The Innocents
A Novel
Written by Tatamkhulu Afrika

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: May 2, 2006
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-722-0 (1-58322-722-9)

Inspired by the author’s years as an activist in Apartheid-era Cape Town, The Innocents is a gripping account of how, in the myriad political battles of our recent past, an even greater number of private wars were lost or won.

Yusuf and three of his friends attempt to prove themselves worthy of... Read more >

African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Beyond the Silence and the Shame
Written by Anne Bailey

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: January 1, 2006
Price: $23.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5513-7 (0-8070-5513-1)

“It’s an awful story. It’s an awful story. Why do you want to bring this up now?”--Chief Awusa of Atorkor

For centuries, the story of the Atlantic slave trade has been filtered through the eyes and records of white Europeans. In this watershed book, historian Anne C. Bailey focuses on memories of... Read more >

Unconfessed

Written by Yvette Christianse

Format: Trade Paperback, 360 pages
Publisher: Other Press
On Sale: September 17, 2007
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-59051-281-4 (1-59051-281-2)

Pen/Hemingway Award Finalist

Slavery as it existed in Africa has seldom been portrayed–and never with such texture, detail, and authentic emotion. Inspired by actual 19th-century court records, Unconfessed is a breathtaking literary tour de force. They called her Sila van den Kaap, slave woman of Jacobus Stephanus Van der Wat of Plettenberg... Read more >

The Power of One
A Novel
Written by Bryce Courtenay

Format: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: September 29, 1996
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-41005-4 (0-345-41005-X)

In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams–which are nothing compared to what life... Read more >

A Twist of Faith
An American Christian's Quest to Help Orphans in Africa
Written by John Donnelly

Format: Hardcover, 200 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: July 10, 2012
Price: $25.95
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0132-5 (0-8070-0132-5)

American Christians, veteran reporter John Donnelly has discovered, are an ever-increasing source of aid in Africa, with some experts estimating that U.S. churches supply more resources to Africa than USAID. In A Twist of Faith, he tells the unlikely story of how faith and determination compelled one such American Christian to... Read more >

Hope for Africa
Voices from Around the World
Edited by June Eding

Format: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Hatherleigh Press
On Sale: June 28, 2011
Price: $12.00
ISBN: 978-1-57826-308-0 (1-57826-308-5)

Organizations involved in the myriad causes related to Africa were asked a seemingly simple question: “Why save Africa?” The result is a collection of compelling perspectives from around the world.

Why Save Africa? is made up of short essays from large, internationally recognized non-profits; small grassroots charities; and everything in between... Read more >

The Battle of Mogadishu
Firsthand Accounts from the Men of Task Force Ranger
Edited by Matt Eversmann and Dan Schilling

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Presidio Press
On Sale: July 26, 2005
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-45966-4 (0-345-45966-0)

It started as a mission to capture a Somali warlord. It turned into a disastrous urban firefight and death-defying rescue operation that shocked the world and rattled a great nation. Now the 1993 battle for Mogadishu, Somalia–the incident that was the basis of the book and film Black Hawk Down–is remembered... Read more >

Running with the Kenyans
Discovering the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth
Written by Adharanand Finn

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: April 9, 2013
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-52880-3 (0-345-52880-8)

Whether running is your recreation or your religion, Adharanand Finn’s incredible journey to the elite training camps of Kenya will captivate and inspire you, as he ventures to uncover the secrets of the fastest people on earth. Finn’s mesmerizing quest combines a fresh look at barefoot running, practical advice on the... Read more >

Running with the Kenyans
Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth
Written by Adharanand Finn

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: May 15, 2012
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-52879-7 (0-345-52879-4)

“A dusty road stretches into the distance like a pencil line across the arid landscape. Lions, rhino, and buffalo roam the plains on either side. But I haven’t come to Kenya to spot wildlife. I’ve come to run.”

Whether running is your recreation, your religion, or just a spectator sport, Adharanand Finn’s... Read more >

The Obamas
The Untold Story of an African Family
Written by Peter Firstbrook

Format: Trade Paperback, 360 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: February 8, 2011
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-59141-8 (0-307-59141-7)

"Fascinating...adds many interesting details to what we know of the President’s heritage."
--David Remnick, TheNewYorker.com

On January 20, 2009, a few hundred men, women, and children gathered under trees in the twilight at K’obama, a village on the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya. Barack Obama’s rise to the American presidency had... Read more >

The Hero with an African Face
Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa
Written by Clyde W. Ford

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Bantam
On Sale: January 4, 2000
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-553-37868-9 (0-553-37868-6)

Drawing on extensive research and his own wide travels in Africa, Clyde Ford vividly retells ancient African myths and brings to light their universal meanings. From great creation myths to tales revealing the intimacy of humans and animal spirits, Ford shows numerous parallels between African spiritual symbols and those of other... Read more >

Wonders of the African World

Written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: January 16, 2001
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-70948-7 (0-375-70948-7)

The Companion Volume to the PBS Television Series

Wonders of the African World is an exuberant, visually stunning journey across Africa and through the history of its glorious but forgotten civilizations.

Traveling by camel, by dhow, by Land Cruiser, and on foot, the renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., takes us to twelve... Read more >

The Shackled Continent
Power, Corruption, and African Lives
Written by Robert Guest

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: September 14, 2010
Price: $21.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-297-3 (1-58834-297-2)

Why is Africa so poor? Why are so many of its nations at war? Why is AIDS devastating Africa like nowhere else? And why do African entrepreneurs find it so hard to borrow money? In this provocative and thoughtful book, Robert Guest argues that the continent remains poor primarily because it... Read more >

Life Laid Bare
The Survivors in Rwanda Speak
Written by Jean Hatzfeld
Translated by Linda Coverdale

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Other Press
On Sale: October 15, 2007
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-59051-273-9 (1-59051-273-1)

"To make the effort to understand what happened in Rwanda is a painful task that we have no right to shirk–it is part of being a moral adult."
–Susan Sontag

In the late 1990s, French author and journalist Jean Hatzfeld made several journeys into the hilly, marshy region of the Bugesera, one of... Read more >

Somalis in Maine
Crossing Cultural Currents
Afterword by Ahmed I. Samatar
Edited by Kimberly A. Huisman, Mazie Hough, Kristin M. Langellier and Carol Nordstrom Toner

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
On Sale: June 7, 2011
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-1-55643-926-1 (1-55643-926-1)

Lewiston, a mill town of about thirty-six thousand people, is the second-largest city in Maine. It is also home to some three thousand Somali refugees. After initially being resettled in larger cities elsewhere, Somalis began to arrive in Lewiston by the dozens, then the hundreds, after hearing stories of Maine’s attractions... Read more >

Malick Sidibe

Written by Laura Serani and Sabrina Zannier
Edited by Laura Incardona

Format: Trade Paperback, 140 pages
Publisher: Skira
On Sale: March 27, 2012
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-88-572-1125-1 (88-572-1125-8)

Born in 1936 at Soloba, in the Yanfolila Cercle, Mali, Malik Sidibé is now an internationally recognized artist and is considered the greatest African photographer.

In1962, just after Mali proclaimed its independence, Sidibé opened his studio in Bamako, devoting himself to reportage and documentary photography. His famous black-and-white images portray youth... Read more >

The Night Wanderers
Uganda's Children and the Lord's Resistance Army
Written by Wojciech Jagielski
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: February 21, 2012
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-60980-350-6 (1-60980-350-7)

On an average night in northern Uganda, tens of thousands of children head for the city centers to avoid capture by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). They find refuge on the floors of aid agencies or in the streets. In recent years, the civil society was almost completely destroyed by the... Read more >

Do They Hear You When You Cry

Written by Fauziya Kassindja

Format: Trade Paperback, 544 pages
Publisher: Delta
On Sale: January 12, 1999
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-31994-2 (0-385-31994-0)

In 1994, Fauziya Kassindja, an extraordinary teenager from a wealthy, prominent family in Kpalime, Africa, fled from her home to escape tribal ritual female genital mutilation. She sought political asylum in the United States, but was instead incarcerated for 16 months in various Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facilities. Housed in... Read more >

Strength in What Remains

Written by Tracy Kidder

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: May 4, 2010
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7761-5 (0-8129-7761-0)

Selected for Common Reading at:
Alvernia University
Arcadia University
Caldwell College
Claremont McKenna College
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Penn State Berks
Stanford University
Trinity College
University of Delaware
Western Michigan University

All Iowa Reads 2012
Reading Together 2011, Kalamazoo Public Library

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award


In Strength in What Remains, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder gives us the story... Read more >

Strength in What Remains

Written by Tracy Kidder

Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: August 25, 2009
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6621-6 (1-4000-6621-2)

Selected for Common Reading at the University of Delaware, 2010

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award

To watch the book's trailer, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcAQFNLacfw

Tracy Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and common reading program classic Mountains Beyond Mountains, has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the “master of the... Read more >

Sahara Unveiled
A Journey Across the Desert
Written by Willia Langewiesche

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: June 24, 1997
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-75006-2 (0-679-75006-1)

The world's most vast and forbidding desert is revealed in all its cruelty and wonder in this masterpiece of contemporary travel writing by the author of Cutting for Sign. Determined to see the Sahara as its inhabitants do, Langewiesche crossed this enormous desert from Algiers to Dakar, braving its natural and... Read more >

Mother to Mother

Written by Sindiwe Magona

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: September 15, 2000
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0949-9 (0-8070-0949-0)

Sindiwe Magona’s novel Mother to Mother explores the South African legacy of apartheid through the lens of a woman who remembers a life marked by oppression and injustice. Magona decided to write this novel when she discovered that Fulbright Scholar Amy Biehl, who had been killed while working to organize the... Read more >

African Predators

Written by Gus Mills
Photographed by Martin Harvey

Format: Hardcover, 160 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: October 17, 2001
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 978-1-56098-096-4 (1-56098-096-6)

Awarded AAUP’s 2002 Best of the Best: Books You Should Know About

From the sleek cheetah and the majestic lion to the oft-maligned hyena and opportunistic jackal, large carnivores reign supreme in the African wild. In African Predators, award-winning photographer Martin Harvey’s dramatic images complement biologist Gus Mills’s extensive field research to... Read more >

No Mercy
A Journey to the Heart of the Congo
Written by Redmond O'Hanlon

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: June 30, 1998
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-73732-2 (0-679-73732-4)

The most intrepid traveler since Stanley found Livingstone is on a literary journey so fraught with humor, discovery, and terror that it makes Heart of Darkness read like a drawing-room comedy. This time Redmond O’Hanlon is in the People’s Republic of the Congo, in search of the legendary dinosaur of Lake... Read more >

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting
Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity
Written by Vijay Prashad

Format: Trade Paperback, 232 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: November 18, 2002
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5011-8 (0-8070-5011-3)

Selected as One of the Village Voice’s Favorite 25 Books of 2001

In this landmark work, historian Vijay Prashad refuses to engage the typical racial discussion that matches people of color against each other while institutionalizing the primacy of the white majority. Instead he examines more than five centuries of remarkable historical... Read more >