Open City
A Novel
Written by Teju Cole

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: January 17, 2012
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8009-7 (0-8129-8009-3)

Winner, 2012 PEN/Hemingway Award
Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction)
A 2011 New York Times Notable Book

A haunting novel about national identity, race, liberty, loss, dislocation, and surrender, Teju Cole’s Open City seethes with intelligence. It is a profound work by an important new author who has much to say about our... Read more >

Family

Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: December 1, 1991
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-41172-1 (0-385-41172-3)

In this wise, beguiling, beautiful novel set in the era of the Civil War, an award-winning playwright and author paints a haunting portrait of a woman named Always, born a slave, and four generations of her African-American family.

“Family is an account by a plantation slave—both during and after her life—of the... Read more >

Life Is Short But Wide

Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 6, 2010
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7569-0 (1-4000-7569-6)

Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans with big hearts. Among them are newlyweds Irene and Val, who graciously allow their neighbors, Bertha and Joseph, to build a house on their land. Together the couples have... Read more >

Life Is Short But Wide

Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
On Sale: March 24, 2009
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-51134-6 (0-385-51134-5)

Beloved writer J. California Cooper has won a legion of loyal fans and much critical acclaim for her powerful storytelling gifts. In language both spare and direct yet wondrously lyrical, Life is Short But Wide is an irresistible story of family that proves no matter who you are or what you... Read more >

A Piece of Mine
Stories
Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Trade Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: December 1, 1991
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-42087-7 (0-385-42087-0)

Back in print after more than five years, this is the extraordinary first short story collection by the author of Family.

"In its strong folk flavor, Cooper's work reminds us of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston...It is a delight to read."
--Alice Walker

"The label 'short' story is a woefully inadequate description... Read more >

Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime
Stories
Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 1, 1996
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-46788-9 (0-385-46788-5)

This fifth collection of stories from J. California Cooper revolves around themes of romance, heartbreak, struggle, and faith. Read more >

Some People, Some Other Place

Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 4, 2006
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49683-4 (0-385-49683-4)

For generations Eula Too’s family has been making a journey North, year after year, step by painful step; and she’s determined to be the one to make it all the way to Chicago. In and out of school, taking care of her fourteen brothers and sisters, she can see no way... Read more >

Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns

Written by J. California Cooper

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 10, 2007
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7568-3 (1-4000-7568-8)

J. California Cooper’s irresistible collection of new stories explores the universal themes of romance, family, and the hopes that propel people’s dreams.

In “As Time Goes By” a young woman singlemindedly pursues material wealth, only to suffer from an empty heart. “Catch a Falling Heart” tells of a slyly arranged marriage... Read more >

Always in Pursuit
Fresh American Perspectives
Written by Stanley Crouch

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 16, 1999
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-70168-9 (0-375-70168-0)

Here is a brilliant new collection of essays on the sublime and the ridiculous in contemporary American culture and society, by one of the most important and compelling social commentators at work today.

"Fearless and engaging, a virtuoso at bringing the drive of natural speech into social criticism, Stanley Crouch transcends our... Read more >

Don't the Moon Look Lonesome
A Novel in Blues and Swing
Written by Stanley Crouch

Format: Trade Paperback, 576 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 10, 2004
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-72447-3 (0-375-72447-8)

Stanley Crouch's gloriously bold first novel provides an intimate and epic portrait of America that breaks all the rules in crossing the boundaries of race, sex, and class.

Blonde Carla from South Dakota is a jazz singer who has been around the block. Almost suddenly, she finds herself fighting to hold... Read more >

The Best of Emerge Magazine

Written by George Curry

Format: Trade Paperback, 688 pages
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
On Sale: July 29, 2003
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-46228-2 (0-345-46228-9)

This collection of the best columns from Emerge magazine is also the best of American journalism. George Curry, who was editor-in-chief of Emerge from 1993 until its last issue in June 2000, has collected the finest articles from the publication that changed the face of African American news. Read more >

Breath, Eyes, Memory
A Novel
Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 18, 1998
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-70504-5 (0-375-70504-X)

Set in the villages of Haiti and in New York's community of Haitian exiles, Breath, Eyes, Memory is the story of Sophie Caco, who was conceived in an act of violence, abandoned by her mother and then, at the age of 12, is summoned to join in her in the United... Read more >

Brother, I'm Dying

Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 9, 2008
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3430-7 (1-4000-3430-2)

From the age of four, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph as her “second father,” when she was placed in his care after her parents left Haiti for America. And so she was both elated and saddened when, at twelve, she joined her parents and youngest... Read more >

Krik? Krak!

Written by Edwidge Danticat

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 2, 1996
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-76657-5 (0-679-76657-X)

When Haitians tell a story, they say, "Krik?" and the eager listeners answer, "Krak!" In Krik? Krak! Danticat establishes herself as the latest heir to that narrative tradition with nine stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. They tell of women who continue loving behind... Read more >

Erotique Noire/Black Erotica

Edited by Miriam Decosta-Willis, Reginald Martin and Roseann P. Bell

Format: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: August 18, 1992
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-42309-0 (0-385-42309-8)

A collective work of art whose time has come. Of lasting value for all lovers of literature and the erotic, this is a glorious, groundbreaking celebration of black sensuality, including works by Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and many more. Read more >

Blake
or; The Huts of America
Written by Martin R. Delany

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Beacon Press
On Sale: June 1, 1971
Price: $27.00
ISBN: 978-0-8070-6419-1 (0-8070-6419-X)

Read more >

Babel-17/Empire Star

Written by Samuel R. Delany

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 8, 2002
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70669-1 (0-375-70669-0)

Author of the bestselling Dhalgren and winner of four Nebulas and one Hugo, Samuel R. Delany is one of the most acclaimed writers of speculative fiction.

Babel-17, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year, is a fascinating tale of a famous poet bent on deciphering a secret... Read more >

Having Our Say
The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years
Written by Sarah L. Delany, A. Elizabeth Delany and Amy Hill Hearth

Format: Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Dell
On Sale: September 1, 1994
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 978-0-440-22042-8 (0-440-22042-4)

The Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side.

Their sharp memories reveal the post-Reconstruction South and... Read more >

My Heart Will Cross This Ocean
My Story, My Son, Amadou
Written by Kadiatou Diallo and Craig Wolff

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
On Sale: August 31, 2004
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-45601-4 (0-345-45601-7)

Descended from West African kings and healers, raised in the turbulence of Guinea in the 1960s, Kadiatou Diallo was married off at the age of thirteen and bore her first child when she was sixteen. Twenty-three years later, that child–a gentle, innocent young man named Amadou Diallo–was gunned down without cause... Read more >

My Bondage and My Freedom

Written by Frederick Douglass
Introduction by John Stauffer

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: October 14, 2003
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7031-9 (0-8129-7031-4)

“My Bondage and My Freedom,” writes John Stauffer in his Foreword, “[is] a deep meditation on the meaning of slavery, race, and freedom, and on the power of faith and literacy, as well as a portrait of an individual and a nation a few years before the Civil War.” As his... Read more >

Through the Ivory Gate
A novel
Written by Rita Dove

Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 5, 1993
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74240-1 (0-679-74240-9)

To her irresistible first novel Rita Dove brings the same lyricism and bravura command of imagery that won her the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry as she deftly evokes the tensions and longings that confront any woman--black or white--trying to find a place in the world. In the early 1970s Virginia... Read more >

The Souls of Black Folk

Written by W.E.B. Du Bois

Format: Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Bantam Classics
On Sale: June 1, 1989
Price: $5.95
ISBN: 978-0-553-21336-2 (0-553-21336-9)

Introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Thus speaks W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls Of Black Folk, one of the most prophetic and influental works in American literature. In this eloquent collection of essays, first published in 1903... Read more >

The Quest of the Silver Fleece
A Novel
Written by W.E.B. Dubois

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: September 14, 2004
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-7679-1845-9 (0-7679-1845-2)

INTRODUCTION BY ARNOLD RAMPERSAD, cognizant dean for humanities at Stanford University.

The Quest of the Silver Fleece was the first novel to come from world-famous sociologist and civil-rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois. A controversial title of its time, the novel chronicles the complex interactions between Northern financing and Southern politics as it... Read more >

The Sport of the Gods
and Other Essential Writings
Written by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin and David Bradley

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: August 9, 2005
Price: $23.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7279-5 (0-8129-7279-1)

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872—1906) overcame racism and poverty to become one of the best-known authors in America, and the first African American to earn a living from his poetry, fiction, drama, journalism, and lectures. An author who achieved remarkable versatility, his work draws on language that is by turns folksy and... Read more >

Gabriel's Story
A Novel
Written by David Anthony Durham

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: April 30, 2002
Price: $13.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-72033-5 (0-385-72033-5)

When Gabriel Lynch moves with his mother and brother from a brownstone in Baltimore to a dirt-floor hovel on a homestead in Kansas, he is not pleased. He does not dislike his new stepfather, a former slave, but he has no desire to submit to a life of drudgery and toil... Read more >