stay alive on the inside, while on the outside, Natasha faces choices that will change her life. Over the course of a decade, they share a desperate correspondence. Often, they have only each other to turn to as life takes them down separate paths and leaves them wondering if they will ever find their way back together.
Startling, real, and filled with raw emotion, Upstate is an unforgettable coming-of-age story with a message of undeniable hope. Brilliant and profoundly felt, it is destined to speak to a new generation of readers.
Клайд Форд0.0 Framed and found guilty of a murder he didn't commit, NYPD officer John Shannon served two years in a federal penitentiary. When his conviction is overturned on appeal, Shannon walks out of prison to a life in shambles. His wife is contemplating divorce. The Feds are champing at the bit to throw him back in prison. His fellow police officers think he's a cop killer. Drug lords, street gangs, and the Mob all want a piece of him. And now his thirteen-year-old son has gone missing.
Shannon embarks on a dangerous quest to find his son and uncover the truth behind the bungled drug raid that cost him his career, his family, and his freedom. He's forced to flee from a police department he can no longer trust and to make a Faustian alliance with a shrewd Homeland Security operative who's got his own score to settle. On the run, but determined to see his family safe, Shannon's only allies are an idealistic young attorney, his estranged wife, a loyal cop, his own cunning and luck, and the strange yet powerful wisdom given to him by a lifer named Promise. John Shannon is in a race with time to redeem his reputation, reclaim his life, and save his son without losing his soul.
David E. Talbert0.0 What happens when love and litigation collide? One thing's for sure -- hell hath no fury like an attorney scorned!
Morgan Chase, a thirty-four-year-old contracts lawyer, is pushed to her romantic wit's end when she discovers that her boyfriend of nine months, investment banker Marcus Alexander, has been diversifying his "portfolio" with another woman. After a few hours of venting with her girlfriends, and more than a few drinks, Morgan decides that the only way you can guarantee that a man will act right after you've been intimate is if you make him sign a contract before you've been intimate.
Sparks fly, tempers flare, and emotions hit the fan when the man Morgan finally convinces to sign her contract is caught red-handed with another woman. What follows is an ingeniously plotted and thoroughly entertaining fusion of comedy, romance, and courtroom mayhem...
Benilde Little0.0 From the beloved, bestselling author of "Good Hair" and "The Itch" comes a richly evocative multigenerational story of three powerful women.Aisha Branch is getting married, and if she has her way, the wedding will be the event of the millennium. At twenty-six she is still the "baby girl," the indulged only child of Camille and the only grandchild of Geneva. As the wedding draws closer, the Branch family is turned upside-down -- a $7,000 designer wedding dress? A fiance who's a "white boy"? But that turmoil is nothing compared to what happens when Aisha falls hard for another man.
All the excitement stirs up old feelings in the Branch women, and they reflect separately on their own lives and relationships, and the things they wish had turned out differently. Geneva, a seventy-year-old powerhouse who always strove for "Negro respectability," has never approved of Camille's decisions -- single motherhood, a career in social work, dreadlocks. Aisha, the light of Camille and Geneva's lives, is a bright, beautiful, impulsive woman who is used to getting what she wants, even if she has to fight for it. Her real father's absence still looms large in her imagination, but her stepfather, who came into her life early on, has always treated her like a princess. Now Aisha has to choose between marrying her staggeringly wealthy fiance and pursuing an elusive older man. For her part, Camille grapples with watching her adored daughter live the kind of life she didn't dare to dream of, and is just a little bit resentful of Aisha's ignorance of how hard Camille worked to make it possible. As the drama of Aisha's love life unfolds, the three women take turns narrating their own stories inLittle's most expansive novel yet.
Stylish and smart, "Who Does She Think She Is?" tackles difficult questions about close family ties -- relationships characterized by abiding love but often fraught with regret and resentment. With her signature dry wit, quietly resonant insight and sharp yet compassionate eye, Little deftly explores one family's expectations and anxieties against the frenzied backdrop of wedding planning. The result is a wise, funny and beautiful book about three generations of irrepressible women.
Джон Хоуп Франклин0.0 John Hope Franklin lived through America's most defining twentieth-century transformation, the dismantling of legally protected racial segregation. A renowned scholar, he has explored that transformation in its myriad aspects, notably in his 3.5-million-copy bestseller, From Slavery to Freedom. Born in 1915, he, like every other African American, could not help but participate: he was evicted from whites-only train cars, confined to segregated schools, threatened—once with lynching—and consistently subjected to racism's denigration of his humanity. Yet he managed to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard; become the first black historian to assume a full professorship at a white institution, Brooklyn College; and be appointed chair of the University of Chicago's history department and, later, John B. Duke Professor at Duke University. He has reshaped the way African American history is understood and taught and become one of the world's most celebrated historians, garnering over 130 honorary degrees. But Franklin's participation was much more fundamental than that.
From his effort in 1934 to hand President Franklin Roosevelt a petition calling for action in response to the Cordie Cheek lynching, to his 1997 appointment by President Clinton to head the President's Initiative on Race, and continuing to the present, Franklin has influenced with determination and dignity the nation's racial conscience. Whether aiding Thurgood Marshall's preparation for arguing Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, marching to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, or testifying against Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, Franklin has pushed the national conversation on race toward humanity and equality, a life long effort that earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1995. Intimate, at times revelatory, Mirror to America chronicles Franklin's life and this nation's racial transformation in the twentieth century, and is a powerful reminder of the extent to which the problem of America remains the problem of color.
Donald Bogle0.0 In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle tells–for the first time–the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them.
Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that Black Hollywood was a place distinct from the studio-system-dominated Tinseltown–a world unto itself, with unique rules and social hierarchy. It had its own talent scouts and media, its own watering holes, elegant hotels, and fashionable nightspots, and of course its own glamorous and brilliant personalities.
Along with famous actors including Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Hattie McDaniel (whose home was among Hollywood’s most exquisite), and, later, the stunningly beautiful Lena Horne and the fabulously gifted Sammy Davis, Jr., we meet the likes of heartthrob James Edwards, whose promising career was derailed by whispers of an affair with Lana Turner, and the mysterious Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who shared a close lifelong friendship with pioneering director D. W. Griffith. But Bogle also looks at other members of the black community–from the white stars’ black servants, who had their own money and prestige, to gossip columnists, hairstylists, and architects–and at the world that grew up around them along Central Avenue, the Harlem of the West.
In the tradition of Hortense Powdermaker’s classic Hollywood: The Dream Factory and Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own, in Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, Donald Bogle re-creates a vanished world that left an indelible mark on Hollywood–and on all of America.
Лиза Фаррингтон0.0 Creating Their Own Image marks the first comprehensive history of African-American women artists, from slavery to the present day. Using an analysis of stereotypes of Africans and African-Americans in western art and culture as a springboard, Lisa
Mary Frances Berry0.0 “My face is black is true but its not my fault but I love my name and my honest dealing with my fellow man.” –Callie House (1899)
In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed historian Dr. Mary Frances Berry resurrects the remarkable story of ex-slave Callie House (1861-1928) who, seventy years before the civil-rights movement, headed a demand for ex-slave reparations. A widowed Nashville washerwoman and mother of five, House went on to fight for African American pensions based on those offered to Union soldiers, brilliantly targeting $68 million in taxes on seized rebel cotton and demanding it as repayment for centuries of unpaid labor. Here is the fascinating story of a forgotten civil rights crusader: a woman who emerges as a courageous pioneering activist, a forerunner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Дуайт А. Макбрайд0.0 Why hate Abercrombie? In a world rife with human cruelty and oppression, why waste your scorn on a popular clothing retailer? The rationale, Dwight A. McBride argues, lies in "the banality of evil," or the quiet way discriminatory hiring practices and racist ad campaigns seep into and reflect malevolent undertones in American culture.
McBride maintains that issues of race and sexuality are often subtle and always messy, and his compelling new book does not offer simple answers. Instead, in a collection of essays about such diverse topics as biased marketing strategies, black gay media representations, the role of African American studies in higher education, gay personal ads, and pornography, he offers the evolving insights of one black gay male scholar.
As adept at analyzing affirmative action as dissecting Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, McBride employs a range of academic, journalistic, and autobiographical writing styles. Each chapter speaks a version of the truth about black gay male life, African American studies, and the black community. Original and astute, Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch is a powerful vision of a rapidly changing social landscape.
Cheryl A. Wall0.0 For blues musicians, worrying the line is the technique of breaking up a phrase by changing pitch, adding a shout, or repeating words in order to emphasize, clarify, or subvert a moment in a song. Cheryl A. Wall applies this term to fiction and nonfiction writing by African American women in the twentieth century, demonstrating how these writers bring about similar changes in African American and American literary traditions.
Examining the works of Lucille Clifton, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, and Alice Walker, Wall highlights ways in which these authors construct family genealogies, filling in the gaps with dreams, rituals, music, or images that forge a connection to family lost through slavery. For the black woman author, Wall contends, this method of revising and extending canonical forms provides the opportunity to comment on the literary past while also calling attention to the lingering historical effects of slavery. For the reader, Wall shows, the images and words combine to create a new kind of text that extends meanings of the line, both as lineage and as literary tradition.
