Black by Popular Demand
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The Battle Drum
by Saara El-Arifi
Anoor is the first blue-blooded ruler of the Wardens' Empire. But when she is accused of a murder she didn't commit, her reign is thrown into turmoil. She must solve the mystery and clear her name without the support of her beloved, Sylah.
Sylah braves new lands to find a solution for the hurricane that threatens to destroy her home. But in finding answers, she must make a decision: Should she sacrifice her old life in order to raise up her sword once more?
Hassa's web of secrets grows ever thicker as she finds herself on the trail of crimes in the city. Her search uncovers the extent of the atrocities of the empire's past and present. Now she must guard both her heart and her land.
The three women find their answers, but not the answers they wanted. The drumbeat of change thrums throughout the world.
And it sings a song of war.
Ready we will be, when the Ending Fire comes,
When the Child of Fire brings the Battle Drum,
The Battle Drum,
The Battle Drum.
Ready we will be, for war will come.
Why Fathers Cry at Night
Kwame Alexander
In an intimate and non-traditional (or "new-fashioned") memoir, Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents: from being awkward newlyweds in the sticky Chicago summer of 1967, to the sometimes-confusing ways they showed their love to each other, and for him. He explores his own relationships--his difficulties as a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, and the precariousness of his early marriage working in a jazz club with his second wife. Alexander attempts to deal with the unravelling of his marriage and the grief of his mother's recent passing while sharing the solace he found in learning how to perfect her famous fried chicken dish. With an open heart, Alexander weaves together memories of his past to try and understand his greatest love: his daughters.
Full of heartfelt reminisces, family recipes, love poems, and personal letters, Why Fathers Cry at Night inspires bravery and vulnerability in every reader who has experienced the reckless passion, heartbreak, failure, and joy that define the whirlwind woes and wonders of love.
An Amerikan Family
Santi Elijah Holley
They have been celebrated, glorified, and mythologized. They have been hailed as heroes, liberators, and freedom fighters. They have been condemned, pursued, imprisoned, exiled, and killed. But the true and complete story of the Shakur family--one of the most famous names in contemporary Black American history--has never been told.
For over fifty years, the Shakurs have inspired generations of activists, scholars, and music fans. Many people are only familiar with Assata Shakur, the popular author and thinker, living for three decades in Cuban exile; or the late rapper Tupac. But the branches of the Shakur family tree extend widely, and the roots reach into the most furtive and hidden depths of the underground.
An Amerikan Family is a history of the fight for Black liberation in the United States, as experienced and shaped by the Shakur family. It is the story of hope and betrayal, addiction and murder, persecution and revolution. An Amerikan Family is not only family genealogy; it is the story of Black America's long struggle for racial justice and the nation's covert and repressive tactics to defeat that struggle. It is the story of a small but determined community, taking extreme, unconventional, and often perilous measures in the quest for freedom. In short, the story of the Shakurs is the story of America.
The God of Good Looks
Breanne Mc Ivor
Bianca Bridge has always dreamt of becoming a writer. But Trinidadian society can be unforgiving, and having an affair with a married government official is a sure-fire way to ruin your prospects. So when Obadiah Cortland, a notoriously tyrannical entrepreneur in the island's beauty scene, offers her a job, Bianca accepts, realizing that working on his magazine is the closest to her dreams she'll get.
As Bianca begins to embrace her power and creative voice, she starts to suspect Obadiah is not the elite tyrant he seems. She's right. Born in one of the poorest parts of Trinidad, Obadiah has clawed partway up society's ladder and built his company around his meticulously crafted persona. Now, he's not about to let anyone, especially Bianca, see past his façade.
When Bianca's ex-lover threatens everything she's rebuilt, jeopardizing all she's come to love about her new life, she's surprised to find support from the most unlikely ally and, finally, draws the strength to fight back like her mother taught her.
Sharp-witted and fiercely fun, The God of Good Looks alternates between Bianca's diary entries and Obadiah's first-person narrative to portray modern Trinidad's rigid class barriers and the fraught impact of beauty commodification in a patriarchal society. Boisterous, moving, and full of meaty, universally relatable questions, Mc Ivor's sparkling debut is an open-hearted, awakening tale about prejudice and pride, the masks we wear, and what we can become if we dare to take them off.
Dances: A Novel
Nicole Cuffy
At twenty-two years old, Cece Cordell reaches the pinnacle of her career as a ballet dancer when she's promoted to principal at the New York City Ballet. She's instantly catapulted into celebrity, heralded for her "inspirational" role as the first Black ballerina in the famed company's history. Even as she celebrates the achievement of a lifelong dream, Cece remains haunted by the feeling that she doesn't belong. As she waits for some feeling of rightness that doesn't arrive, she begins to unravel the loose threads of her past--an absent father, a pragmatic mother who dismisses Cece's ambitions, and a missing older brother who stoked her childhood love of ballet but disappeared to deal with his own demons.
Soon after her promotion, Cece is faced with a choice that has the potential to derail her career and shatter the life she's cultivated for herself, sending her on a pilgrimage to both find her brother and reclaim the parts of herself lost in the grinding machinery of the traditional ballet world.
Written with spellbinding beauty and ballet's precise structure, Dances centers around women, art, and power, and how we come to define freedom for ourselves.
Crowned: Magical Folk and Fairy Tales from the Diaspora
Kahran Bethencourt & others
Includes a foreword by Salamishah Tillet
CROWNED by Kahran and Regis Bethencourt is a book designed to foster and encourage imagination, equipping young kings and queens with the creativity and ability to overcome any obstacles in their way.
Filled with stunning photography, these magical tales of the diaspora bring to life past, present, and future visions of Black culture to create a society where all kids are created equal and feel empowered to move in the world as their true authentic self.
Included in the collection:
The Poisoned Apple
Asha the Little Cinder Girl
The Little Mermaid
Sleeping Beauty
Hansel and Gretel
Little Red Riding Hood
Anasi and the Three Trials
Aku The Sun Maker
How the Zebra Got His Stripes
The Legend of Princess Yennenga
John Henry, the Steel Driving Man
The Cloud Princess
The Late Americans
Brandon Taylor
The Booker Prize finalist and widely acclaimed author of Real Life and Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads
In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who "didn't seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection." These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives--a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.
A novel of friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans asks fresh questions about love and sex, ambition and precarity, and about how human beings can bruise one another while trying to find themselves. It is Brandon Taylor's richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life.
