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April 2013′s Bestselling African American Books

March 31, 2013

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

  1. Face Off (The Baddest Chick) Part 4 by Nisa Santiago
    (Melodrama Publishing, 2013-04-02, Paperback)
    Clash of the Twins The relentless rivals Apple and Kola are back in business, and it’s about to get real. With her traumatic experiences in Mexico over, Apple is back to being the baddest. Now she’s determined to make her tormentors pay for the torture she endured, and no one is prepared for the terrifying takedown she’s planning for those she once loved. Kola is dominating the streets of Miami, but the haters and South Beach cartels are itching to see her leave, dead or alive. When she finds betrayal in an unlikely place, she’s motivated to come out on top and put Miami on notice. Apple and Kola rage fiery warfare against the enemies determined to bring them down. But now, both contenders stronger than ever, will have to Face Off once and for all.

     

  2. Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou
    (Random House, 2013-04-02, Hardcover)
    The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.   For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.   Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights.

     

  3. Stepping Stone (Crosstown to Oblivion) by Walter Mosley
    (Tor Books, 2013-04-02, Kindle Edition)
    Stepping Stone is but one of six fragments in the Crosstown to Oblivion short novels in which Mosley entertainingly explores life’s cosmic questions. From life’s meaning to the nature of good and evil, these tales take us on speculative journeys beyond the reality we have come to know. In each tale someone in our world today is given insight into these long pondered mysteries. But how would the world really receive the answers?  Truman Pope has spent his whole life watching the world go by–and waiting for something he can’t quite put into words.  A gentle, unassuming soul, he has worked in the mailroom of a large corporation for decades without making waves, until the day he spots a mysterious woman in yellow.  A woman nobody else can see. Soon Truman’s quiet life begins to turn upside-down.  An old lover surfaces from his past even as he finds his job in jeopardy.  Strange visions haunt his days and nights, until he begins to doubt his sanity.  Is he losing his mind, or is he on the brink of a startling revelation that will change his life forever–and transform the nature of humanity?

     

  4. Honor Thy Thug by Wahida Clark
    (Cash Money Content, 2013-04-23, Hardcover)
    Urban lit’s favorite ride or die couple, Trae and Tasha, are back as they fight to hold onto their volatile relationship which gets closer to exploding with each passing day. Their friends, Angel and Kaylin, are caught up in their own drama which pits brother against brother in a final showdown. Faheem and his wife Jaz, face their worst nightmare which almost takes them totally out of the game. Meanwhile, Kyron, who brought Trae to the brink of murder and Tasha to the edge of insanity, is back and hell bent on revenge. When Trae makes the deadly decision to work for the most violent Chinese crime organization in the city and renew a business relationship with Charli Li, the one woman who can never be trusted, his rocky marriage and life are threatened. Tasha is forced to step in, and things get really crazy. Can Trae escape the grips of the mob with his life and hold on to his wife? Honor Thy Thug will leave you gasping for more.

     

  5. Decadence by Eric Jerome Dickey
    (Dutton Adult, 2013-04-23, Hardcover)
    New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey returns to the life of Nia Simone Bijou (of Pleasure fame) as she embarks on a quest to enhance her artistic gifts through heightened sensory experience, Hollywood-style. Four years have passed since the events of Pleasure, and Nia’s success as a writer has grown, bringing her from Atlanta to Los Angeles. But she remains on a quest to quiet her inner storm, to draw on her well of emotions and explore them fully before leaving this season of her life and moving on to what could be the next stage: marriage and motherhood. Drawn to an exclusive pleasure palace, where patrons try on roles as they actively shun their respective realities, Nia’s ability to balance truth and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. What has happened to the compartments she has so carefully created for the different aspects of her life? Will her relationship with the mysterious, often unavailable Prada survive the countless temptations? Will her successful literary career be given over to impulse indulgence? Does decadence know any bounds? When Nia’s past comes back to mingle with her present, and when her staid public persona clashes with her fantasy life of decadence, readers will be stunned by the outcome. Eric Jerome Dickey’s newest tale of excess—and its sky-high costs—is a thrilling portrait of a glittering world.

     

  6. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
    (Yale University Press, 2013-04-30, Paperback)
    “The insight and grace with which Harris-Perry tackles the thorny issue of African American women’s identity politics makes it a must-read.”—Jordan Kisner, Slate

     

  7. The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm’s Way by Alice Walker
    (New Press, The, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    In her newest collection of wide-ranging meditations on our intertwined personal, spiritual, and political destinies, Alice Walker writes that “we are beyond a rigid category of color, sex, or spirituality if we are truly alive.” For the millions of her devoted fans—and for readers of Walker’s bestselling 2006 book We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For in particular—here is a new “gift of words” (Essence) that invites readers on a journey of political awakening and spiritual insight.The Cushion in the Road revisits themes the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, poet, essayist, and activist has addressed throughout her career: racism, Africa, solidarity with the Palestinian people, the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, Cuba, healthcare, and the work of Aung San Suu Kyi. In doing so, Walker explores her conflicting impulses to retreat into inner contemplation and to remain deeply engaged with the world. Through the evocative image of the meditation cushion in the road, she finds a delicate balance between these two paths and invites her readers to do so, too.Rich with humor, wisdom, and Walker’s unique eye for the telling details of human experience and the natural world, The Cushion in the Road shows Walker at the height of her literary powers, reveals the depths of her spiritual and political understandings, and will surely be an inspiration for all.

     

  8. Betrayed by Patricia Haley
    (Urban Books, 2013-04-30, Paperback)

     

  9. An Accidental Affair by Eric Jerome Dickey
    (NAL Trade, 2013-04-02, Paperback)
    New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey once again “pushes romance and deceit to the next level” (USA Weekend) in this tantalizing tale of a high-profile marriage rocked by scandal, obsession, and murder. Screenwriter James Thicke is a man whose mysterious past runs as deep as his violent streak. Now he and his volatile movie star wife, Regina Baptiste, have channeled their passions into an electrifying new project: a film rumored to cross the boundaries of on-screen sexuality. But it’s James’s limits that are about to be tested—by a surreptitiously filmed video of his wife with her co-star Johnny Bergs, in the most comprising of situations. Within hours, it goes viral. Regina claims she is innocent. But the humiliation and rage leave James with only one recourse—an act of violence that sends him on the run and into hiding. Seething with bitter betrayal, and a still-consuming love for his troubled wife, he nurses a slow-boiling desire for something more permanent: revenge. His need for vengeance takes James and Regina on a headlong odyssey of obsession, sexual impulse, blackmail, and murder. And getting back will be hell.

     

  10. Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation by Jonathan Rieder
    (Bloomsbury Press, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    I am in Birmingham because injustice is here, declared Martin Luther King, Jr. He had come to that city of racist terror convinced that massive protest could topple Jim Crow. But the insurgency faltered. To revive it, King made a sacrificial act on Good Friday, April 12, 1963: he was arrested. Alone in his cell, reading a newspaper, he found a statement from eight “moderate” clergymen who branded the protests extremist and “untimely.” King drafted a furious rebuttal that emerged as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”-a work that would take its place among the masterpieces of American moral argument alongside those of Thoreau and Lincoln. His insistence on the urgency of “Freedom Now” would inspire not just the marchers of Birmingham and Selma, but peaceful insurgents from Tiananmen to Tahrir Squares. Scholar Jonathan Rieder delves deeper than anyone before into the Letter-illuminating both its timeless message and its crucial position in the history of civil rights. Rieder has interviewed King’s surviving colleagues, and located rare audiotapes of King speaking in the mass meetings of 1963. Gospel of Freedom gives us a startling perspective on the Letter and the man who wrote it: an angry prophet who chastised American whites, found solace in the faith and resilience of the slaves, and knew that moral appeal without struggle never brings justice.

     

  11. Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy by Gary May
    (Basic Books, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    When the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 granted African Americans the right to vote, it seemed as if a new era of political equality was at hand. Before long, however, white segregationists across the South counterattacked, driving their black countrymen from the polls through a combination of sheer terror and insidious devices such as complex literacy tests and expensive poll taxes. Most African Americans would remain voiceless for nearly a century more, citizens in name only until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act secured their access to the ballot.In Bending Toward Justice, celebrated historian Gary May describes how black voters overcame centuries of bigotry to secure and preserve one of their most important rights as American citizens. The struggle that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act was long and torturous, and only succeeded because of the courageous work of local freedom fighters and national civil rights leaders—as well as, ironically, the opposition of Southern segregationists and law enforcement officials, who won public sympathy for the voting rights movement by brutally attacking peaceful demonstrators. But while the Voting Rights Act represented an unqualified victory over such forces of hate, May explains that its achievements remain in jeopardy. Many argue that the 2008 election of President Barack Obama rendered the act obsolete, yet recent years have seen renewed efforts to curb voting rights and deny minorities the act’s hard-won protections. Legal challenges to key sections of the act may soon lead the Supreme Court to declare those protections unconstitutional.A vivid, fast-paced history of this landmark piece of civil rights legislation, Bending Toward Justice offers a dramatic, timely account of the struggle that finally won African Americans the ballot—although, as May shows, the fight for voting rights is by no means over.

     

  12. Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz by Russell Maroon Shoatz
    (PM Press, 2013-04-01, Paperback)
    During a lengthy incarceration spent mostly in solitary confinement, Russell Maroon Shoatz has developed into a prolific writer and powerful voice for the disenfranchised. This first published collection of his accumulated works showcases his sharp and profound understanding of the current historical moment, with clear proposals for how to move forward embracing new political concepts and practices. Informed by Shoatz’s experience as a leader in the Black Liberation Movement in Philadelphia, the pieces in this book put forth his fresh and self-critical retelling of the black liberation struggle in the United States and provide cutting-edge analysis of the prison-industrial complex. Innovative and revolutionary on multiple levels, the essays also discuss such varied topics as eco-socialism, matriarchy and eco-feminism, food security, prefiguration and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Including new essays written expressly for this volume, Shoatz’s unique perspective offers many practical and theoretical insights for today’s movements for social change.

     

  13. Literary Trails of Eastern North Carolina: A Guidebook (Literary Trails of North Carolina) by Georgann Eubanks
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2013-04-01, Paperback)
    This concluding volume of the Literary Trails of North Carolina trilogy takes readers into an ancient land of pale sand, dense forests, and expansive bays, through towns older than our country and rich in cultural traditions. Here, writers reveal lives long tied to the land and regularly troubled by storms and tell tales of hardship, hard work, and freedom. Eighteen tours lead readers from Raleigh to the Dismal Swamp, the Outer Banks, and across the Sandhills as they explore the region’s connections to over 250 writers of fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction. Along the way, Georgann Eubanks brings to life the state’s rich literary heritage as she explores these writers’ connection to place and reveals the region’s vibrant local culture. Excerpts invite readers into the authors’ worlds, and web links offer resources for further exploration. Featured authors include A. R. Ammons, Gerald Barrax, Charles Chesnutt, Clyde Edgerton, Philip Gerard, Kaye Gibbons, Harriet Jacobs, Jill McCorkle, Michael Parker, and Bland Simpson. Literary Trails of North Carolina is a project of the North Carolina Arts Council.

     

  14. Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World by Edward E. Andrews
    (Harvard University Press, 2013-04-01, Hardcover)
    As Protestantism expanded across the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most evangelists were not white Anglo-Americans, as scholars have long assumed, but members of the same groups that missionaries were trying to convert. Native Apostles offers one of the most significant untold stories in the history of early modern religious encounters, marshalling wide-ranging research to shed light on the crucial role of Native Americans, Africans, and black slaves in Protestant missionary work. The result is a pioneering view of religion’s spread through the colonial world. From New England to the Caribbean, the Carolinas to Africa, Iroquoia to India, Protestant missions relied on long-forgotten native evangelists, who often outnumbered their white counterparts. Their ability to tap into existing networks of kinship and translate between white missionaries and potential converts made them invaluable assets and potent middlemen. Though often poor and ostracized by both whites and their own people, these diverse evangelists worked to redefine Christianity and address the challenges of slavery, dispossession, and European settlement. Far from being advocates for empire, their position as cultural intermediaries gave native apostles unique opportunities to challenge colonialism, situate indigenous peoples within a longer history of Christian brotherhood, and harness scripture to secure a place for themselves and their followers. Native Apostles shows that John Eliot, Eleazar Wheelock, and other well-known Anglo-American missionaries must now share the historical stage with the black and Indian evangelists named Hiacoomes, Good Peter, Philip Quaque, John Quamine, and many more.

     

  15. I’m Forever New York’s Finest part 3 by Kiki Swinson
    (K.S. Publications, 2013-04-16, Paperback)

     

  16. The Underground Railroad in Dekalb County, Illinois by Nancy M. Beasley
    (Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub, 2013-04-02, Paperback)

     

  17. He Don’t Play Fair by Clifford Spud Johnson
    (Urban Books, 2013-04-01, Paperback)
    27 year old Papio gets released from a Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno after serving just 3 years of a 30 year sentence, when his conviction for conspiracy to distribute 45 kilos of cocaine is overturned. Having some unfinished business in Oklahoma City, Papio stops there to romance a few women and collect on some debts before heading out West, avoiding contact with his infuriated Cuban connection by all means. Never settling for less than the best in hotels, luxury vehicles, and designer clothing follow Papio on his journey across the states that takes some unexpected twists and turns which make this tale extra Special! Don’t get caught up, because HE DON’T PLAY FAIR.

     

  18. The Lost Daughter: A Memoir by Mary Williams
    (Blue Rider Press, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    A daughter of the Black Panther movement tells her remarkable life story of being raised amid violence and near-poverty, adopted as a teenager by Jane Fonda, and finding her way back home.   As she grew up in 1970s Oakland, California, role models for Mary Williams were few and far between: her father was often in prison, her older sister was a teenage prostitute, and her hot-tempered mother struggled to raise six children alone. When Mary was thirteen, a silver lining appeared in her life: she was invited to spend a summer at Laurel Springs Children’s Camp, run by Jane Fonda and her then husband, Tom Hayden. Mary flourished at camp, and over the course of several summers, she began confiding in Fonda about her difficulties at home. During one school year, Mary suffered a nightmare assault crime, which she kept secret until she told a camp counselor and Fonda. After providing care and therapy for Mary, Fonda invited her to come live with her family.   Practically overnight, Mary left the streets of Oakland for the star-studded climes of Santa Monica. Jane Fonda was the parent Mary had never had—outside the limelight and Hollywood parties, Fonda was a wonderful mom who helped with homework, listened to adolescent fears, celebrated achievements, and offered inspiration and encouragement at every turn.   Mary’s life since has been one of adventure and opportunity—from hiking the Appalachian Trail solo, working with the Lost Boys of Sudan, and living in the frozen reaches of Antarctica. Her most courageous trip, though, involved returning to Oakland and reconnecting with her biological mother and family, many of whom she hadn’t seen since the day she left home. The Lost Daughter is a chronicle of her journey back in time, an exploration of fractured family bonds, and a moving epic of self-discovery.

     

Author JavaNoir
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2012′s Bestselling African American Books for the Kindle

December 26, 2012

Here are the upcoming Amazon Kindle bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

  1. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross by James Patterson
    (Little, Brown and Company, 2012-11-12, Kindle Edition)
    It’s Christmas Eve and Detective Alex Cross has been called out to catch someone who’s robbing his church’s poor box. That mission behind him, Alex returns home to celebrate with Bree, Nana, and his children. The tree decorating is barely underway before his phone rings again–a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family. Alex risks everything–and he may not make it back alive on this most sacred of family days. Alex Cross is a hero for our time, and never more so than in this story of family, action, and the deepest moral choices. MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALEX CROSS will be a holiday classic for years to come.

     

  2. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 Digital Edition) by Ayana Mathis
    (Knopf, 2012-12-06, Kindle Edition)
    The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide.
    Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.  Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream.  

     

  3. Guilty Pleasures by Niyah Moore
    (Ambiance Books, 2012-12-12, Kindle Edition)
    WHAT’S YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE? Married lawyer, Hassan Walker, can’t seem to get enough of the Sugar Hill Gentleman’s Club, as he is in love with Jada James, a sultry dancer with an alter ego, Cinnamon. Unable to shake the taunting images of her out of his head, Hassan can not even have sex with his own wife, Roxi Walker, without envisioning his Sugar Hill temptress. Meanwhile, Roxi can no longer hide the secret affair that has swept her away from reality. Given an ultimatum to stop cheating or to lose her husband for good, Roxi tries but cannot seem to fulfill her husband’s request completely. Once all of the guilty pleasures start coming to light, Hassan, Roxi, Jada along with Ivan, Victoria, and Dawn will stop at nothing to cover up their dirty little secrets.

     

  4. Hated by Many, Loved by None by Shan
    (SBR Publications, 2012-11-15, Kindle Edition)
    Jahzara, Honey and Tomeka are best friends til the end. The three of them would die for each other and have always had each other’s back. They each desperately wanted better lives and were willing to work extra hard in order to attain it. Relationship issues in their personal lives bring the girls closer together than ever before- especially when Jahzara brings a business proposal to the table. Betrayal, lies, jealousy and murder is only the beginning of what they have to overcome. Will they succumb to it all or will they rise above it and find their way out?

     

  5. A Cinderella Story: Book One (The Come-Up) by CE Ryan
    (CE Ryan, 2012-12-17, Kindle Edition)
    Jayda Monroe knew she deserved more out of life than her menial, thankless job and constant struggle with money. Wanting more for herself had always left her disappointed, until finally, she took a leap of faith and decided to start living on her own terms and calling her own shots. Enter Shane Morris, the hottest hip hop star in the music world; there is nothing his money can’t buy and his wealth seems to be limitless. And the moment he lays eyes on Jayda, her entire life begins to change. Follow this ambitious young woman on her quest to live abundantly, be indulged shamelessly and become a BOSS in her own right.

     

  6. Ti Amo (Battaglia Mafia Series) by Sienna Mynx
    (The Divas Pen LLC, 2012-12-12, Kindle Edition)
    Book 2 in the Battaglia Mafia Series (Book 1 – Destino by Sienna Mynx)Let there be war…Don Giovanni Battaglia will have his revenge. A bloody Mafia war has ravaged the southern region of Italy. Every man, woman, and child born under the name Calderone must be made to atone. That is the law. After two years of blood and bullets, the men sworn to follow without question find themselves wanting peace. But how can there be peace when the one person able to save their Don from the destructive path he is on is beyond their reach. Or is she?Mira Ellison lives…It’s 1991 and Mira has learned how to begin again. Her best friend is dead, and the fashion empire she built from scratch is now gone. All she has left is the fleeting memory of a bittersweet love, and a mocha-brown baby with her father’s eyes. She now has one single goal, to survive. She must protect her baby and hide from the Mafia men she is convinced are out to kill her. But is it all a lie? Soon Mira finds herself confronted by her past, and face to face with the man she loves but doesn’t trust. And Giovanni Battaglia is furious. He gives Mira a choice. She can become his Donna or be his enemy. And this time Mira has more than her life to lose.

     

  7. The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden
    (Akashic Books, 2012-01-15, Kindle Edition)
    The long-awaited reissue of McFadden’s best-selling second novel praised by Toni Morrison, USA Today, Washington Post, and others–published simultaneously with McFadden’s new novel Gathering of Waters.”[A] masterpiece . . . full of heart and emotion . . . I hope you love the book as much as I did, and I hope it moves you as much as it did me, changes you as it did me.”–James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, from the new introductionFor Kenzie, growing up in the Lowe household means opening the bottom drawer of her father’s dresser to choose which belt she’ll be whipped with that night, furtive trips to the Bee Hive liquor store for her father’s vodka, and dreaming of the day she can escape apartment 5A.Buoyed by the lyrical, redemptive voice that characterizes McFadden’s writing, The Warmest December tells the powerful, deeply moving story of one Brooklyn family and the alcoholism and abuse that marked the years of their lives. Narrated by Kenzie Lowe, a young woman reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, the story moves fluidly between the past and the present as she visits her dying father and finds that choices she once thought beyond her control are very much hers to make. The Warmest December is ultimately a cathartic tale of hope, healing, and forgiveness.

     

  8. The Ultimate Merger (Hot Latin Men) by Delaney Diamond
    (Delaney Diamond, 2012-07-13, Kindle Edition)
    Two workaholics slow down long enough to find love when they least expect it.Renaldo da Silva is on the verge of entering the U.S. market with the purchase of a hotel in downtown Chicago. After working hard for several days straight, he heads to a local bar and sees a woman who instantly makes him reconsider how to spend his evening.When another one of her male counterparts unfairly becomes the lead on a project, Sabrina Porter leaves work intent on drowning her sorrows in wine and loud music at a local bar. Instead, she meets a sexy Brazilian who’s intent on showing her a different way to unwind.The Ultimate Merger is a short story. It’s the prequel to Second Chances, Book 4 of the Hot Latin Men series.

     

  9. Unique by Nikki Turner
    (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012-10-30, Kindle Edition)
    With only two hundred dollars, Unique packed her suitcase and headed to New York City for a brand new start.  It’s there that Unique meets big time boxing promoter, Kennard and it is love at first sight.  However, after nine months of living in the lap of luxury with Kennard, skeletons from Unique’s past show up and it will cost her a cool million dollars to not only keep her relationship but her life.  But Unique isn’t about to lose it all.  With the help of her best friend, she devises a major heist and to pull it off all she has to do it stay alive. 

     

  10. Uncle Catfish by Chandra Borden
    (Bergerdergan Publishing LLC, 2012-10-31, Kindle Edition)
    I’m a daddy’s girl. But that wasn’t always the case. For years I used to run to my father’s arms, squealing “Daddy, Daddy,” with hopes of stealing his heart. In return, Len Earle Woods would greet me the way he greeted everyone, with a laid back demeanor and a cool-dude smile. I wasn’t a daddy’s girl at that point. I was just another kid.But it would take one visit from Uncle Catfish, the summer before my eighth grade year, to change all of that.

     

  11. A Gangsta’s Bitch Pt 1 by Leo Sullivan
    (Sullivan Publications, LLC, 2012-08-08, Kindle Edition)
    Gina Thomas is a gangsta’s bitch, down for whatever. Even after her man, Jack Lemon, is sent to prison, Gina does what she has to do for herself and her man. When Jack wins his appeal, vengeance is no longer just for the lord.Follow Gina as she rides out for her man, and shows how a real Gangsta’s Bitch gets down.

     

  12. Daddy Dearest by Kevin Bullock
    (2012-08-29, Kindle Edition)
    After Carl “Hammer” Bobbit was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, he became obsessed with his daughter, Cataya.
    Through his best friend, Ron, he controls every aspect of her life. He regulates where she goes, what she watches on T.V and who she hangs with. He knows that Cataya hates him, but his fatherly instincts won’t allow him to lighten up, or confess to his guilt.
    Now that Cataya is a senior in high school, she has been living with her father’s mother ever since her own mother had been found murdered twelve years prior. She has very little contact with her mother’s side of the family, but has learned through them the truth surrounding her mother’s unsolved death.
    She proves that she’s cut from the same cloth as her father when she formulates an icy plan that would punish Hammer for the role that he played in her mother’s death. But she gets side tracked when Hammer escapes from prison and give the real meaning to Daddy Dearest.

     

  13. The Cartel 4: Diamonds are Forever by Ashley
    (Urban Books, 2012-11-01, Kindle Edition)
    You thought The Cartel was over, but Diamonds are forever. . . .The Diamond family has survived murder, deceit, and betrayal. Through it all, they’re still standing tall, and a new era has begun. After surviving a failed attempt on her life, Breeze has moved into the queen’s position by Zyir’s side. Zyir has taken over the empire and locked down Miami’s streets. He has the world in his palms, but there is always new blood ready to overthrow the throne. Young Carter has retired and moved away from the madness—that is, until he gets an unexpected visitor at his home. This person shakes up the whole family, causing chaos that threatens to bring down the Cartel for good. New York Times bestselling authors Ashley and JaQuavis deliver the highly anticipated fourth installment of the wildly popular Cartel series.

     

  14. Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever (The Ghetto Girl Romance Quadrilogy) by L. V. Lewis
    (Jungle Fever Press, 2012-10-30, Kindle Edition)
    FIFTY SHADES OF GREY to the second power meets Keisha and Jada from the Block. If you’ve wondered how an ethnic girl from the hood might’ve handled an arrangement with an experienced white Dominant, this is your book. If you’d like to see the sexiest TWIN DOMS in a contemporary romance series in interracial relationships, this is most definitely your book. Aspiring recording studio owners, Keisha Beale and Jada Jameson, score a rare meeting with venture capitalist Tristan White, and are thrust into a world beyond their wildest imaginations. Street-wise Keisha is startled to realize she wants this rich white man, despite the certainty that he is out of her league. Unable to resist Keisha’s sassy, irreverent, and fiercely independent spirit, Tristan knew from day one he wanted her, too–as his first African American submissive. Upper Class Jada of the Springfield Jamesons has traveled in almost the same circles as the White brothers, and has had a secret crush on Nathan White, the point guard for the Chicago Bulls, for quite some time. Both brothers have succumbed to jungle fever, and want a little coffee in their cream. Lured by Tristan White and his offer of fronting the capital for her business in exchange for kinky sex, Keisha finds herself with no other option. Keisha is also tortured by a demons from her past, and her inability to come to terms with them threatens to undermine the future of her business and her tumultuous, unconventional relationship with Tristan White. Erotic, amusing, and in places hilarious, the Ghetto Girl Erotica Trilogy is a parody with a unique take on a Fifty Shades-type story that will take you even further into the BDSM world, and promises to make the vanilla original Fifty Shades Blacker. The first two books focus on Keisha and Tristan’s romance, and the final two focus on Jada and Nathan’s.

     

  15. Hood Love by Leondra LeRae
    (, 2012-10-09, Kindle Edition)
    Jonnae is tired, tired of her trifling dude Chink & tired of her chaotic home life. The chance meeting of Capo turns things from upside down to good all around. Take a ride with Jonnae as she realizes your first love isn’t always real love & that hood love can be a good love.

     

  16. Salty: A Ghetto Soap Opera (Drama In The Hood) by Aleta Williams
    (Alana’s Book Line, 2012-03-28, Kindle Edition)
    This Intriguing, Sassy, Grimy, and Envious Ghetto Soap Opera is filled with street drama that will put you right in the mix of the madness…. At the end, you may even feel “Salty” yourself!To some, the city of Los Angeles is the home of the “Angels”; “that’s bull crap”, says the characters in this ghetto soap opera. Los Angeles for them, is the home of the “Scandalous” and only those that’s down for and ready for whatever will last…Jazz is a seventeen year old, sassy, diva who strives to carry herself with class and dignity. Thanks to her ego struck boyfriend, and envious cousin,she soon finds out that classiness will get you nowhere, but humiliated and heartbroken. Peter went from a nobody to a somebody: money, cars, and big butt light skin girls now make up his worth. Peter isn’t blind to the fact that he is being used; he just doesn’t care. It’s not until he steps on the toes of a known grimy gangster from Compton, that he realizes how dangerous these females really are. Pam can tell you first hand that “love don’t love nobody”, and that you have to love yourself first. After all, love is the reason she contracted the incurable.Follow the drama as it takes you on a world wind of events that will leave your mouth open and have you lusting for more.facebook.com/SaltyAGhettoSoapOpera

     

  17. Juicy- Pandora’s Box by Nicety
    (, 2012-08-25, Kindle Edition)
    Growing up in an abusive home took a toll on Chicago twin sisters Pandora and Diamond and their 16-year-old sister, Lexi. An overbearing, controlling father pushes them to the edge and when enough became enough, they devised a plan to get out of his grasp for good. Sun was their unsuspecting victim and everything seemed to be going according to plan until Pandora decided to change the game. Now with blood on their hands, a newfound business and two suitcases full of cash, Pandora thinks she is sitting on top of the world. Forbidden fruit is tastier when it’s not rightfully yours as she pursues Diamond’s crush, Kojack, under false pretenses. Lexi is only 16 but her love of Yompers keeps her feeling grown and sexy as she does any and everything she wants while still trying to remain loyal to her sisters. But that is all tested when Pandora shows her sisters that blood isn’t thicker than water. Will Pandora remain on top or will she crash and burn? Find out!

     

  18. Poison in the Shadows (Crimson Murder Mysteries) by J. K. Crimson
    (Manic Books, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    After nearly being fatally shot and left for dead in the grim streets of Detroit, ex-stripper, now turned homicide detective, Jordan Crimson, is still haunted by her past demons of when her street hustling boyfriend killed her best friend ten years ago. She had been successful at moving on while working around the clock solving murders to take her mind away from the emptiness and regret in her life. Until the body of Samantha Cox is discovered. As Jordan uncovers Samantha’s secret life of lies, sex, and betrayal, the past demons she thought were buried, are back once again. Will her investigation lead to Samantha’s killer or face to face of her own death?

     

Author JavaNoir
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2012′s Bestselling African American Books

October 1, 2012

Here’s a list of 2012′s bestselling African American books from Amazon.com as of September 2012.

  1. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
    (New Press, The, 2012-01-16, Paperback)
    The New Jim Crow was initially published with a modest first printing and reasonable expectations for a hard-hitting book on a tough topic. Now, ten-plus printings later, the long-awaited paperback version of the book Lani Guinier calls “brave and bold,” and Pulitzer Prize–winner David Levering Lewis calls “stunning,” will at last be available.In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. Yet, as legal star Michelle Alexander reveals, today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal.
    Featured on The Tavis Smiley Show, Bill Moyers Journal, Democracy Now, and C-Span’s Washington Journal, The New Jim Crow has become an overnight phenomenon, sparking a much-needed conversation—including a recent mention by Cornel West on Real Time with Bill Maher — about ways in which our system of mass incarceration has come to resemble systems of racial control from a different era.

     

  2. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross by James Patterson
    (Little, Brown and Company, 2012-11-12, Hardcover)
    It’s Christmas Eve and Detective Alex Cross has been called out to catch someone who’s robbing his church’s poor box. That mission behind him, Alex returns home to celebrate with Bree, Nana, and his children. The tree decorating is barely underway before his phone rings again–a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family. Alex risks everything–and he may not make it back alive on this most sacred of family days. Alex Cross is a hero for our time, and never more so than in this story of family, action, and the deepest moral choices.

     

  3. The Cutting Season: A Novel by Attica Locke
    (Harper, 2012-09-18, Hardcover)
    In Black Water Rising, Attica Locke delivered one of the most stunning and sure-handed fiction debuts in recent memory, garnering effusive critical praise, several award nominations, and passionate reader response. Now Locke returns with The Cutting Season, a riveting thriller that intertwines two murders separated across more than a century. Caren Gray manages Belle Vie, a sprawling antebellum plantation that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the past and the present coexist uneasily. The estate’s owners have turned the place into an eerie tourist attraction, complete with full-dress re-enactments and carefully restored slave quarters. Outside the gates, a corporation with ambitious plans has been busy snapping up land from struggling families who have been growing sugar cane for generations, and now replacing local employees with illegal laborers. Tensions mount when the body of a female migrant worker is found in a shallow grave on the edge of the property, her throat cut clean. As the investigation gets under way, the list of suspects grows. But when fresh evidence comes to light and the sheriff’s department zeros in on a person of interest, Caren has a bad feeling that the police are chasing the wrong leads. Putting herself at risk, she ventures into dangerous territory as she unearths startling new facts about a very old mystery—the long-ago disappearance of a former slave—that has unsettling ties to the current murder. In pursuit of the truth about Belle Vie’s history and her own, Caren discovers secrets about both cases—ones that an increasingly desperate killer will stop at nothing to keep buried. Taut, hauntingly resonant, and beautifully written, The Cutting Season is at once a thoughtful meditation on how America reckons its past with its future, and a high-octane page-turner that unfolds with tremendous skill and vision. With her rare gift for depicting human nature in all its complexities, Attica Locke demonstrates once again that she is “destined for literary stardom” (Dallas Morning News).

     

  4. The Communist by Paul Kengor
    (Mercury Ink, 2012-07-17, Hardcover)
    In his memoir, Barack Obama omits the full name of his mentor, simply calling him “Frank.” Now, the truth is out: Never has a figure as deeply troubling and controversial as Frank Marshall Davis had such an impact on the development of an American president. Although other radical influences on Obama, from Jeremiah Wright to Bill Ayers, have been scrutinized, the public knows little about Davis, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, cited by the Associated Press as an “important influence” on Obama, one whom he “looked to” not merely for “advice on living” but as a “father” figure. While the Left has willingly dismissed Davis (with good reason), here are the indisputable, eye-opening facts: Frank Marshall Davis was a pro-Soviet, pro–Red China communist. His Communist Party USA card number, revealed in FBI files, was CP #47544. He was a prototype of the loyal Soviet patriot, so radical that the FBI placed him on the federal government’s Security Index. In the early 1950s, Davis opposed U.S. attempts to slow Stalin and Mao. He favored Red Army takeovers of Central and Eastern Europe, and communist control in Korea and Vietnam. Dutifully serving the cause, he edited and wrote for communist newspapers in both Chicago and Honolulu, courting contributors who were Soviet agents. In the 1970s, amid this dangerous political theater, Frank Marshall Davis came into Barack Obama’s life. Aided by access to explosive declassified FBI files, Soviet archives, and Davis’s original newspaper columns, Paul Kengor explores how Obama sought out Davis and how Davis found in Obama an impressionable young man, one susceptible to Davis’s worldview that opposed American policy and traditional values while praising communist regimes. Kengor sees remnants of this worldview in Obama’s early life and even, ultimately, his presidency.

     

  5. Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson
    (Random House, 2012-06-26, Hardcover)
    It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother’s house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations. 
    Yes, Chef chronicles Marcus Samuelsson’s remarkable journey from Helga’s humble kitchen to some of the most demanding and cutthroat restaurants in Switzerland and France, from his grueling stints on cruise ships to his arrival in New York City, where his outsize talent and ambition finally come together at Aquavit, earning him a coveted New York Times three-star rating at the age of twenty-four. But Samuelsson’s career of  “chasing flavors,” as he calls it, had only just begun—in the intervening years, there have been White House state dinners, career crises, reality show triumphs and, most important, the opening of the beloved Red Rooster in Harlem. At Red Rooster, Samuelsson has fufilled his dream of creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room—a place where presidents and prime ministers rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, bus drivers, and nurses. It is a place where an orphan from Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, living in America, can feel at home.  
    With disarming honesty and intimacy, Samuelsson also opens up about his failures—the price of ambition, in human terms—and recounts his emotional journey, as a grown man, to meet the father he never knew. Yes, Chef is a tale of personal discovery, unshakable determination, and the passionate, playful pursuit of flavors—one man’s struggle to find a place for himself in the kitchen, and in the world.

     

  6. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership by Colin Powell
    (Harper, 2012-05-22, Hardcover)
    It Worked for Me is filled with vivid experiences and lessons learned that have shaped the legendary public service career of the four-star general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. At its heart are Powell’s “Thirteen Rules”—notes he gathered over the years and that now form the basis of his leadership presentations given throughout the world. Powell’s short but sweet rules—among them, “Get mad, then get over it” and “Share credit”—are illustrated by revealing personal stories that introduce and expand upon his principles for effective leadership: conviction, hard work, and, above all, respect for others. In work and in life, Powell writes, “it’s about how we touch and are touched by the people we meet. It’s all about the people.” A natural storyteller, Powell offers warm and engaging parables with wise advice on succeeding in the workplace and beyond. “Trust your people,” he counsels as he delegates presidential briefing responsibilities to two junior State Department desk officers. “Do your best—someone is watching,” he advises those just starting out, recalling his own teenage summer job mopping floors in a soda-bottling factory. Powell combines the insights he has gained serving in the top ranks of the military and in four presidential administrations with the lessons he’s learned from his immigrant-family upbringing in the Bronx, his training in the ROTC, and his growth as an Army officer. The result is a powerful portrait of a leader who is reflective, self-effacing, and grateful for the contributions of everyone he works with. Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me is bound to inspire, move, and surprise readers. Thoughtful and revealing, it is a brilliant and original blueprint for leadership.

     

  7. Trouble & Triumph: A Novel of Power & Beauty by Tip “T.I.” Harris
    (William Morrow, 2012-09-18, Hardcover)
    Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist, music producer, and actor T.I. and his bestselling celebrity collaborator, David Ritz, continue the explosive story of Power and Beauty that began in the street-lit epic Power & Beauty. When his mother, Charlotte, was killed, Paul “Power” Clay and his closest friend, Tanya “Beauty” Long, fell under the spell of a savvy and ruthless Atlanta businessman named Slim, who promised to protect them. Wise beyond her years, Beauty always knew that the only person she could rely on was herself. It didn’t take long for the levelheaded young woman to recognize the simmering violence beneath Slim’s street charm. But getting away from him wasn’t easy, and it came at a heartbreaking price: turning her back on Power. Escaping to the glamorous catwalks of the Big Apple, she’s worked her breathtaking good looks and quick wit to build a thriving fashion business. Despite her success, she’s still haunted by the pain of leaving Power behind. Money and new men cannot erase the memory of the true love she denied. To Power, Slim’s world held everything he thought he wanted: women, wealth, power, authority. He discovered too late that Slim Simmons isn’t just a businessman—he’s a ruthless killer who will turn on anyone he thinks is getting in his way. He is the monster who murdered Charlotte. Now, he controls the fate of her only son. But neither Slim nor Power count on Beauty. Like Slim, she is a master who will manipulate, seduce, and sacrifice to get what she wants. She’s never let anything stop her from fulfilling her desires, and she will broker a dangerous bargain to save the only man she’s ever loved. But is saving Power worth sacrificing herself—body and soul? Will his youthful ambitions lead him to redemption—or deeper into the darkness? Will they both become everything they swore they’d never be? A tale of gangstas and sistas, money masters and politicians, that moves across the globe from Paris to New York, Atlanta to Tokyo, the Caribbean to California, Trouble & Triumph is a hip-hop mash-up of loyalty, betrayal, revenge, desire, greed, family, politics, and absolution—and of two unforgettable young star-crossed lovers from the streets who will risk everything for their dreams . . . and for each other.

     

  8. Salvage the Bones: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
    (Bloomsbury USA, 2012-04-24, Paperback)
    Winner of the 2011 National Book Award A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn’t show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family-motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce-pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.

     

  9. The Cartel 4 by Ashley and JaQuavis
    (Kensington, 2012-11-01, Paperback)
    [MP3CD audiobook format in vinyl case.] [Read by Cary Hite] New York Times bestselling authors Ashley and JaQuavis deliver the highly anticipated fourth installment of the wildly popular ‘Cartel’ series. You thought the Cartel was over, but Diamonds are forever . . . The Diamond family has survived murder, deceit, and betrayal. Through it all, they’re still standing tall, and a new era has begun. After surviving an attempt on her life, Breeze has moved into the queen’s position by Zyir’s side. Zyir has taken over the empire and locked down Miami’s streets; the world is in his hands. But there is always new blood ready to overthrow the throne. Young Carter has retired and moved away from the madness — that is, until he gets an unexpected visitor at his home. This person shakes up the whole family, causing chaos that threatens to bring down the Cartel for good. [*Produced by Buck 50 Productions]

     

  10. Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson
    (Grand Central Publishing, 2012-05-22, Paperback)
    The only wayDetective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he’s ever been part of. The President’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school – an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want Cross too close.To stop Alex CrossA deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat-out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes Cross completely over the edge.Is to kill himWith each hour that passes, the chance of finding the children alive diminishes. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. Even the highest security clearance doesn’t get him any closer to the kidnapper – and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes. A full-throttle thriller with unstoppable action, unrestrained emotion, and relentless suspense, Kill Alex Cross is the most gripping Alex Cross novel James Patterson has ever written.

     

  11. An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny by Laura Schroff
    (Howard Books, 2012-08-07, Paperback)
    Stopping was never part of the plan . . . She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless, eleven-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades. Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some may call it heart. It drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.

     

  12. Home by Toni Morrison
    (Knopf, 2012-05-08, Hardcover)
    America’s most celebrated novelist, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison extends her profound take on our history with this twentieth-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war.Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood—and his home.

     

  13. The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony
    (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012-05-22, Paperback)
    When South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a herd of “rogue” wild elephants on his Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand, his common sense told him to refuse. But he was the herd’s last chance of survival: they would be killed if he wouldn’t take them. In order to save their lives, Anthony took them in. In the years that followed he became a part of their family. And as he battled to create a bond with the elephants, he came to realize that they had a great deal to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom. The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad account of Anthony’s experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. Set against the background of life on an African game reserve, with unforgettable characters and exotic wildlife, it is a delightful book that will appeal to animal lovers and adventurous souls everywhere.

     

  14. Open City: A Novel by Teju Cole
    (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2012-01-17, Paperback)
    A haunting novel about identity, dislocation, and history, Teju Cole’s Open City is a profound work by an important new author who has much to say about our country and our world.   Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor named Julius wanders, reflecting on his relationships, his recent breakup with his girlfriend, his present, his past. He encounters people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his own soul.

     

  15. Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story by Daphne Sheldrick
    (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012-05-08, Hardcover)
    Daphne Sheldrick, whose family arrived in Africa from Scotland in the 1820s, is the first person ever to have successfully hand-reared newborn elephants. Her deep empathy and understanding, her years of observing Kenya’s rich variety of wildlife, and her pioneering work in perfecting the right husbandry and milk formula have saved countless elephants, rhinos, and other baby animals from certain death. In this heartwarming and poignant memoir, Daphne shares her amazing relationships with a host of orphans, including her first love, Bushy, a liquid-eyed antelope; Rickey-Tickey-Tavey, the little dwarf mongoose; Gregory Peck, the busy buffalo weaver bird; Huppety, the mischievous zebra; and the majestic elephant Eleanor, with whom Daphne has shared more than forty years of great friendship.  But this is also a magical and heartbreaking human love story between Daphne and David Sheldrick, the famous Tsavo Park warden. It was their deep and passionate love, David’s extraordinary insight into all aspects of nature, and the tragedy of his early death that inspired Daphne’s vast array of achievements, most notably the founding of the world-renowned David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Orphans’ Nursery in Nairobi National Park, where Daphne continues to live and work to this day.  Encompassing not only David and Daphne’s tireless campaign for an end to poaching and for conserving Kenya’s wildlife, but also their ability to engage with the human side of animals and their rearing of the orphans expressly so they can return to the wild, Love, Life, and Elephants is alive with compassion and humor, providing a rare insight into the life of one of the world’s most remarkable women.

     

  16. The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon
    (Grand Central Publishing, 2012-02-13, Paperback)
    It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and have been left to languish, forgotten. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher and widow. But the couple is not alone-Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl. When the authorities catch up to them that same night, Homan escapes into the darkness, and Lynnie is caught. But before she is forced back into the institution, she whispers two words to Martha: “Hide her.” And so begins the 40-year epic journey of Lynnie, Homan, Martha, and baby Julia-lives divided by seemingly insurmountable obstacles, yet drawn together by a secret pact and extraordinary love.

     

  17. Murderville 2: The Epidemic by Ashley
    (Cash Money Content, 2012-07-24, Paperback)
    New York Times best-selling authors Ashley & JaQuavis are back with the second installment in the epic Murderville Series. Love, murder, loyalty, and money fill this hood tale as they continue this international street saga. With Samad’s target on her back, Liberty must survive the harsh streets alone. but when a chance encounter pushes her into the arms of a new friend, Po, the two take on the California kingpin and step full force into the game. As bullets and sparks fly, the unlikely pair embark on a serendipitous journey back to where it all started, Sierra Leone. With a new overseas connection, Po sees an opportunity that is too good to pass up. When his pursuit of the American dream conflicts with Liberty’s past, will they be able to survive? Or will the drug empire that they’ve built together come crashing down?

     

  18. The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter
    (Knopf, 2012-07-10, Hardcover)
    From the best-selling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, a daring reimagining of one of the most tumultuous moments in our nation’s past   Stephen L. Carter’s thrilling new novel takes as its starting point an alternate history: President Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Two years later he is charged with overstepping his constitutional authority, both during and after the Civil War, and faces an impeachment trial . . . Twenty-one-year-old Abigail Canner is a young black woman with a degree from Oberlin, a letter of employment from the law firm that has undertaken Lincoln’s defense, and the iron-strong conviction, learned from her late mother, that “whatever limitations society might place on ordinary negroes, they would never apply to her.” And so Abigail embarks on a life that defies the norms of every stratum of Washington society: working side by side with a white clerk, meeting the great and powerful of the nation, including the president himself.  But when Lincoln’s lead counsel is found brutally murdered on the eve of the trial, Abigail is plunged into a treacherous web of intrigue and conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the divided government. Here is a vividly imagined work of historical fiction that captures the emotional tenor of post–Civil War America, a brilliantly realized courtroom drama that explores the always contentious question of the nature of presidential authority, and a galvanizing story of political suspense.

     

  19. Running for My Life: One Lost Boy’s Journey from the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games by Lopez Lomong
    (Thomas Nelson, 2012-07-17, Hardcover)
    Running for My Life is not a story about Africa or track and field athletics. It is about outrunning the devil and achieving the impossible faith, diligence, and the desire to give back. It is the American dream come true and a stark reminder that saving one can help to save thousands more. Lopez Lomong chronicles his inspiring ascent from a barefoot lost boy of the Sudanese Civil War to a Nike sponsored athlete on the US Olympic Team. Though most of us fall somewhere between the catastrophic lows and dizzying highs of Lomong’s incredible life, every reader will find in his story the human spark to pursue dreams that might seem unthinkable, even from circumstances that might appear hopeless. “Lopez Lomong’s story is one of true inspiration. His life is a story of courage, hard work, never giving up, and having hope where there is hopelessness all around. Lopez is a true role model.” ―MICHAEL JOHNSON, Olympic Gold Medalist “This true story of a Sudanese child refugee who became an Olympic star is powerful proof that God gives hope to the hopeless and shines a light in the darkest places. Don’t be surprised if after reading this incredible tale, you find yourself mysteriously drawn to run alongside him.” ―RICHARD STEARNS, president, World Vision US and author of THe Hole in Our Gospel

     

Author JavaNoir
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September 2012′s Bestselling African American Books

September 30, 2012

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

  1. The Cutting Season: A Novel by Attica Locke
    (Harper, 2012-09-18, Hardcover)
    In Black Water Rising, Attica Locke delivered one of the most stunning and sure-handed fiction debuts in recent memory, garnering effusive critical praise, several award nominations, and passionate reader response. Now Locke returns with The Cutting Season, a riveting thriller that intertwines two murders separated across more than a century. Caren Gray manages Belle Vie, a sprawling antebellum plantation that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the past and the present coexist uneasily. The estate’s owners have turned the place into an eerie tourist attraction, complete with full-dress re-enactments and carefully restored slave quarters. Outside the gates, a corporation with ambitious plans has been busy snapping up land from struggling families who have been growing sugar cane for generations, and now replacing local employees with illegal laborers. Tensions mount when the body of a female migrant worker is found in a shallow grave on the edge of the property, her throat cut clean. As the investigation gets under way, the list of suspects grows. But when fresh evidence comes to light and the sheriff’s department zeros in on a person of interest, Caren has a bad feeling that the police are chasing the wrong leads. Putting herself at risk, she ventures into dangerous territory as she unearths startling new facts about a very old mystery—the long-ago disappearance of a former slave—that has unsettling ties to the current murder. In pursuit of the truth about Belle Vie’s history and her own, Caren discovers secrets about both cases—ones that an increasingly desperate killer will stop at nothing to keep buried. Taut, hauntingly resonant, and beautifully written, The Cutting Season is at once a thoughtful meditation on how America reckons its past with its future, and a high-octane page-turner that unfolds with tremendous skill and vision. With her rare gift for depicting human nature in all its complexities, Attica Locke demonstrates once again that she is “destined for literary stardom” (Dallas Morning News).

     

  2. Trouble & Triumph: A Novel of Power & Beauty by Tip “T.I.” Harris
    (William Morrow, 2012-09-18, Hardcover)
    Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist, music producer, and actor T.I. and his bestselling celebrity collaborator, David Ritz, continue the explosive story of Power and Beauty that began in the street-lit epic Power & Beauty. When his mother, Charlotte, was killed, Paul “Power” Clay and his closest friend, Tanya “Beauty” Long, fell under the spell of a savvy and ruthless Atlanta businessman named Slim, who promised to protect them. Wise beyond her years, Beauty always knew that the only person she could rely on was herself. It didn’t take long for the levelheaded young woman to recognize the simmering violence beneath Slim’s street charm. But getting away from him wasn’t easy, and it came at a heartbreaking price: turning her back on Power. Escaping to the glamorous catwalks of the Big Apple, she’s worked her breathtaking good looks and quick wit to build a thriving fashion business. Despite her success, she’s still haunted by the pain of leaving Power behind. Money and new men cannot erase the memory of the true love she denied. To Power, Slim’s world held everything he thought he wanted: women, wealth, power, authority. He discovered too late that Slim Simmons isn’t just a businessman—he’s a ruthless killer who will turn on anyone he thinks is getting in his way. He is the monster who murdered Charlotte. Now, he controls the fate of her only son. But neither Slim nor Power count on Beauty. Like Slim, she is a master who will manipulate, seduce, and sacrifice to get what she wants. She’s never let anything stop her from fulfilling her desires, and she will broker a dangerous bargain to save the only man she’s ever loved. But is saving Power worth sacrificing herself—body and soul? Will his youthful ambitions lead him to redemption—or deeper into the darkness? Will they both become everything they swore they’d never be? A tale of gangstas and sistas, money masters and politicians, that moves across the globe from Paris to New York, Atlanta to Tokyo, the Caribbean to California, Trouble & Triumph is a hip-hop mash-up of loyalty, betrayal, revenge, desire, greed, family, politics, and absolution—and of two unforgettable young star-crossed lovers from the streets who will risk everything for their dreams . . . and for each other.

     

  3. The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America by Edward J. Blum
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012-09-21, Hardcover)
    How is it that in America the image of Jesus Christ has been used both to justify the atrocities of white supremacy and to inspire the righteousness of civil rights crusades? In The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey weave a tapestry of American dreams and visions–from witch hunts to web pages, Harlem to Hollywood, slave cabins to South Park, Mormon revelations to Indian reservations–to show how Americans remade the Son of God visually time and again into a sacred symbol of their greatest aspirations, deepest terrors, and mightiest strivings for racial power and justice. The Color of Christ uncovers how, in a country founded by Puritans who destroyed depictions of Jesus, Americans came to believe in the whiteness of Christ. Some envisioned a white Christ who would sanctify the exploitation of Native Americans and African Americans and bless imperial expansion. Many others gazed at a messiah, not necessarily white, who was willing and able to confront white supremacy. The color of Christ still symbolizes America’s most combustible divisions, revealing the power and malleability of race and religion from colonial times to the presidency of Barack Obama.

     

  4. Every Little Thing: Based on the song ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley by Bob Marley
    (Chronicle Books, 2012-09-12, Hardcover)
    Bob Marley’s songs are known the world over for their powerful message of love, peace, and harmony. Now a whole new generation can discover one of his most joyous songs in this reassuring picture book adaptation written by his daughter Cedella and exuberantly illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton. This upbeat story reminds children that the sun will always come out after the rain and mistakes are easily forgiven with a hug. Every family will relate to this universal story of one boy who won’t let anything get him down, as long as he has the help of three very special little birds. Including all the lyrics of the original song plus new verses, this cheerful book will bring a smile to faces of all ages—because every little thing’s gonna be all right!

     

  5. A Gangster and A Gentleman by Kiki Swinson
    (Dafina, 2012-09-25, Paperback)

     

  6. Murder Was the Case by Kiki Swinson
    (Melodrama Pub, 2012-09-18, Paperback)

     

  7. Surrender to a Donovan (Kimani Romance) by A.C. Arthur
    (Harlequin Kimani, 2012-09-18, Mass Market Paperback)
    Sean Donovan is a man on a mission—to discover who is behind the popular relationship column that has transformed his family-owned magazine into Miami’s hippest glossy. But Tate Dennison isn’t the sassy columnist the hardworking bachelor expected. Nor is he prepared for the flash fire of passion the stunning single mother arouses.…The hunky magazine executive wants to mix business with pleasure, but Tate has one hard and fast rule: never fall for the boss! The once-burned advice columnist has no intention of becoming the devastatingly attractive playboy’s latest conquest. But what woman can resist Sean’s charms? Once she’s sampled his kisses, can Tate protect her heart—even when a sabotage plot threatens the Donovan empire and their possible future together?

     

  8. My Destiny (Arabesque) by Adrianne Byrd
    (Harlequin Kimani Arabesque, 2012-09-18, Mass Market Paperback)
    When it comes to matchmaking, will two longtime friends put their relationship on the line for the sake of love?For ten years lawyer Destiny Brockman saw her carefree—but very, very fine—neighbor Miles Stafford as just a good friend. After all, she was totally focused on her career and he was the type of brother who put the P in player. So when she swore up and down that there were no good men in Atlanta, Miles proposes a friendly wager. They would set each other up on a date with the perfect match. But the undeniable attraction between them that’s been simmering for years could put Destiny in danger of losing the bet…and winning the sweetest reward.

     

  9. Divine Intervention (Hallelujah Love) by Lutishia Lovely
    (Dafina, 2012-09-25, Paperback)

     

  10. Seduction’s Shift (Shadow Shifters) by A.C. Arthur
    (St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2012-09-25, Mass Market Paperback)
    Seduction’s Shift A.C. Arthur They hide their true nature from the world—part man and part animal—sworn to defend the human race against the untamed beasts among them… She was his first love, his only love. But trying to rescue his beautiful Ary from captivity is one wild risk no man should take. Luckily, Nick Delgado is no ordinary man. His work in the urban jungle as a high-powered litigator has only fueled his ferocity, enflamed his passion—and sharpened his claws—to protect his mate. Ary is a born healer who has devoted her life to the tribe—and her heart to Nick. But when the fierce  and sadistic Sabar turns his jaguar eyes upon her, Ary becomes the unwilling pawn in a deadly game of shifting alliances. One man wants to use her talents to enslave humanity. The other wants to free her from their natural enemy. If Nick hopes to save Ary, he must unleash the beast within—and fight for the woman he loves…

     

  11. The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War by David S. Cecelski
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012-09-29, Hardcover)
    Abraham H. Galloway (1837-70) was a fiery young slave rebel, radical abolitionist, and Union spy who rose out of bondage to become one of the most significant and stirring black leaders in the South during the Civil War. Throughout his brief, mercurial life, Galloway fought against slavery and injustice. He risked his life behind enemy lines, recruited black soldiers for the North, and fought racism in the Union army’s ranks. He also stood at the forefront of an African American political movement that flourished in the Union-occupied parts of North Carolina, even leading a historic delegation of black southerners to the White House to meet with President Lincoln and to demand the full rights of citizenship. He later became one of the first black men elected to the North Carolina legislature. Long hidden from history, Galloway’s story reveals a war unfamiliar to most of us. As David Cecelski writes, “Galloway’s Civil War was a slave insurgency, a war of liberation that was the culmination of generations of perseverance and faith.” This riveting portrait illuminates Galloway’s life and deepens our insight into the Civil War and Reconstruction as experienced by African Americans in the South.

     

  12. Pym: A Novel by Mat Johnson
    (Spiegel & Grau, 2012-09-04, Paperback)
    “THE SHARPEST AND MOST UNUSUAL STORY I READ LAST YEAR . . . [Mat] Johnson’s satirical vision roves as freely as Kurt Vonnegut’s and is colored with the same sort of passionate humanitarianism.”—Maud Newton, New York Times MagazineNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Vanity Fair • Houston Chronicle • The Seattle Times • Salon • National Post • The A.V. Club  Recently canned professor of American literature Chris Jaynes has just made a startling discovery: the manuscript of a crude slave narrative that confirms the reality of Edgar Allan Poe’s strange and only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Determined to seek out Tsalal, the remote island of pure and utter blackness that Poe describes, Jaynes convenes an all-black crew of six to follow Pym’s trail to the South Pole, armed with little but the firsthand account from which Poe derived his seafaring tale, a bag of bones, and a stash of Little Debbie snack cakes. Thus begins an epic journey by an unlikely band of adventurers under the permafrost of Antarctica, beneath the surface of American history, and behind one of literature’s great mysteries.   “Outrageously entertaining, [Pym] brilliantly re-imagines and extends Edgar Allan Poe’s enigmatic and unsettling Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. . . . Part social satire, part meditation on race in America, part metafiction and, just as important, a rollicking fantasy adventure . . . reminiscent of Philip Roth in its seemingly effortless blend of the serious, comic and fantastic.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post“Blisteringly funny.”—Laura Miller, Salon“Relentlessly entertaining.”—The New York Times Book Review “Imagine Kurt Vonnegut having a beer with Ralph Ellison and Jules Verne.”—Vanity Fair “Screamingly funny . . . Reading Pym is like opening a big can of whoop-ass and then marveling—gleefully—at all the mayhem that ensues.”—Houston Chronicle

     

  13. Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile by
    (The American University in Cairo Press, 2012-09-06, Hardcover)
    For most of the modern world, ancient Nubia seems an unknown and enigmatic land. Only a handful of archaeologists have studied its history or unearthed the Nubian cities, temples, and cemeteries that once dotted the landscape of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nubia’s remote setting in the midst of an inhospitable desert, with access by river blocked by impassable rapids, has lent it not only an air of mystery, but also isolated it from exploration. Over the past century, particularly during this last generation, scholars have begun to focus more attention on the fascinating cultures of ancient Nubia, ironically prompted by the construction of large dams that have flooded vast tracts of the ancient land.This book attempts to document some of what has recently been discovered about ancient Nubia, with its remarkable history, architecture, and culture, and thereby to give us a picture of this rich, but unfamiliar, African legacy.

     

  14. Between Heaven and Here by Susan Straight
    (McSweeney’s, 2012-09-12, Hardcover)
    In August in Rio Seco, California, the ground is too hard to bury a body. But Glorette Picard is dead, and across the canal, out in the orange groves, they’ll gather shovels and pickaxes and soak the dirt until they can lay her coffin down. First, someone needs to find her son Victor, who memorizes SAT words to avoid the guys selling rock, and someone needs to tell her uncle Enrique, who will be the one to hunt down her killer, and someone needs to brush out her perfect crown of hair and paint her cracked toenails. As the residents of this dry-creek town prepare to bury their own, it becomes clear that Glorette’s life and death are deeply entangled with the dark history of the city and the untouchable beauty that, finally, killed her.

     

  15. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color by Nina G. Jablonski
    (University of California Press, 2012-09-27, Hardcover)
    Living Color is the first book to investigate the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body’s most visible trait influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, Nina G. Jablonski begins with the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, explaining how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe. She explores the relationship between melanin pigment and sunlight, and examines the consequences of rapid migrations, vacations, and other lifestyle choices that can create mismatches between our skin color and our environment.Richly illustrated, this book explains why skin color has come to be a biological trait with great social meaning– a product of evolution perceived by culture. It considers how we form impressions of others, how we create and use stereotypes, how negative stereotypes about dark skin developed and have played out through history–including being a basis for the transatlantic slave trade. Offering examples of how attitudes about skin color differ in the U.S., Brazil, India, and South Africa, Jablonski suggests that a knowledge of the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism.

     

  16. Lesson in Romance (Kimani Romance) by Harmony Evans
    (Harlequin Kimani, 2012-09-18, Mass Market Paperback)
    Alex Dovington is a man with a secret. The internationally famous jazz musician never learned to read. If the world—and his legions of fans—knew, it would be a disaster. When he learns Cara Williams has been hired to teach him, he is reluctant to follow the plan. The sultry teacher will be given only three days to teach the music legend everything she knows. But the instructor becomes the student when Alex turns their mountaintop classroom into a sensual duet of passion.Cara will do anything to keep the doors of her Harlem literacy center open. Even tutor the scandalously handsome saxophone player at his romantic weekend retreat. Alex may be schooling her in the fine art of lovemaking, but Cara has her own secret—one that could tear them apart forever.…

     

  17. After Mandela: The Struggle for Freedom in Post-Apartheid South Africa by Douglas Foster
    (Liveright, 2012-09-10, Hardcover)
    The most important historical and journalistic portrait to date of a teetering nation whose destiny will determine the fate of a continent.A brutally honest exposé, After Mandela provides a sobering portrait of a country caught between a democratic future and a political meltdown. Recent works have focused primarily on Nelson Mandela’s transcendent story. But Douglas Foster, a leading South Africa authority with early, unprecedented access to President Zuma and to the next generation in the Mandela family, traces the nation’s entire post-apartheid arc, from its celebrated beginnings under “Madiba” to Thabo Mbeki’s tumultuous rule to the ferocious battle between Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Foster tells this story not only from the point of view of the emerging black elite but also, drawing on hundreds of rare interviews over a six-year period, from the perspectives of ordinary citizens, including an HIV-infected teenager living outside Johannesburg and a homeless orphan in Cape Town. This is the long-awaited, revisionist account of a country whose recent history has been not just neglected but largely ignored by the West. 8 pages of illustrations

     

  18. Champagne Kisses (Kimani Romance) by Zuri Day
    (Harlequin Kimani, 2012-09-18, Mass Market Paperback)
    An heir to Southern California’s most fabled vineyard, Donovan Drake works as hard as he plays. Betrayed by love in the past, the consummate bachelor prides himself on never committing to one woman. But Marissa Hayes isn’t just any woman. And Donovan has just two weeks to show the guarded, voluptuous beauty exactly what she’s been missing.…Falling for her boss is number one on Marissa’s list of don’ts. But from the moment she experiences Donovan’s intoxicating touch, her heart tells her something else. Slowly but surely, his seduction is breaking down her defenses. Is their passion as fleeting as her brief stay at Donovan’s fabulous resort? Or have they found a love as timeless as the finest wine—strong enough to withstand anything, even a threat from Marissa’s past?

     

  19. Evidence of Desire (Kimani Romance) by Pamela Yaye
    (Harlequin Kimani, 2012-09-18, Mass Market Paperback)
    Azure Ellison may have undergone a total makeover, but she never expects to be romanced by Harper Hamilton, her former prep school friend. The ambitious journalist is after a career-making story about Harper’s powerful Philadelphia family. But the charismatic attorney wants something from Azure in return: her vow to become his lawful wife in a marriage of convenience!Harper can’t believe the girl he once knew has transformed into this stunning, successful beauty. The longtime bachelor has his own reasons for proposing, but Azure has awakened a desire he’s determined to consummate. With the paparazzi eager for the wedding of the year, Harper is ready to start his honeymoon. Until a breaking scandal about the Hamilton dynasty threatens his marriage to the woman he now wants to have and to hold forever…

     

  20. One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina
    (Graywolf Press, 2012-09-04, Paperback)
    “A Kenyan Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . . . suffused by a love affair with language.”—Publishers Weekly, Top Ten Books of 2011In this vivid and compelling memoir, Binyavanga Wainaina tumbles through his middle-class Kenyan childhood out of kilter with the world around him. In One Day I Will Write About This Place, named a 2011 New York Times notable book, Wainaina brilliantly evokes family, tribe, and nationhood in joyous, ecstatic language.

     

Author JavaNoir
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July 2012′s Bestselling African American Books

August 18, 2012

Here are the bestsellers for African American books that came out in July 2012 (from Amazon.com).

  1. She Was A Friend of Mine by Jasheem Wilson
    (Unique Entertainments, 2012-07-24, Kindle Edition)
    Scheyenne Iverson was as normal a girl could be growing up in East Palo Alto until her thirteenth birthday. As a present she receives a dead family and a missing brother who mysteriously vanished around the same time the fire consumed her family. Shi battles with love, depression, friendship, betrayal and grief in this tale of revenge. When Shi snaps and decides to be a victim no more. She soon finds herself in the middle of the drug game married to the man who just might have killed her family. A victim of the streets Shi refuses to be next. With no one other than her best friend who’s been with her since birth Shi finds out the hard way why it’s wise to keep your enemies close…and your friends closer?

     

  2. Unfaithful (Krystal) by Soweto Satir
    (Brothahood Entertainment, 2012-07-14, Kindle Edition)
    Krystal is back, she’s older, smarter, wiser and her son is growing up. Can he save his mother from a life behind bars? Can he hold his family together? Love, intrigue, betrayal….nobody could predict the way this book comes to an end!

     

  3. The Corruption Chronicles: Obama’s Big Secrecy, Big Corruption, and Big Government by Tom Fitton
    (Threshold Editions, 2012-07-24, Hardcover)
    In 2008, Barack Obama made a promise to have the “most transparent administration” of any U.S. president; it was the very cornerstone of his campaign. No secrets. No masks. No smoke and mirrors. No excuses. But over the next four years, President Obama’s administration would prove to be one of the most guarded and duplicitous of our time. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, America’s largest nonpartisan government watchdog (challenging George W. Bush as well as Bill Clinton), has been investigating Obama ever since he splashed onto the national scene in 2006. Now Fitton exposes devastating secrets the Obama administration has desperately fought—even in court—to keep from the American public. For a while, the Obama stonewall seemed to be holding. Until now. And the revelations are astonishing.

     

  4. The Mercy Seat (The Freedom Baptist Trilogy) by Alvetta Rolle
    (Ellechor Publishing House, LLC, 2012-07-02, Kindle Edition)
    Going from raunchy to redeemed is not easy. When 19 year old prostitute Sofia Douglas walks into Freedom Baptist to reconcile with her mentally abusive foster mother Julia Aaron, she is met with much more than she bargained for.Although befriended by an elderly church mother by the name of Ruth Stills, she begins to fall for Ruth’s son Xavier who is handsome, caring, a minister… and married. Sofia begins an endless cycle of trying to stifle mutual feelings for a married man of God, and combat the bitterness of a mother who has her own issues, both spiritually and psychologically.With the arrival of the mysterious Sofia walks at the last night of revival, Xavier Stills and Felecia’s already troubled marriage takes a tumultuous turn for the worst. Felecia and Xavier now have to fight to save their diminishing relationship, even as they try to ward off the temptation of yielding to outside influences.

     

  5. The Communist by Paul Kengor
    (Mercury Ink, 2012-07-17, Hardcover)
    In his memoir, Barack Obama omits the full name of his mentor, simply calling him “Frank.” Now, the truth is out: Never has a figure as deeply troubling and controversial as Frank Marshall Davis had such an impact on the development of an American president. Although other radical influences on Obama, from Jeremiah Wright to Bill Ayers, have been scrutinized, the public knows little about Davis, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, cited by the Associated Press as an “important influence” on Obama, one whom he “looked to” not merely for “advice on living” but as a “father” figure.

     

  6. Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum
    (Ballantine Books, 2012-07-10, Hardcover)
    They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers.   In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation.   As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. For the duration of the Olympics, he lived with, golfed with, and—most important—drank with some of the greatest players of the NBA’s Golden Age: Magic Johnson, the ebullient showman who shrugged off his recent diagnosis of HIV to become the team’s unquestioned captain and leader; Michael Jordan, the transcendent talent at the height of his powers as a player—and a marketing juggernaut; and Charles Barkley, the outspoken iconoclast whose utterances on and off the court threatened to ignite an international incident.

     

  7. Ski Mask Gang by Boo Jackson
    (2012-07-27, Kindle Edition)
    Nasir has been friends with Desmond and Damon since high school. They chased girls together, played sports together, and committed robberies together. Knocking over convenience stores was the thing to do when they were kids, but greed caused them to raise the stakes and attempt to knock over a bank. As the saying goes “There’s no honor amongst thieves.” Come take a look into the lives of these three young men and see just how true that statement is.

     

  8. With This Kiss (Welcome to Nottoway) by Candice Poarch
    (Candice Poarch, 2012-07-03, Kindle Edition)
    When Phoenix Dye returns to Nottoway, Virginia, after an eleven year absence, little did he know that the bothersome triplets who live across the road from him are his children by the only woman he has ever loved.Karina Wallace once believed in love, too, but all that changed after that one incredible summer spent with Phoenix. He disappeared without a trace, leaving her pregnant and alone. Now he’s back and she’s torn between telling him the truth or leaving things as they are. She feels Phoenix will only be in town for a short time. Why let the triplets fall in love with him only to be heartbroken when he leaves? But when she is blackmailed, will she be forced to tell him the truth?

     

  9. They Call Me…Montey Greene (The Montey Greene Action Thriller Series) by A.R. Yoba
    (GhettoSuburbia Entertainment, 2012-07-03, Kindle Edition)
    WHO IS MONTEY GREENE? WHY DOES EVERYBODY WANT TO KNOW HIS NAME THEN WANT HIM DEAD?

     

  10. Already Taken by Love Lee
    (Dahl House Publications, 2012-07-08, Kindle Edition)
    Being the wifey of a dope boy is no easy task, just ask Fallon Hall. Late nights, early mornings, and broken promises were all that she’d ever known with Cash. Fed up with feeling like the mistress while the streets were his main chick, she broke things off with him. Now a year later, Fallon still can’t get Cash out of her head and neither could he. A chance encounter with Cash reveals that he is finally ready to make his exit from the streets and marry the woman of his dreams. There’s only one rift in their fairytale ever after…What do you do when the woman you love is already taken by your older brother?

     

  11. The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian
    (Doubleday, 2012-07-17, Hardcover)
    The Sandcastle Girls is a sweeping historical love story steeped in Chris Bohjalian’s Armenian heritage.When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing,  and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language.  The year is 1915 and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide.  There Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.  When Armen leaves Aleppo and travels south into Egypt to join the British army, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.Fast forward to the present day, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York.  Although her grandparents’ ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed “The Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss – and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

     

  12. If I Can’t Have You by Mary B. Morrison
    (Kensington Books, 2012-07-31, Kindle Edition)
    What really makes a man plunge headlong into obsession? And what does he do past the point of no return? New York Times bestselling author Mary B. Morrison delivers a seductive, mesmerizing tale of “love” gone dangerously wrong. . .Madison is my woman. She needs me. This is the mantra Granville Washington constantly repeats to others, including the friends and family who beg him to respect Madison Tyler’s demand that he leave her alone. Sure, Granville knows they’re as different as can be. He’s a construction worker, ball-and-chained to the Houston grid, while brilliant, beautiful Madison runs her own multi-million dollar company. But he also knows she can’t resist the way he kisses every inch of her just right. After only three months, Granville is sure she’s everything he desires in a wife. If Madison only knew the real him, she’d realize they belong together. And he’ll do anything to make her his. Forever. What part of “I’m not in a relationship with you,” didn’t Granville understand? No matter how direct Madison is, Granville just doesn’t get it. He was fine when it came to putting in overtime burning up the sheets, but that’s where their connection ends–or so she thinks. Once the stalking begins, Madison files a police report. She’s determined to take her life back. But once she moves on for real, Granville has a surprise for her. . .when she least expects it. Madison is about to discover just how far he will go to have and to hold her. Whether she wants him or not.

     

Author JavaNoir
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July 2012′s Bestselling African American Books

July 8, 2012

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

  1. Checkmate – The Baddest Chick by Nisa Santiago
    (Melodrama Publishing, 2012-07-03, Paperback)
    The Baddest Chick Motto: Your time at the top is short-lived. Enjoy it while you can. Kola, the reigning Queen of New York, has Harlem on lock and is making paper hand over fist. If the stresses of hustling hard weren’t enough, the love of her life is mixed up with a Brooklyn chick, a bounty has been put on her head for a hit she didn’t sanction, and her sister’s ex-man, Chico, is trying to rock her to sleep. Kola has 99 problems, but Apple ain’t one. Apple, gone but not forgotten while trapped in a Mexican hellhole, is still the most hated chick in New York. She’s low on friends and can’t seem to climb back up on her pedestal. With revenge in her heart and murder on her mind, Apple attempts to overcome her situation just in time to reclaim her title as The Baddest Chick the world has ever seen.

     

  2. The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter
    (Knopf, 2012-07-10, Hardcover)
    From the best-selling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, a daring reimagining of one of the most tumultuous moments in our nation’s past   Stephen L. Carter’s thrilling new novel takes as its starting point an alternate history: President Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Two years later he is charged with overstepping his constitutional authority, both during and after the Civil War, and faces an impeachment trial . . . Twenty-one-year-old Abigail Canner is a young black woman with a degree from Oberlin, a letter of employment from the law firm that has undertaken Lincoln’s defense, and the iron-strong conviction, learned from her late mother, that “whatever limitations society might place on ordinary negroes, they would never apply to her.” And so Abigail embarks on a life that defies the norms of every stratum of Washington society: working side by side with a white clerk, meeting the great and powerful of the nation, including the president himself.  But when Lincoln’s lead counsel is found brutally murdered on the eve of the trial, Abigail is plunged into a treacherous web of intrigue and conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the divided government. Here is a vividly imagined work of historical fiction that captures the emotional tenor of post–Civil War America, a brilliantly realized courtroom drama that explores the always contentious question of the nature of presidential authority, and a galvanizing story of political suspense.

     

  3. Murderville 2: The Epidemic (Murderville Trilogy) by Ashley Coleman
    (Cash Money Content, 2012-07-24, Paperback)
    New York Times best-selling authors Ashley & JaQuavis are back with the second installment in the epic Murderville Series. Love, murder, loyalty, and money fill this hood tale as they continue this international street saga. With Samad’s target on her back, Liberty must survive the harsh streets alone. but when a chance encounter pushes her into the arms of a new friend, Po, the two take on the California kingpin and step full force into the game. As bullets and sparks fly, the unlikely pair embark on a serendipitous journey back to where it all started, Sierra Leone. With a new overseas connection, Po sees an opportunity that is too good to pass up. When his pursuit of the American dream conflicts with Liberty’s past, will they be able to survive? Or will the drug empire that they’ve built together come crashing down?

     

  4. Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America by Tanner Colby
    (Viking Adult, 2012-07-05, Hardcover)
    An incisive and candid look at how America got lost on the way to Dr. King’s Promised LandAlmost fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, equality is the law of the land, but actual integration is still hard to find. Mammoth battles over forced busing, unfair housing practices, and affirmative action have hardly helped. The bleak fact is that black people and white people in the United States don’t spend much time together—at work, school, church, or anywhere. Tanner Colby, himself a child of a white-flight Southern suburb, set out to discover why.Some of My Best Friends Are Black chronicles America’s troubling relationship with race through four interrelated stories: the transformation of a once-racist Birmingham school system; a Kansas City neighborhood’s fight against housing discrimination; the curious racial divide of the Madison Avenue ad world; and a Louisiana Catholic parish’s forty-year effort to build an integrated church. Writing with a reporter’s nose and a stylist’s flair, Colby uncovers the deep emotional fault lines set trembling by race and takes an unflinching look at an America still struggling to reach the mountaintop.

     

  5. The Expendable Man (New York Review Books Classics) by Dorothy B. Hughes, afterword by Walter Mosley
    (NYRB Classics, 2012-07-03, Paperback)
    “It was surprising what old experiences remembered could do to a presumably educated, civilized man.” And Hugh Denismore, a young doctor driving his mother’s Cadillac from Los Angeles to Phoenix, is eminently educated and civilized. He is privileged, would seem to have the world at his feet, even. Then why does the sight of a few redneck teenagers disconcert him? Why is he reluctant to pick up a disheveled girl hitchhiking along the desert highway? And why is he the first person the police suspect when she is found dead in Arizona a few days later?Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir. In books like In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse she exposed a seething discontent underneath the veneer of twentieth-century prosperity. With The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.

     

  6. Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 by Jefferson Morley
    (Nan A. Talese, 2012-07-03, Hardcover)
    A gripping narrative history of the explosive events that drew together Francis Scott Key, Andrew Jackson, and an 18-year-old slave on trial for attempted murder. In 1835, the city of Washington pulsed with change. As newly freed African Americans from the South poured in, free blacks outnumbered slaves for the first time. Radical notions of abolishing slavery circulated on the city’s streets, and white residents were forced to confront new ideas of what the nation’s future might look like.On the night of August 4th, Arthur Bowen, an eighteen-year-old slave, stumbled into the bedroom where his owner, Anna Thornton, slept. He had an ax in the crook of his arm. An alarm was raised, and he ran away. Word of the incident spread rapidly, and within days, Washington’s first race riot exploded, as whites fearing a slave rebellion attacked the property of the free blacks. Residents dubbed the event the “Snow-Storm,” in reference to the central role of Beverly Snow, a flamboyant former slave turned successful restaurateur, who became the target of the mob’s rage.In the wake of the riot came two sensational criminal trials that gripped the city. Prosecuting both cases was none other than Francis Scott Key, a politically ambitious attorney famous for writing the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” who few now remember served as the city’s district attorney for eight years. Key defended slavery until the twilight’s last gleaming, and pandered to racial fears by seeking capital punishment for Arthur Bowen. But in a surprise twist his prosecution was thwarted by Arthur’s ostensible victim, Anna Thornton, a respected socialite who sought the help of President Andrew Jackson.Ranging beyond the familiar confines of the White House and the Capitol, Snow-Storm in August delivers readers into an unknown chapter of American history with a textured and absorbing account of the racial secrets and contradictions that coursed beneath the freewheeling capital of a rising world power.”Snow-Storm in August is the sort of book I most love to read: history so fresh it feels alive, yet introducing me to a time and place that I had little known or utterly misunderstood. After reading Jefferson Morley’s vibrant account, one can never hear ’The Star-Spangled Banner’ the same way again.”—David Maraniss, author of Barack Obama: The Story

     

  7. When Sunday Comes Again by Terry E. Hill
    (Kensington, 2012-07-01, Paperback)

     

  8. Tell Me No Secrets by Nikki Michelle
    (Kensington, 2012-07-01, Paperback)

     

  9. Beautiful, Dirty, Rich: A Novel by J. D. Mason
    (St. Martin’s Press, 2012-07-03, Hardcover)
    A gripping new novel from bestselling author J.D. Mason about a wealthy Texas family and the one woman who holds— and will reveal—all their dirty secrets  Desdimona Green has been the name on everyone’s lips in Blink, Texas. Twenty-five years ago, at the age of eighteen, she shot and killed one of the wealthiest men and pillars of the community, oil baron Julian Gatewood. The Gatewood family was considered untouchable, so the whole state of Texas was rocked to its core over Julian’s murder. They were even more shocked to discover that Desi is Julian’s daughter and her mother had been his lover for years. But when Desi gets out of jail and promptly inherits millions from Julian’s estate, everyone knows that there is much more to the story—and Desi Green is the keeper of the Gatewood secrets, including what happened the night J ulian died. When a famous true crime reporter shows up on her doorstep wanting the full story, Desi agrees to reveal all, much to the horror of the Gatewoods, who will do anything to stop her. But Desi has more than a few tricks up her sleeve…

     

  10. American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) by Robert O. Self
    (Princeton University Press, 2012-07-01, Paperback)
    As the birthplace of the Black Panthers and a nationwide tax revolt, California embodied a crucial motif of the postwar United States: the rise of suburbs and the decline of cities, a process in which black and white histories inextricably joined. American Babylon tells this story through Oakland and its nearby suburbs, tracing both the history of civil rights and black power politics as well as the history of suburbanization and home-owner politics. Robert Self shows that racial inequities in both New Deal and Great Society liberalism precipitated local struggles over land, jobs, taxes, and race within postwar metropolitan development. Black power and the tax revolt evolved together, in tension.American Babylon demonstrates that the history of civil rights and black liberation politics in California did not follow a southern model, but represented a long-term struggle for economic rights that began during the World War II years and continued through the rise of the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. This struggle yielded a wide-ranging and profound critique of postwar metropolitan development and its foundation of class and racial segregation. Self traces the roots of the 1978 tax revolt to the 1940s, when home owners, real estate brokers, and the federal government used racial segregation and industrial property taxes to forge a middle-class lifestyle centered on property ownership.Using the East Bay as a starting point, Robert Self gives us a richly detailed, engaging narrative that uniquely integrates the most important racial liberation struggles and class politics of postwar America.

     

  11. Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now by Touré
    (Free Press, 2012-07-10, Paperback)
    In this provocative book, writer and cultural critic Touré explores the concept of Post-Blackness: the ability for someone to be rooted in but not restricted by their race. Drawing on his own experiences and those of 105 luminaries, he argues that racial identity should be understood as fluid, complex, and self-determined.

     

  12. Keeping Score by Regina Hart
    (Kensington, 2012-07-01, Paperback)
    To be a pro b-ball champion takes endless drive and passion. But being a winner on the court can often mean losing off the court. . .He’s an NBA legend, considered the best of the best. Now veteran player Warrick Evans is determined to lead his team all the way to the championship. It’s his last shot before he retires, but the media can’t get enough of his story–and all the attention is turning his teammates against him, not to mention his wife. . .Dr. Marilyn Devry-Evans has always stood by her man, even when it meant standing in his shadow. Now she wants to focus on her own career, and on scoring her own dream job. But with the spotlight bearing down on them, Marilyn is reaching her breaking point. Especially when a secret comes to light–one that could destroy not only her career, but her marriage. . . Praise for Regina Hart”Sexy, fun, and fast-paced. . .a slam dunk!” –Kate Angell on Fast Break

     

  13. Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Imagination by Salamishah Tillet
    (Duke University Press Books, 2012-07-19, Paperback)
    More than forty years after the major victories of the civil rights movement, African Americans have a vexed relation to the civic myth of the United States as the land of equal opportunity and justice for all. In Sites of Slavery Salamishah Tillet examines how contemporary African American artists and intellectuals – including Annette Gordon-Reed, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Bill T. Jones, Carrie Mae Weems, and Kara Walker – turn to the subject of slavery in order to understand and challenge the ongoing exclusion of African Americans from the founding narratives of the United States. She explains how they reconstruct “sites of slavery” – contested figures, events, memories, locations, and experiences related to chattel slavery – such as the allegations of a sexual relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the characters Uncle Tom and Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, African American tourism to slave forts in Ghana and Senegal, and the legal challenges posed by reparations movements. By claiming and recasting these sites of slavery, contemporary artists and intellectuals provide slaves with an interiority and subjectivity denied them in American history, register the civic estrangement experienced by African Americans in the post-civil rights era, and envision a more fully realized American democracy.

     

  14. Floyd Patterson: The Fighting Life of Boxing’s Invisible Champion by W. K. Stratton
    (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012-07-10, Hardcover)
    A well-researched and overdue tribute. Like one of Patterson’s reliable left hooks, Stratton sharply recounts the life of an important, but often forgotten, two-time world heavyweight champion. — Gary Andrew Poole, author of PacMan: Behind the Scenes with Manny PacquiaoIn 1956, Floyd Patterson became, at age twenty-one, the youngest boxer to claim the title of world heavyweight champion. Later, he was the first ever to lose and regain that honor. Here, the acclaimed author W. K. Stratton chronicles the life of “the Gentle Gladiator” — an athlete overshadowed by Ali’s theatrics and Liston’s fearsome reputation, and a civil rights activist overlooked in the Who’s Who of race politics. From the Gramercy Gym and wildcard manager Cus D’Amato to the final rematch against Ali in 1972, Patterson’s career spanned boxing’s golden age. He won an Olympic gold medal, had bouts with Marciano and Johansson, and was interviewed by James Baldwin, Gay Talese, and Budd Schulberg. A complex, misunderstood figure — he once kissed an opponent at the end of a match — he was known for his peekaboo stance and soft-spoken nature. Floyd Patterson was boxing’s invisible champion, but in this deeply researched and beautifully written biography he comes vividly to life and is finally given his due — as one of the most artful boxers of his time and as one of our great sportsmen, a man who shaped the world in and out of the ring.

     

  15. White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) by Kevin M. Kruse
    (Princeton University Press, 2012-07-01, Paperback)
    During the civil rights era, Atlanta thought of itself as “The City Too Busy to Hate,” a rare place in the South where the races lived and thrived together. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, so many whites fled the city for the suburbs that Atlanta earned a new nickname: “The City Too Busy Moving to Hate.”In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of “white flight” in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms.Challenging the conventional wisdom that white flight meant nothing more than a literal movement of whites to the suburbs, this book argues that it represented a more important transformation in the political ideology of those involved. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, Kruse demonstrates that traditional elements of modern conservatism, such as hostility to the federal government and faith in free enterprise, underwent important transformations during the postwar struggle over segregation. Likewise, white resistance gave birth to several new conservative causes, like the tax revolt, tuition vouchers, and privatization of public services. Tracing the journey of southern conservatives from white supremacy to white suburbia, Kruse locates the origins of modern American politics.

     

  16. The Other Side of Goodness by Vanessa Davis Griggs
    (Dafina, 2012-07-31, Paperback)

     

Author JavaNoir
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May 2012′s Bestselling African American Books

May 6, 2012

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

  1. The Reverend’s Wife (A Reverend Curtis Black Novel) by Kimberla Lawson Roby
    (Grand Central Publishing, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    From New York Times bestselling author Kimberla Lawson Roby comes the ninth installment in her award-winning Reverend Curtis Black series. It’s been months since Reverend Curtis learned that his wife Charlotte had affairs with two different men, and for now, he continues to be cordial and respectful to her. But he’s also made it clear that once their son Matthew graduates high school, he will be filing for divorce. Charlotte, on the other hand, continues to do everything possible to make amends in hopes of saving their marriage. Unfortunately, Curtis is ready to move on and is being propositioned by a woman who desperately wants to become the next Mrs. Curtis Black. When the situation heads down a path that is frighteningly shocking, could it be the final blow to this once blessed union?

     

  2. Home by Toni Morrison
    (Knopf, 2012-05-08, Hardcover)
    America’s most celebrated novelist, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison extends her profound take on our history with this twentieth-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war.Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood—and his home.

     

  3. Dopeman: Memoirs of a Snitch: Part 3 of Dopeman’s Trilogy by JaQuavis Coleman
    (Urban Books, 2012-05-01, Paperback)

     

  4. Boss Bitch (Bitch Series) by Deja King
    (A King Production, 2012-05-15, Paperback)
    Precious Cummings and her daughter Aaliyah Mills Carter must protect the family empire as an unknown enemy tries to step in and take the throne. Can mother and daughter get past their differences and unite as one or will they stay at odds and risk having their loved ones torn apart? The saga continues to unfold in Boss Bitch.

     

  5. God Don’t Make No Mistakes (God Don’t Like Ugly) by Mary Monroe
    (Kensington Books, 2012-05-29, Kindle Edition)
    In the sparkling conclusion to Mary Monroe’s bestselling God series, two forever friends face their biggest betrayals yet and learn the hard way that putting your trust in the wrong hands can change your life forever…These days, Annette Goode Davis has a pretty full plate–literally and figuratively. Although she’s trying to reconcile with her husband, Pee Wee, she’s still seeing other men on the side. A woman’s got to cover her bases, right? With her love life hopping, Annette should be as pleased as punch. Instead, the stress has her eating everything in sight and packing on the pounds along the way. Meanwhile, Annette’s best friend, Rhoda O’Toole, has her hands full–as usual–dealing with her wild child daughter. Jade has always been a cross to bear, but when her antics almost cost Rhoda her man, Rhoda throws Jade out on the street. But Jade soon finds a way to make Rhoda regret her choice…. Privately, Annette thanks her lucky stars that her daughter, Charlotte, has her head on straight. And she’s been doubly blessed to have a strait-laced neighbor look after Charlotte when she’s caught up in Pee Wee and Rhoda’s many problems. But when Annette’s world is rocked by a terrible revelation, she’ll discover that appearances can be very, very deceiving–and she’ll have to summon every ounce of strength she has to protect the ones she loves. “Monroe is a masterful storyteller.” –Philadelphia Inquirer

     

  6. Seduced by a Stallion (Kimani Romance) by Deborah Fletcher Mello
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    Wealthy Texas scion Matthew Stallion is the playboy of the Western world. In the courtroom, he’s unbeatable. On a horse, he’s unstoppable. And in bed…he’s irresistible. But it may be time for the second eldest Stallion son to hang up his Stetson when he clashes with single mother Katrina Broomes. The widowed judge is the epitome of judicial calm and old-fashioned tradition. Until Matthew unleashes her wild passion.The charismatic, eye-catchingly gorgeous attorney is six feet plus of potent masculinity. Katrina doesn’t stand a chance against Matthew’s sensual onslaught. From the chic boulevards of Paris to the sprawling Stallion family ranch, she’s getting a lesson in seduction—Texan style. Because when it comes to love out West…the sky’s the limit!

     

  7. Always in My Heart (Kimani Romance) by Kayla Perrin
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    The oldest of three adopted daughters, Callie Hart has always loved being the protector of the family. But now she is all grown up—with a young son of her own to protect. Callie can’t wait to show him off when she reunites with her two sisters in Ohio. But that also means coming face-to-face with the lover she left behind. Nigel Williams is even more irresistibly attractive than ever. But what will he do when he learns about the secret she kept hidden from him for ten years?Nigel has never forgiven Callie for fleeing Ohio—and the passion they shared. And when she shows up on his doorstep asking for forgiveness, the Cleveland cop is furious at her deception. But how can he deny the feelings Callie reawakens in him? Blindsided once again by the heat of desire, Nigel vows to fight for his future with the woman he has always loved.

     

  8. Natural Born Liar by Noire
    (Dafina, 2012-05-01, Paperback)
    What happens when beautiful, twenty-year-old petty thief and ex-stripper Mink LaRue finds out she’s a dead ringer for the age-progressed photo of the missing oil heiress Sable Dominion?Harlem-born Mink LaRue makes a beeline to Dallas, Texas, pretending to be the Dominion’s long-lost daughter, Sable. She knows she’s hit the jackpot when she and her super ghetto partner in crime, Bowlegged Bunni, are admitted into the Dominion’s 20-room mansion, complete with all the trimmings of a luxurious family estate. But it’s not long before Mink’s newfound siblings grow suspicious of the ghetto princess, who has a rap sheet a mile long. If Mink is to worm her way into their pockets and get her hands on their dough, then she must tell enough lies to convince everyone that she really is the precious daughter who was stolen from their fold. But with a DNA test standing between her and a hefty inheritance, how long can Mink’s bag of lies keep her rolling in the Dominion’s riches? “Urban Erotica has never been hotter!” –Nikki Turner”Noire is Dickens for the age of dojah, donuts and dawgs.” –Publishers Weekly

     

  9. Lost Without You (Kimani Romance) by Yahrah St. John
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    As the creative genius behind Georgia’s most fabled cosmetics dynasty, Shane Adams has a legacy to live up to. The freewheeling Atlanta bachelor also knows how to romance a woman, wining and dining the city’s most eligible beauties. Only Gabrielle Burton seems immune to his legendary charms. Yet Shane has never been able to forget his stunning rival, whose sweet desire is like a lingering perfume.…The hunky Adams Cosmetics VP has always held Gabby spellbound. But the workaholic perfumer never thought she could attract the sexy playboy’s attention. Until she undergoes a major makeover. Suddenly she’s on everyone’s A-list…including Shane’s. As intrigue swirls around the company, is the sensual scent of passion leading Gabby and Shane to love?

     

  10. Aloha Fantasy (Kimani Romance) by Devon Vaughn Archer
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    Award-winning photographer Danica Austin is the essence of urban chic. But with her love life going nowhere fast, she’s more than ready to swap houses for a month in Hawaii. The minute her plane touches down on exotic Hilo, Danica can’t wait to check out the social scene and catch some breathtaking sunsets. Until gorgeous real estate investor Boyd Reed comes into the picture to stake his claim on the house…and her heart!If this stunning stranger thinks she can just move into Boyd’s jointly owned waterfront property, she can think again! Although he must admit: his temporary tenant is one irresistible woman. Sharing passion under tropical skies is making Boyd believe in the power of love. But Danica’s not sure she wants to make Hawaii her home. If only he can just persuade her to spend the rest of her days and nights with him in their one-of-a-kind island paradise.…

     

  11. The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
    (Basic Civitas Books, 2012-05-01, Hardcover)
    Educator, writer, critic, intellectual, film-maker—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has been widely praised as being one of America’s most prominent and prolific scholars. In what will be an essential volume, The Henry Louis Gates Reader collects three decades of writings from his many fields of interest and expertise.From his earliest work of literary-historical excavation in 1982, through his current writings on the history and science of African American genealogy, the essays collected here follow his path as historian, theorist, canon-builder, and cultural critic, revealing a thinker of uncommon breadth whose work is uniformly guided by the drive to uncover and restore a history that has for too long been buried and denied.An invaluable reference, The Henry Louis Gates Reader will be a singular reflection of one of our most gifted minds.

     

  12. The Block by Treasure Hernandez
    (Kensington, 2012-05-01, Paperback)

     

  13. Samurai among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life (Critical American Studies) by Diane C. Fujino
    (Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2012-05-02, Paperback)
    An iconic figure of the Asian American movement, Richard Aoki (1938–2009) was also, as the most prominent non-Black member of the Black Panther Party, a key architect of Afro-Asian solidarity in the 1960s and ’70s. His life story exposes the personal side of political activism as it illuminates the history of ethnic nationalism and radical internationalism in America.A reflection of this interconnection, Samurai among Panthers weaves together two narratives: Aoki’s dramatic first-person chronicle and an interpretive history by a leading scholar of the Asian American movement, Diane C. Fujino. Aoki’s candid account of himself takes us from his early years in Japanese American internment camps to his political education on the streets of Oakland, to his emergence in the Black Panther Party. As his story unfolds, we see how his parents’ separation inside the camps and his father’s illegal activities shaped the development of Aoki’s politics. Fujino situates his life within the context of twentieth-century history—World War II, the Cold War, and the protests of the 1960s. She demonstrates how activism is both an accidental and an intentional endeavor and how a militant activist practice can also promote participatory democracy and social service.The result of these parallel voices and analysis in Samurai among Panthers is a complex—and sometimes contradictory—portrait of a singularly extraordinary activist and an expansion and deepening of our understanding of the history he lived.

     

  14. From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family by James H. Johnston
    (Fordham University Press, 2012-05-14, Hardcover)
    From Slave Ship to Harvard is the true story of an African American family in Maryland over six generations. The author has reconstructed a unique narrative of black struggle and achievement from paintings, photographs, books, diaries, court records, legal documents, and oral histories. From Slave Ship to Harvard traces the family from the colonial period and the American Revolution through the Civil War to Harvard and finally today. Yarrow Mamout, the first of the family in America, was an educated Muslim from Guinea. He was brought to Maryland on the slave ship Elijah and gained his freedom forty-four years later. By then, Yarrow had become so well known in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., that he attracted the attention of the eminent American portrait painter Charles Willson Peale, who captured Yarrow’s visage in the painting that appears on the cover of this book. The author here reveals that Yarrow’s immediate relatives-his sister, niece, wife, and son-were notable in their own right. His son married into the neighboring Turner family, and the farm community in western Maryland called Yarrowsburg was named for Yarrow Mamout’s daughter-in-law, Mary “Polly” Turner Yarrow. The Turner line ultimately produced Robert Turner Ford, who graduated from Harvard University in 1927. Just as Peale painted the portrait of Yarrow, James H. Johnston’s new book puts a face on slavery and paints the history of race in Maryland. It is a different picture from what most of us imagine. Relationships between blacks and whites were far more complex, and the races more dependent on each other. Fortunately, as this one family’s experience shows, individuals of both races repeatedly stepped forward to lessen divisions and to move America toward the diverse society of today.

     

  15. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership by Colin Powell
    (Harper, 2012-05-22, Hardcover)
    It Worked for Me is filled with vivid experiences and lessons learned that have shaped the legendary public service career of the four-star general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. At its heart are Powell’s “Thirteen Rules”—notes he gathered over the years and that now form the basis of his leadership presentations given throughout the world. Powell’s short but sweet rules—among them, “Get mad, then get over it” and “Share credit”—are illustrated by revealing personal stories that introduce and expand upon his principles for effective leadership: conviction, hard work, and, above all, respect for others. In work and in life, Powell writes, “it’s about how we touch and are touched by the people we meet. It’s all about the people.” A natural storyteller, Powell offers warm and engaging parables with wise advice on succeeding in the workplace and beyond. “Trust your people,” he counsels as he delegates presidential briefing responsibilities to two junior State Department desk officers. “Do your best—someone is watching,” he advises those just starting out, recalling his own teenage summer job mopping floors in a soda-bottling factory. Powell combines the insights he has gained serving in the top ranks of the military and in four presidential administrations with the lessons he’s learned from his immigrant-family upbringing in the Bronx, his training in the ROTC, and his growth as an Army officer. The result is a powerful portrait of a leader who is reflective, self-effacing, and grateful for the contributions of everyone he works with. Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me is bound to inspire, move, and surprise readers. Thoughtful and revealing, it is a brilliant and original blueprint for leadership.

     

  16. The Beautiful Ones (Arabesque) by Adrianne Byrd
    (Harlequin Kimani, 2012-05-22, Mass Market Paperback)
    In a sequel to Unforgettable, successful businesswoman Ophelia Missler has never had time to look for Mr. Right—much less find him. Now she’s engaged to wealthy businessman Jonas Hinton and is about to have the wedding of her dreams. But for some reason, she can’t stop thinking about her longtime best friend, Solomon Bassett. She never suspected that Solomon has secretly adored her for years, and has been unable to tell her how he really feels. Now, with their friendship and future in the balance, Solomon and Ophelia will have to listen to their hearts and dare to follow, if they are ever going to discover an everlasting love.

     

  17. Kehinde Wiley by Thelma Golden, Robert Hobbs, Sarah E. Lewis and Brian Keith Jackson
    (Rizzoli, 2012-05-15, Hardcover)
    Known for his oversize paintings of contemporary African-Americans in heroic poses inspired by the great history and portrait painters of the past, Kehinde Wiley’s clever and ironic “reversals” have provided rich commentary on the nature of race and power in our society. His work began primarily from photographs he took of young men on the street in Harlem that he remixed with a fusion of historic painting styles, including elements of the French rococo. As rich visually as it is conceptually, Wiley’s work has drawn attention since his earliest shows in 2001. In the last decade, he has become one of the most important artists of the moment, with work as relevant and resonant to the hip-hop generation as it is to high-end collectors and major museums.This volume—the only comprehensive monograph on Wiley’s work—offers an in-depth understanding of this important artist’s work. It chronicles both the earliest paintings and photographs and his recent forays into sculpture—bust portraits in bronze in the manner of Renaissance artists.  

     

  18. Mistress, Inc. by Niobia Bryant
    (Kensington Books, 2012-05-29, Kindle Edition)
    From the author of Mistress No More comes a sexy, exciting novel about an ex-mistress who’s doing her best to give up her bad-girl ways…When Jessa Bell revealed she was having an affair with one of her best friends’ husbands, no one would have predicted she’d soon be playing the part of the reformed mistress–least of all Jessa. But her experience–and ensuing remorse–has landed her on all the national talk shows and scored her a major book deal. Now that she’s pregnant with her ex-lover’s baby, Jessa’s determined to cash in on all the attention. Trouble is, she isn’t feeling much genuine regret. Shunned by her former friends, Jessa is still being propositioned by married men–and decides to start a business to help wives catch their cheating husbands. But when more secrets about her past are exposed, it’s going to be tough for her to stay on the straight and narrow–even if it spells disaster for her future…”Bryant is an author who definitely knows how to tell a story.” –APOOO Book Club Raves for Niobia Bryant’s Message From a Mistress”Grabs your attention from the first page.” –The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers”This novel is packed with unbelievable drama that will capture readers from page one.” –Books2Mention Magazine”…a fast-paced, sexy romp that is entertaining from start to finish.” –APOOO Book Club

     

  19. Hanging Off Jefferson’s Nose: Growing Up On Mount Rushmore by Tina Nichols Coury
    (Dial, 2012-05-10, Hardcover)
    Growing up in the shadow of Mount RushmoreLincoln Borglum was a young boy when his father, the great sculptor Gutzon Borglum, suggested to a group of South Dakota businessmen that he should carve the faces of four presidents into a side of a mountain as an attraction for tourists. But Mount Rushmore would never be finished by Gutzon. It would be his son who would complete the fourteen-year task and present America with one of its most iconic symbols.

     

  20. Reckless by Cydney Rax
    (Dafina, 2012-05-01, Paperback)
    Desire raises the stakes–and the danger. . .Desperate Housewife by Cydney RaxCarmen Foster thinks she has it all–a perfect house, kids, and marriage. Until she stumbles upon racy texts from her husband, Forrest, to his baby mama, Toni–who desperately wants Forrest back. Carmen is devastated and decides she can forgive Forrest if she just has an affair of her own. But when a scheming Toni gets involved and threatens to reveal Carmen’s secret, revenge takes an unexpected and explosive turn…Sinful by Niobia BryantA psychologist specializing in addiction, Brie Bailey is surprised to find that her work is affecting her personal life in unexpected ways. For the first time, she has something to hide. And when her impulsive actions lead her into a web of danger, Brie finds herself losing control of everything. . .L.A. Confidential by Grace OctaviaStevie Silver, Black Hollywood’s sitcom sweetheart, is in for a run of very bad luck. Her conniving assistant, Kristine, has her sights on Stevie’s career–and on her T.V. producer husband. Kristine will do whatever it takes to win, from blackmail to seduction. But when a series of lies and betrayals comes to a head in the canyons behind the Hollywood sign, more than stardom is at stake. . .

     

Author JavaNoir
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April 2012′s Bestselling African American Books

April 1, 2012

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

  1. A Wish and a Prayer: A Blessings Novel by Beverly Jenkins
    (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2012-04-10, Kindle Edition)
    Anyone worried that living in a small town could be boring certainly hasn’t lived in Henry Adams, Kansas. From the wealthy divorcÉe who saved this historic town founded by freed slaves to the romantic entanglements that have set tongues wagging and hearts fluttering (and everything in between), there’s plenty to keep the lovably eccentric townsfolk busy.Preston Miles is happy living with his foster parents, but an e-mail from his maternal grandmother is about to change all that. . . . Riley Curry, the former town mayor, is convinced his pet hog, Cletus, acted in self-defense when he sat on—and killed—a man. Now Riley just has to prove it in a court of law. . . . And as for Rocky, she has already had a lifetime of hurt. Will she risk opening her heart—and her life—to Jack? Warm, funny, poignant, and unforgettable, Beverly Jenkins’s latest excursion to Henry Adams is a true delight—a welcome return to a place that always feels like home.

     

  2. Sultry Nights (Kimani Romance) by Donna Hill
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-04-01, Kindle Edition)
    Her RulesDominique Lawson lives life on her terms, making up the rules along the way. This beautiful Lawson twin and heiress to a glittering Louisiana dynasty goes after what she wants—and usually gets it. But Trevor Jackson seems immune to her charms. That’s until Dominique plots her all-out sensual assault on the blatantly sexy contractor, who’s as cool as they come. Now passion is heating up the Southern sky.…His PassionDominique may be his boss, but Trevor plans to show the pampered princess what desire is really about. Never mind that they clash on just about everything—it’s only a matter of time before the blue-blooded beauty is his. Can he convince Dominique that they belong together, now and for all the sensual nights to come?

     

  3. RedBone by T. Styles
    (Urban Books, 2012-04-01, Kindle Edition)
    Where, oh where, have Farah’s roommates all gone?When Farah Cotton places a classified ad stating, “Cute redbone female looking to share a luxury apartment with another redbone female,” many women apply. One look at the lush apartment in Washington, D.C., and every fly girl around wants a chance to call Platinum Lofts her new home. The moment Farah lays eyes on Lesa Carmine, a pretty young woman with an active lifestyle and a sunny disposition, she knows she’s found the perfect girl for her ultimate plan. The two become fast friends—until Farah becomes intrusive and then her siblings move in, violating Lesa’s privacy. Farah seems dangerous when she’s around them, and Lesa attempts to sever ties without paying rent. Feeling overcome with blinding rage, Farah finds all kinds of ways to seek revenge. From poisoning to spreading vicious lies, she makes it known that she doesn’t take Lesa’s brush-off lightly. When Lesa snoops around in Farah’s past and discovers who she really is, she makes a grave mistake, one that could jeopardize her life. Brace yourselves, because just when you think you have it figured out, you’ll realize you don’t.

     

  4. Payback Ain’t Enough by Wahida Clark
    (Cash Money Content, 2012-04-24, Kindle Edition)
    Picking up where the suspenseful ending of Payback With Ya Life left off, we’re plunged back into the hip hop drama, where the men are hot and dangerous, the women know their shoes from their Choos, and will stop at nothing to get what they want. In a game of power and intrigue where the stakes are high and the rewards are dazzling, the losers are gonna discover – there’s always a price to pay.

     

  5. Pleasure Rush (Kimani Romance) by Farrah Rochon
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-04-01, Kindle Edition)
    In Hawaii for her birthday, Manhattan restaurateur Deirdre Smallwood has one mission to accomplish. She’s going to shed her humdrum image and do something totally out of character: seduce Thelonius Stokes, the gorgeous ex-linebacker for the New York Sabers.Theo is shocked by the sensual, uninhibited lover warming his bed. The pro-footballer-turned-TV-sports-analyst had Deirdre pegged for a girl-next-door type of woman. But she’s making his blood run hot and giving him a rush of pleasure he’s never felt before. This time around, Theo vows to score a touchdown on the only playing field that counts: the arena of love.

     

  6. Diamond Dreams (Kimani Romance) by Zuri Day
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-04-01, Kindle Edition)
    As the only daughter of Southern California’s most famous wine dynasty, Diamond Drake devotes all her waking hours to the family business. Burned by love, she’s not sure she ever wants to fall in love again. But construction millionaire Jackson Wright is sweeping her up in a whirlwind romance. Is he the real thing? Or will the sinfully sexy bachelor prove to be all flash and no substance?From the moment he sees her, Jackson is dazzled by the stunning, sultry Diamond. He knows it’s dangerous to mix business with pleasure. If only Diamond will say yes to a future glittering with their passion and love.…

     

  7. Taking Care of Business by Lutishia Lovely
    (Dafina, 2012-04-01, Paperback)
    Lutishia Lovely cooks up a riveting portrait of a trailblazing family expanding their booming soul food dynasty. . .After a long bout of misfortune, betrayal, and broken hearts, the Livingstons and their soul food empire are thriving. Toussaint Livingston is the Food Network darling, Malcolm Livingston’s BBQ Soul Smoker is still the toast of QVC, and Bianca Livingston’s brainchild TOSTS–Taste Of Soul Tapas Style–is a sizzling sensation on L.A.’s Sunset Strip. It seems that nothing can stop the progress of this third generation–until a dish called trouble gets added to the menu. Jefferson Livingston is the only sibling who feels he hasn’t made his mark, a fact for which he partly blames Toussaint. But with a recent promotion and a sexy new assistant, Jefferson is ready to show his cousin just how big a mistake he made. Then a fire breaks out, an old enemy rears his ugly head, and a stranger threatens the family’s legacy. Jefferson and Toussaint must now work together to keep the dynasty from falling apart. Can they put their differences aside long enough to take care of business? There’s only one way to find out. . . .”A great new taste in the literary world.” –Carl Weber

     

  8. To Love You More (Kimani Romance) by Wayne Jordan
    (Kimani Romance, 2012-04-01, Kindle Edition)
    George Simpson has never had a problem wooing women. The sexy-as-sin attorney is as commanding in the courtroom as he is in his candlelit bedroom. He’s always told the truth and nothing but the truth about his personal life: flings with no strings attached. That way, no one gets hurt. Least of all him. Because George has been there, done that—and has vowed to never fall in love again.Rachel Davis can’t believe the playboy her first love, George, has become. When he broke her heart years ago, the accomplished lawyer wanted nothing more than to run away from Barbados—and from George. She knows there’s no place like home—and seeing George again sends her heart into overdrive. But Rachel has a secret that may destroy their passionate reunion. Will her confessions of the past lead to a trial by fire…or a verdict of intimate seduction?

     

  9. Detroit: A Biography by Scott Martelle
    (Chicago Review Press, 2012-04-01, Hardcover)
    Detroit was established as a French settlement three-quarters of a century before the founding of this nation. A remote outpost built to protect trapping interests, it grew as agriculture expanded on the new frontier. Its industry took a great leap forward with the completion of the Erie Canal, which opened up the Great Lakes to the East Coast. Surrounded by untapped natural resources, Detroit turned iron from the Mesabi Range into stoves and railcars, and eventually cars by the millions. This vibrant commercial hub attracted businessmen and labor organizers, European immigrants and African Americans from the rural South. At its mid-20th-century heyday, one in six American jobs were connected to the auto industry, its epicenter in Detroit. And then the bottom fell out.            Detroit: A Biography takes a long, unflinching look at the evolution of one of America’s great cities, and one of the nation’s greatest urban failures. It tells how the city grew to become the heart of American industry and how its utter collapse—from 1.8 million residents in 1950 to 714,000 only six decades later—resulted from a confluence of public policies, private industry decisions, and deep, thick seams of racism. And it raises the question: when we look at modern-day Detroit, are we looking at the ghost of America’s industrial past or its future?

     

  10. White Lines II: Sunny: A Novel by Tracy Brown
    (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012-04-24, Paperback)
    In her most stunning, riveting, unstoppable novel yet, bestselling and critically acclaimed author, Tracy Brown delivers the not-to-be-missed sequel to WHITE LINES On the surface, it appears that Sunny has got it all–looks, money, a beautiful home, a healthy daughter, and friends who love her. But Sunny has a secret—something she hasn’t even told her best friend. The truth is Sunny is unhappy. She still misses her beloved Dorian, and worries that no other man will evercaptivate her the way he did. She dated some very powerful and successful men since Dorian’s death. But will she ever find love again?It’s not long before Sunny is chasing those white lines again. And, when the truth finally explodes, willSunny abe able to put her life back together again?

     

  11. No Citizen Left Behind by Meira Levinson
    (Harvard University Press, 2012-04-23, Hardcover)
    While teaching at an all-Black middle school in Atlanta, Levinson realized that her students’ individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their historical marginalization. In order to overcome their civic empowerment gap, students must learn how to reshape power relationships through public political and civic action.

     

  12. Sweet Giselle by Karen Williams
    (Urban Books, 2012-04-01, Paperback)
    Giselle thinks she has the perfect life. Her fine and sexy husband, Giovanni, is obsessed with his perfect wife and gives her whatever her heart desires. Giselle thinks her husband can do no wrong. What she doesn’t know is that his lucrative adult film company is not as legit as it seems, and Giovanni’s seedy dealings put his precious wife in danger. Giselle is kidnapped by a vicious drug dealer named Bryce, who is hell bent on revenge after his sister comes up missing and he believes Giovanni is responsible. Bryce takes the thing he knows Giovanni treasures most. He plans to torture Giselle, but instead he finds himself falling in love with her. He reveals the truth about Giovanni and the news pushes her right into Bryce’s arms.  Giovanni wages a war against Bryce and anyone close to him, leaving several dead bodies in his wake. Now that he has his wife back, Giovanni thinks things can return to the way they were. Giselle, however, can’t get Bryce out of her system, and continues to see him behind Giovanni’s back. As the war between these two men heats up again, Giselle has to decide if being with the man she loves is worth risking her life.

     

  13. World Right Side Up: Investing Across Six Continents (Agora Series) by Christopher W. Mayer
    (Wiley, 2012-04-10, Hardcover)
    Invaluable insights into finding diverse investment opportunities in the emergent global economyFrom Brazilian farmlands to Colombian gold fields, from Chinese shopping malls to Indian hotels, from South African wine country to the boom/bust souks of Dubai, this around-the-world investing field trip explores the nooks and crannies for hidden investment opportunities. World Right Side Up: Investing Across Six Continents is packed with ideas to power your portfolio in the years ahead while teaching you a little fascinating history along the way. Fact is, the world’s markets have changed in a big way. For the first time since before the Industrial Revolution, the emerging markets now contribute as much to the global economy as their more well-developed peers. Far from being an anomaly, this state of affairs is more in line with the bulk of human experience. For centuries, China and India were the world’s largest economies. And so the world is turning…right side up.This change creates a wealth of opportunities for investors, in both the emerging markets and developed markets. World Right Side Up is your guide on how to take full advantage of this shift.Provides an entertaining view of various regions visited by the author, including South America, Asia, Africa, North America, and the Middle EastExplores specific investment ideas and themes, including opportunities in agriculture, water, energy, infrastructure and much moreIncludes five key takeaways from each region, an invaluable feature, offering resources to consult for more information and guidanceWhile some people fear the changes happening now, the reality is that for the forward-thinking investor, these sizable new markets will create extraordinary new opportunities.

     

  14. Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick by Paul Dickson
    (Walker & Company, 2012-04-24, Hardcover)
     Relying on primary sources, including more than a hundred interviews, Paul Dickson has crafted a richly detailed portrait of an American original: baseball impresario and innovator, independent spirit and unflinching advocate of racial equality, Bill Veeck. Veeck (1914–1986) was born into baseball. His sportswriter father became president of the Chicago Cubs, and Bill later worked for owner Phil Wrigley, rebuilding Wrigley Field to achieve the famed ambience that exists today. In his late twenties, he bought into his first team, the American Association Milwaukee Brewers. As World War II intensified, Veeck volunteered for combat duty, enduring a leg injury that led to a lifetime of amputations and silent suffering. On returning, he bought the Cleveland Indians in 1946—the first of four midwestern teams he would own, preceding the hapless St. Louis Browns (1951–53) and the Chicago White Sox (twice, 1959–61 and 1975–81). Though foiled in an earlier plan to bring Negro League players to the majors, in the summer of 1947, Veeck integrated his team on field and off, signing Larry Doby, the American League’s first black player, and hiring the first black public relations officer, trainer, and scout. A year later, he signed the legendary black pitcher Satchel Paige, who helped win the 1948 World Series—Cleveland’s last championship to this day. His promotional genius was second to none, endearing him to fans in every city, while his feel for the game led him to propose innovations way ahead of their time. Veeck’s deep sense of fairness helped usher in free agency, breaking the stranglehold owners had on players; indeed, he was the only owner to testify in support of Curt Flood during his landmark reserve clause challenge. Bill Veeck brings fully to life a transformational, visionary figure who spent a lifetime challenging baseball’s and society’s well-entrenched status quo. It is essential reading for any fan and anyone with a fascination for twentieth-century America.

     

  15. Alibi II: Nard’s Revenge by Teri Woods
    (Grand Central Publishing, 2012-04-24, Paperback)
    ALIBI II picks up where ALIBI left off. The year is 2006 and Diane Praeliou is happily married and living on a horse ranch in Arizona when she receives a letter that threatens her entire world. Someone knows her true identity.In 1986, Daisy was given a second chance at life when she received a new identity and a fresh start as a college student in Arizona courtesy of the witness protection program. Nard wasn’t so lucky. He was sentenced to twenty years to life in a western Pennsylvania facility and has endured things that no man should ever have to endure. All Nard can think about is Daisy’s testimony and how much he wants revenge. Diane goes on living life, finding love, and getting married until things slowly begin to spiral out of control. What makes matters worse is now Nard is out on parole and Diane is afraid for herself and her family. Feigning innocence, Diane can only turn to one person for help. But if she doesn’t come clean about her past secrets, her entire world can come crashing down and there will be no one to protect her.

     

  16. Ran Away (Benjamin January Mysteries) by Barbara Hambly
    (Severn House Digital, 2012-04-01, Kindle Edition)
    A Benjamin January mystery – RAN AWAY. So began a score of advertisements every week in the New Orleans newspapers, advertising for slaves who’d fled their masters. But the Turk, Huseyin Pasha, posted no such advertisement when his two lovely concubines disappeared. And when a witness proclaimed he’d seen the ‘devilish infidel’ hurl their dead bodies out of a window, everyone was willing to believe him the murderer. Only Benjamin January, who knows the Turk of old, is willing to seek for the true culprit, endangering his own life in the process . . .

     

  17. Scandals by Sasha Campbell
    (Dafina, 2012-04-01, Paperback)
    Learning to trust can be the hardest lesson of all. . .Newly divorced single mom Monica Houston needs to find a job. When her best friend suggests she answer an ad seeking exotic dancers, they both laugh. But with no work in sight, it’s no joke. Soon, Monica is dancing at Scandalous, and the money is flowing. But to hold on to her children, and her heart, she’ll have to keep it a secret from both her ex and her new man. Too bad someone in her life has other ideas. The baddest dancer at Scandalous, Robin Wright a.k.a. Treasure lives for herself and trusts no one. The last thing she wants is to take in her estranged sister Deandra’s little boy, Kyle. But with Deandra arrested for murder, she has no choice. There’s just one condition: Kyle’s hot “big brother” Lance has to babysit. With a man and a child in her life, Treasure’s heart opens. Soon she’s in love–and determined to prove Deandra’s innocence–though it means the greatest risk of all. “These characters leap off the page and make you want to join in.” –Lutishia Lovely on Confessions”Drama, drama and more drama!. . .It’s a good juicy read you won’t want to put down.” –Romantic Times on Confessions “This novel will heat your seat!” –Brenda Hampton, author of the Naughty series, on Suspicions”Keep your eyes on Sasha Campbell!” –Brenda Hampton, author of the Naughty series

     

  18. The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation: African Americans and the Fight for Freedom (Civil War America) by Glenn David Brasher
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012-04-02, Hardcover)
    In the Peninsula Campaign of spring 1862, Union general George B. McClellan failed in his plan to capture the Confederate capital and bring a quick end to the conflict. But the campaign saw something new in the war–the participation of African Americans in ways that were critical to the Union offensive. Ultimately, that participation influenced Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation at the end of that year. Glenn David Brasher’s unique narrative history delves into African American involvement in this pivotal military event, demonstrating that blacks contributed essential manpower and provided intelligence that shaped the campaign’s military tactics and strategy and that their activities helped to convince many Northerners that emancipation was a military necessity.Drawing on the voices of Northern soldiers, civilians, politicians, and abolitionists as well as Southern soldiers, slaveholders, and the enslaved, Brasher focuses on the slaves themselves, whose actions showed that they understood from the outset that the war was about their freedom. As Brasher convincingly shows, the Peninsula Campaign was more important in affecting the decision for emancipation than the Battle of Antietam.

     

  19. Abraham Lincoln and White America by Brian R. Dirck
    (Univ Pr of Kansas, 2012-04-19, Hardcover)
    As “Savior of the Union” and the “Great Emancipator,” Abraham Lincoln has been lauded for his courage, wisdom, and moral fiber. Yet Frederick Douglass’s assertion that Lincoln was the “white man’s president” has been used by some detractors as proof of his fundamentally racist character. Viewed objectively, Lincoln was a white man’s president by virtue of his own whiteness and that of the culture that produced him. Until now, however, historians have rarely explored just what this means for our understanding of the man and his actions. Writing at the vanguard of “whiteness studies,” Brian Dirck considers Lincoln as a typical American white man of his time who bore the multiple assumptions, prejudices, and limitations of his own racial identity. He shows us a Lincoln less willing or able to transcend those limitations than his more heroic persona might suggest but also contends that Lincoln’s understanding and approach to racial bigotry was more enlightened than those of most of his white contemporaries.Blazing a new trail in Lincoln studies, Dirck reveals that Lincoln was well aware of and sympathetic to white fears, especially that of descending into “white trash,” a notion that gnawed at a man eager to distance himself from his own coarse origins. But he also shows that after Lincoln crossed the Rubicon of black emancipation, he continued to grow beyond such cultural constraints, as seen in his seven recorded encounters with nonwhites. Dirck probes more deeply into what “white” meant in Lincoln’s time and what it meant to Lincoln himself, and from this perspective he proposes a new understanding of how Lincoln viewed whiteness as a distinct racial category that influenced his policies. As Dirck ably demonstrates, Lincoln rose far enough above the confines of his culture to accomplish deeds still worthy of our admiration, and he calls for a more critically informed admiration of Lincoln that allows us to celebrate his considerable accomplishments while simultaneously recognizing his limitations.When Douglass observed that Lincoln was the white man’s president, he may not have intended it as a serious analytical category. But, as Dirck shows, perhaps we should do so—the better to understand not just the Lincoln presidency, but the man himself.

     

Barnes&Noble.com

Author JavaNoir
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March 2012′s Bestselling African American Hardcover Books

March 5, 2012

The following are the upcoming bestsellers for African American hardcover books.

  1. Inspiration: Profiles of Black Women Changing Our World by Crystal McCrary
    (Harry N. Abrams, 2012-03-01, Hardcover)
    Inspiration shares the personal stories and unique voices of 30 extraordinary black women. Whether in the White House or on the courts of Wimbledon, in Hollywood or on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, these women have influenced the social, cultural, and political landscape of this country, and even the world. Luminaries such as Patti LaBelle, Venus Williams, Susan Taylor, and Judith Jamison speak about the challenges they’ve faced and the victo­ries they’ve won throughout their careers. These inspiring black women pass their knowledge and lessons on to a new generation of women in intimate first-person essays and stunning color portraits.

     

  2. Listen, Whitey!: The Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 by Pat Thomas
    (Fantagraphics, 2012-03-05, Hardcover)
    A provocative collection of African-American cultural history.Noted music producer and scholar Pat Thomas spent five years in Oakland, CA researching Listen, Whitey! The Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975. While befriending members of the Black Panther Party, Thomas discovered rare recordings of speeches, interviews, and music by noted activists Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Elaine Brown, The Lumpen and many others that form the framework of this definitive retrospective. Listen, Whitey! also chronicles the forgotten history of Motown Records. From 1970 to 1973, Motown’s Black Power subsidiary label, Black Forum, released politically charged albums by Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, Bill Cosby & Ossie Davis, and many others, all represented. Also explored are the musical connections between Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Graham Nash, the Partridge Family (!?!) and the Black Power movement. Obscure recordings produced by SNCC, Ron Karenga’s US, the Tribe and other African-American sociopolitical organizations of the late 1960s and early ’70s are examined along with the Isley Brothers, Nina Simone, Archie Shepp, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Clifford Thornton, Watts Prophets, Last Poets, Gene McDaniels, Roland Kirk, Horace Silver, Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, Stanley Crouch, and others that spoke out against oppression. Other sections focus on Black Consciousness poetry (from the likes of Jayne Cortez, wife of Ornette Coleman), inspired religious recordings that infused god and Black Nationalism, obscure regional and privately pressed Black Power 7-inch soul singles from across America. 90,000 words of text are accompanied by over 250 large sized, full-color reproductions of album covers and 45 rpm singles — most of which readers will have never seen before. 224 black-and-white illustrations

     

  3. Low Down and Dirty: A Novel by Vickie M. Stringer
    (Atria Books, 2012-03-27, Hardcover)
    Vickie Stringer’s Dirty Red is back. This time she’s on the run. Having apparently wounded all of her enemies, and even her beloved Q, Red finds herself away from Detroit living the life of luxury in Arizona. She’s become a successful home broker with a bestselling book, and it seems as if all of her dirty tricks have finally paid off—from framing Detective Thomas to ruining Kera’s freedom. Unfortunately for Red, she’s made more enemies than she can count, and she soon finds herself running across the country in fear of them all while still being in love with Q. Everyone seems to have a reason to pay her the ultimate revenge, and even the most unlikely become partners if it means finally bringing an end to all of Red’s dirty schemes. In yet another fast-paced and spiraling edition in this bestselling series, Vickie Stringer writes about a woman who will do anything to save her life and the people who go so low attempting to stop her.

     

  4. The Final Four by Paul Volponi
    (Viking Juvenile, 2012-03-01, Hardcover)
    Four players with one thing in common: the will to win Malcolm wants to get to the NBA ASAP. Roko wants to be the pride of his native Croatia. Crispin wants the girl of his dreams. M.J. just wants a chance. March Madness is in full swing, and there are only four teams left in the NCAA basketball championship. The heavily favored Michigan Spartans and the underdog Troy Trojans meet in the first game in the semifinals, and it’s there that the fates of Malcolm, Roko, Crispin, and M.J. intertwine. As the last moments tick down on the game clock, you’ll learn how each player went from being a kid who loved to shoot hoops to a powerful force in one of the most important games of the year. Which team will leave the Superdome victorious? In the end it will come down to which players have the most skill, the most drive, and the most heart.

     

  5. Multiplication Is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children by Lisa Delpit
    (New Press, The, 2012-03-20, Hardcover)
    As award-winning educator Lisa Delpit reminds us — and as all research shows — there is no achievement gap at birth. In her long-awaited second book, Delpit presents a striking picture of the elements of contemporary public education that conspire against the prospects for poor children of color, creating a persistent gap in achievement during the school years that has eluded several decades of reform.

    Delpit’s bestselling and paradigm-shifting first book, Other People’s Children, focused on cultural slippage in the classroom between white teachers and students of color. Now, in “Multiplication Is for White People,” Delpit reflects on two decades of reform efforts — including No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, the creation of alternative teacher certification paths, and the charter school movement — that still have left a generation of poor children of color feeling that higher math isn’t for them.

    In her wonderful trademark style, punctuated with telling classroom anecdotes and informed by time spent at dozens of schools across the country, Delpit outlines an inspiring and uplifting blueprint for raising expectations for other people’s children, based on a simple premise: multiplication is for everyone.

     

  6. Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King
    (Harper, 2012-03-06, Hardcover)
    Arguably the most important American lawyer of the twentieth century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court when he became embroiled in an explosive and deadly case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and cost him his life. In 1949, Florida’s orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor. To maintain order and profits, they turned to Willis V. McCall, a violent sheriff who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves beyond the citrus groves. By day’s end, the Ku Klux Klan had rolled into town, burning the homes of blacks to the ground and chasing hundreds into the swamps, hell-bent on lynching the young men who came to be known as “the Groveland Boys.” And so began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as “Mr. Civil Rights,” into the deadly fray. Associates thought it was suicidal for him to wade into the “Florida Terror” at a time when he was irreplaceable to the burgeoning civil rights movement, but the lawyer would not shrink from the fight—not after the Klan had murdered one of Marshall’s NAACP associates involved with the case and Marshall had endured continual threats that he would be next. Drawing on a wealth of never-before-published material, including the FBI’s unredacted Groveland case files, as well as unprecedented access to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund files, King shines new light on this remarkable civil rights crusader, setting his rich and driving narrative against the heroic backdrop of a case that U.S. Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson decried as “one of the best examples of one of the worst menaces to American justice.”

     

  7. Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation by Deneen Borelli
    (Threshold Editions, 2012-03-06, Hardcover)
    This country is at a crossroads. We can either reverse direction or nosedive into a cycle of dependency that is turning America into a welfare nation—a “government plantation” where the underclass are doomed to 21st-century servitude. Now, Deneen Borelli, one of the most visible and outspoken black conservatives in the country, is fighting back—taking action, not just talking—and speaking up for those who can’t or are too afraid to do so. Borelli’s argument is a solid one: the problem begins with President Barack Obama, whose policy overreach has frozen racial tensions in this country when he should have been thawing them. The Left, having introduced the race card to defend Obama from the massive unpopularity of his policies, has turned a blind eye to the leadership failures that have spread down through black career politicians—traitors to minority success—who are causing a cycle of oppression in America: specifically Charles Rangel, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson, each of whom has enriched himself at the expense of his community. Borelli also challenges the ninety-five percent of the black Americans who voted for Obama without caring about or vetting his dangerous politics. Borelli doesn’t stop there. She speaks out against the elites and crony capitalists who drive expensive government policies such as needless green initiatives and ObamaCare. She exposes government regulation and the NAACP as nothing more than a liberal front group. She points out each grave flaw in the current administration, big government, unions, and special-interest groups. She demands that new black leaders abandon the false rhetoric and inexcusable lies of so-called progressive politics.

     

  8. Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War (Civil War America) by Christian McWhirter
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012-03-19, Hardcover)
    Music was everywhere during the Civil War. Tunes could be heard ringing out from parlor pianos, thundering at political rallies, and setting the rhythms of military and domestic life. With literacy still limited, music was an important vehicle for communicating ideas about the war, and it had a lasting impact in the decades that followed. Drawing on an array of published and archival sources, Christian McWhirter analyzes the myriad ways music influenced popular culture in the years surrounding the war and discusses its deep resonance for both whites and blacks, South and North.Though published songs of the time have long been catalogued and appreciated, McWhirter is the first to explore what Americans actually said and did with these pieces. By gauging the popularity of the most prominent songs and examining how Americans used them, McWhirter returns music to its central place in American life during the nation’s greatest crisis. The result is a portrait of a war fought to music.

     

  9. Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: Israel by Ruth Eglash
    (Roberts & Tilton, 2012-03-31, Hardcover)
    Kehinde Wiley’s acclaimed World Stage series inserts into the language of old master portraiture the very ethnicities and ethnic iconography that western art has most excluded from it, or that western art has portrayed solely in colonial, Orientalist terms. Among the countries and continents he has previously depicted in this ambitious traveling epic are Brazil, Africa, China, India and Sri Lanka. The rhetoric of Wiley’s paintings is powerful in its compositional candor, color palette and playfulness with constructions of visual meaning; as Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky) notes, “Wiley’s canvas surfaces are a mirror reflection of America’s unceasing search for new meanings from the ruins of the Old World of Europe and Africa.” This volume includes a selection of new World Stage portraits, focusing on contemporary youth from Jewish-Ethiopian-Israeli, Jewish-Israeli and Arab-Israeli communities.

     

  10. The Political Economy of Liberation: Thomas Sowell and James Cone on the Black Experience by Anthony B. Bradley
    (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012-03-01, Hardcover)
    James Cone and Thomas Sowell tower as African American intellectuals who have influenced ideas around the world for decades on issues such as poverty and justice. Although Thomas Sowell writes as a secular economist, his views harmonize more genuinely with classical Christian social thought than do the liberation theology of James Cone. In the traditional black church, theology and economics have always been partners in pursuing the means of liberation for African Americans. This is the first book to put a black economist and a black theologian into direct dialogue with one another in order to distill the strengths of each discipline, thus providing a long-term vision for the economic sustainability of the black community. The implications of the Protestant teaching of sphere sovereignty and the Roman Catholic principle of subsidiarity inform the disciplines of theology, economics, and political philosophy to cast a new vision for black liberation serving religious and political theorists alike. A provocative dynamism emerges because Cone and Sowell maintain alternative and competing visions that engage classical Christian theology in different ways. This book offers the opportunity for a new trajectory of dialogue between theologians and political economists about poverty, human dignity, and justice in ways previously unexplored. The Political Economy of Liberation is an invaluable resource in courses in African American studies, race and religion, political economy, social ethics, Christianity and society, Christian social thought, social justice, and theological ethics at the upper-level undergraduate or graduate level.

     

  11. Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012-03-01, Hardcover)
    Thornton Dial (b. 1928), one of the most important artists in the American South, came to prominence in the late 1980s and was celebrated internationally for his large construction pieces and mixed-media paintings. It was only later, in response to a reviewer’s negative comment on his artistic ability, that he began to work on paper. And it was not until recently that these drawings have received the acclaim they deserve. This volume, edited by Bernard L. Herman, offers the first sustained critical attention to Dial’s works on paper. Concentrating on Dial’s early drawings, the contributors examine Dial’s use of line and color and his recurrent themes of love, lust, and faith. They also discuss the artist’s sense of place and history, relate his drawings to his larger works, and explore how his drawing has evolved since its emergence in the early 1990s. Together, the essays investigate questions of creativity and commentary in the work of African American artists and contextualize Dial’s works on paper in the body of American art. The contributors are Cara Zimmerman, Bernard Herman, Glenn Hinson, Juan Logan, and Colin Rhodes.

     

  12. The Morehouse Mystique: Becoming a Doctor at the Nation’s Newest African American Medical School by Marybeth Gasman
    (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012-03-15, Hardcover)
    The Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of only four predominantly Black medical schools in the United States. Among its illustrious alumni are surgeons general of the United States, medical school presidents, and numerous other highly regarded medical professionals. This book tells the engrossing history of this venerable institution.The school was founded just after the civil rights era, when major barriers prevented minorities from receiving adequate health care and Black students were underrepresented in predominantly White medical schools. The Morehouse School of Medicine was conceived to address both problems—it was a minority-serving institution educating doctors who would practice in underserved communities.The school’s history involves political maneuvering, skilled leadership, dedication to training African American physicians, and a mission of primary care in disadvantaged communities. Highlighting such influential leaders as former Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, The Morehouse Mystique situates the school in the context of the history of medical education for Blacks and race relations throughout the country. The book features excerpts from personal interviews with prominent African American doctors as well as with former presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush, who reveal how local, state, and national politics shaped the development of Black medical schools in the United States.The story of the Morehouse School of Medicine reflects the turbulent time in which it was founded and the lofty goals and accomplishments of a diverse group of African American leaders. Their tireless efforts in creating this eminent Black institution changed the landscape of medical education and the racial and ethnic makeup of physicians and health care professions.

     

  13. Blackness in Opera
    (University of Illinois Press, 2012-03-01, Hardcover)
    Blackness in Opera critically examines the intersections of race and music in the multifaceted genre of opera. A multidisciplinary cross-section of scholars place well-known operas (Porgy and Bess, Aida, Otello) alongside lesser-known works such as Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha, Clarence Cameron White’s Ouanga!, and William Grant Still’s Blue Steel to reveal a new historical context for re-imagining race and blackness in opera. The volume brings a wide-ranging, theoretically informed, interdisciplinary approach to questions about how blackness has been represented in these operas, issues surrounding characterization of blacks, interpretation of racialized roles by blacks and whites, controversies over race in the theatre and the use of blackface, and extensions of blackness along the spectrum from grand opera to musical theatre and film. In addition to essays by scholars, the book also features comments by renowned tenor George Shirley.

     

  14. Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants, and Stars: True Tales of Breaking Barriers, Umpiring Baseball Legends, and Wild Adventures in the Negro Leagues by Bob Motley
    (Sports Publishing, 2012-03-08, Hardcover)
    “An important step in revealing what has been for most Americans a ‘hidden history.’” —Ken BurnsThe Kansas City Monarchs, the Chicago American Giants, the St. Louis Stars, the Birmingham Black Barons, the Homestead Grays, and the Indianapolis Clowns; for over fifty years, they were the Yankees, Cardinals, and Red Sox of black baseball in America. And for over a decade beginning in the late 1940s, umpire Bob Motley called balls and strikes for many of their games, working alongside such legends as Satchel Paige, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, and Willie Mays.Today, Motley is the only living arbiter from the Negro Leagues. His personal account of the Negro Leagues is a revealing, humorous, and unforgettable memoir celebrating a long-lost league and a remarkable group of baseball players. In Ruling Over Monarchs, Giants, and Stars Motley and his son Byron share the characters, adventures, and challenges faced by these amazing men as they enthusiastically embraced America’s pastime and made it their own. Filled with stories of talented heroes, small miracles, and downright fun, this unique memoir is a must-read for any baseball fan. 14 black & white illustrations

     

  15. Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era
    (Duke University Press Books, 2012-03-27, Hardcover)
    Poetry is an ideal artistic medium for expressing the fear, sorrow, and triumph of revolutionary times. Words of Protest, Words of Freedom is the first comprehensive collection of poems written during and in response to the American civil rights struggle of 1955–75. Featuring some of the most celebrated writers of the twentieth century—including Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, and Derek Walcott—alongside lesser-known poets, activists, and ordinary citizens, this anthology presents a varied and vibrant set of voices, highlighting the tremendous symbolic reach of the civil rights movement within and beyond the United States.Some of the poems address crucial movement-related events—such as the integration of the Little Rock schools, the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers, the emergence of the Black Panther party, and the race riots of the late 1960s—and key figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and John and Robert Kennedy. Other poems speak more broadly to the social and political climate of the times. Along with Jeffrey Lamar Coleman’s headnotes, the poems recall the heartbreaking and jubilant moments of a tumultuous era. Altogether, more than 150 poems by approximately 100 poets showcase the breadth of the genre of civil rights poetry.Selected contributors. Maya Angelou, W. H. Auden, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Philip Levine, Audre Lorde, Robert Lowell, Pauli Murray, Huey P. Newton, Adrienne Rich, Sonia Sanchez, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Derek Walcott, Alice Walker, Yevgeny Yevtushenko

     

  16. The Glassell Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Masterworks of Pre-Columbian, Indonesian, and African Gold by Frances Marzio
    (Museum Fine Arts Houston, 2012-03-20, Hardcover)
    One of the world’s top hundred art collectors, Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. (1913-2008), was fascinated by gold, but not for its monetary value. Glassell valued instead the spiritual significance that gold held in many ancient cultures, particularly those of Africa, South America, and Indonesia. Over the years, he acquired an astonishing number of artworks, assembling the largest privately held collection of Pre-Columbian gold. From 1997 to 2004, Glassell donated works of African and Indonesian gold to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Upon his death in 2008, he bequeathed his collection of Pre-Columbian gold to the museum. Masterworks of Pre-Columbian, Indonesian, and African Gold explores two hundred of these dazzling works, many published here for the first time. Spanning from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1600, these precious objects reflect a variety of cultures, such as the Calima, Quimbaya, Sicán, Moché, and Coclé, and a range of geographic locations, from Mexico to Argentina and from Africa to Indonesia. The book offers fresh insights into the enduring appeal of gold and its artistic manifestations in diverse cultures.

     

  17. Nikki and Deja: Wedding Drama by Karen English
    (Clarion Books, 2012-03-20, Hardcover)
    Ms. Shelby is getting married! As the girls in Nikki and Deja’s class compete over who can plan the best imaginary wedding for their teacher, Nikki excitedly throws herself into preparations for the real thing. But Deja is not so enthusiastic. Her Auntie Dee has been temporarily laid off from her job, and Deja is worried. What will happen now that she can no longer afford a new dress and special hairdo? Will Nikki leave her best friend behind while she shops and primps? Will Deja be able to get over her jealousy and enjoy the celebration anyway? This is a charming entry in a chapter book series praised for its accessibility, authenticity, and humor.

     

  18. Reading African American Experiences in the Obama Era: Theory, Advocacy, Activism by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
    (Peter Lang Publishing, 2012-03-01, Hardcover)
    What does it mean to be Black in the Obama era? In Reading African American Experiences in the Obama Era, young African American scholars and researchers and experienced community activists demonstrate how to encourage dialogue across curricula, disciplines, and communities with emphases on education, new media, and popular culture. Considering what this historic moment means for Black life, letters, and learning, this accessible yet scholarly volume encourages movement toward thoughtful analysis today.

     

Author JavaNoir
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March 2012′s Bestselling African American Paperback Books

March 5, 2012

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American paperback books.

  1. Coca Kola – The Baddest Chick by Nisa Santiago
    (Melodrama Publishing, 2012-03-13, Paperback)
    Steady Schemin’ Harlem honeys Apple and Kola are back and cutthroat as ever, and serving The City That Never Sleeps with a wakeup call. Now permanently disfigured, the once beautiful Apple’s future isn’t looking bright as the empire she worked so hard to build begins to crumble, brick by brick. The tables are turned, and Apple finds out that the ultimate betrayal cuts that much deeper when it’s perpetrated by blood. Meanwhile, Kola is lying in wait for Queen Apple to be dethroned. She stacks her paper and assembles her plan to take her twin out once and for all. But Apple isn’t bowing out gracefully.

     

  2. Boss Bitch (Bitch Series) by Deja King
    (A King Production, 2012-03-29, Paperback)
    Precious Cummings and her daughter Aaliyah Mills Carter must protect the family empire as an unknown enemy tries to step in and take the throne. Can mother and daughter get past their differences and unite as one or will they stay at odds and risk having their loved ones torn apart? The saga continues to unfold in Boss Bitch.

     

  3. Baltimore Chronicles Volume 4 by Treasure Hernandez
    (Urban Books, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Scar Johnson is the biggest drug dealer in Baltimore, and with the help of his girlfriend, who happens to be a District Attorney, he has become the most untouchable. But is he really safe? The mysterious observer has come out of the shadows and infiltrated the Dirty Money Crew. Together with his accomplice, he plans to exact revenge on Scar. Meanwhile, Tiphani is plotting her return from Florida to claim her children and also get back at Scar and the mayor who left her for dead. After recovering from his injuries, Derek Fuller is out of prison, looking for redemption. Can Scar fend off all of these enemies and still control the Baltimore drug trade?

     

  4. I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters by Bayard Rustin
    (City Lights Publishers, 2012-03-20, Paperback)
    Published on the centennial of his birth, and in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington, here is Bayard Rustin’s life story told in his own words. Bayard Rustin has been called the “lost prophet” of the civil rights movement. A master strategist and tireless activist, he is best remembered as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the U.S. He brought Gandhi’s protest techniques to the American civil rights movement and played a deeply influential role in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to mold him into an international symbol of nonviolence. Despite these achievements, Rustin often remained in the background. He was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. Here we have Rustin in his own words in a collection of over 150 of his letters; his correspondents include the major progressives of his day — for example, Eleanor Holmes Norton, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Ella Baker, and of course, Martin Luther King, Jr.Bayard Rustin’s eloquent, impassioned voice, his ability to chart the path “from protest to politics,” is both timely and deeply informative. As the Occupy movement ushers America into a pivotal election year, and as politicians and citizens re-assess their goals and strategies, these letters provide direct access to the strategic thinking and tactical planning that led to the successes of one of America’s most transformative and historic social movements.

     

  5. Recipe for Desire by Cherise Hodges
    (Dafina, 2012-03-01, Mass Market Paperback)
    A Party Girl’s Work Is Never Done. . .At twenty-seven, Marie Charles is still Charlotte’s number one party girl. But when she adds a DWI arrest and a totaled Jaguar to her list of tabloid news-making escapades, her daddy is done bailing her out. Sentenced to five hundred hours of community service at My Sister’s Keeper, a homeless shelter for women, Marie won’t have much time left for partying. . .Renowned chef and TV star Devon Harris volunteers at My Sister’s Keeper. And he’s not happy Marie is joining him. He may be single–and she may be gorgeous–but the last thing he’s interested in is a superficial southern belle. But as Marie outgrows the selfish girl she was, Devon is turned on by the woman she’s becoming. . .

     

  6. And You Call Yourself a Christ (Still Divas) by E.N. Joy
    (Urban Christian, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Out of all the divas at New Day Temple of Faith, Unique has to be the most colorful one–she and her mother Lorain, that is. Never one to hold her tongue in the name of keepin’ it real, it’s no surprise that Unique has not been saved all her life. It’s safe to say that Lorain wasn’t born on the church pew either. Let the church folk tell it, the apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree when it comes to Unique. Lorain–once known as the tight skirt, V-neck blouse, too much makeup-wearing leader of the New Day Singles Ministry–claims she’s there to look out for her daughter and try to keep her in check. But how in the world does Lorain think she can even begin to keep her daughter on the straight and narrow with her own crooked life?Some might say Lorain has failed miserably as a mother when Unique ends up in jail for three counts of murder. One who would agree is the woman who raised Unique while Lorain was out living her life freely. As an all-out war takes place between Unique’s birth mother and the woman who raised her, will Unique have any support while she fights for her life behind bars? Will all forsake her while they are too busy with their own agendas? Only God holds the answer to this one.

     

  7. Bi-Curious Volume 2: by Natalie Weber
    (Urban Books, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Weber delivers the powerful and provocative tale of a woman whose bi-curious nature gets her into more trouble than she can escape.

     

  8. Deception by Naomi Chase
    (Dafina, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Sisters can share too much. . .Acquitted of murder, Tamia Luke is on a mission to reclaim all she’s lost, including her ex, Brandon, who saved her life. Brandon’s about to get married, but Tamia’s determined, even if it means resorting to deception–a family habit. Her sister, Fiona, betrayed Tamia to save her own skin. Now the two share a scandalous secret that may destroy both their plans to start over. . . Fiona’s hoping her glitzy new job will help her score a rich husband. It’s looking good, until the night she’s seduced by the one man who is truly unattainable–unless she can keep her past hidden. And both sisters will have to steer clear of someone who knows too much, and wants them to pay–with their lives. . .

     

  9. On the Flip Side (Fab Life) by Nikki Carter
    (KTEEN / Dafina, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Living your dreams is the hard part . . .Sunday Tolliver has a mega-smash album up for major awards–and her first few months as a college freshman are everything she hoped for. But juggling all this and her long-distance romance with boyfriend Sam is taking drama to mad-crazy levels. Hot up-and-coming video star DeShawn isn’t letting Sunday’s relationship keep him from getting close. And relentless online gossip is seriously shaking Sunday’s trust in Sam. On top of that, her jealous diva cousin, Dreya, just won’t stay out of Sunday’s face–especially now that she’s in the running for the same music awards. The only way Sunday can stop the madness and get back on track is to trust her instincts–and get a little help from her friends. . .

     

  10. Man Swappers: A Novel by Cairo
    (Strebor Books, 2012-03-06, Paperback)
    Disturbingly sexy and devilishly delicious, Man Swappers explores the taboo topic of women openly sharing other women’s men. Man Swappers is about carefree and adventurous women who embrace their sexualities without embarrassment, guilt, ridicule, or shame. By day, bombshell sisters Porsha, Persia, and Paris do everything together. They work hard, travel far, and are always on the prowl for their next relationship. And getting the attention from the opposite sex has never been a problem for these vixens. In fact, they’ve had more than their share of men vying for their attention. But there’s a catch: You date one sister, you date them all. But what happens when two of them break the rules of engagement and want one of the men all to themselves? And what happens when they find out it’s the same man? A titillating story of sibling rivalry gone haywire, Man Swappers will thrill readers to a whole new level of satisfaction.

     

  11. Thug Matrimony by Wahida Clark
    (Dafina, 2012-03-01, Mass Market Paperback)

     

  12. The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young
    (Graywolf Press, 2012-03-13, Paperback)
    The first work of prose by the brilliant poet Kevin Young, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize Taking its title from Danger Mouse’s pioneering mashup of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles’ The White Album, Kevin Young’s encyclopedic book combines essay, cultural criticism, and lyrical choruses to illustrate the African American tradition of lying—storytelling, telling tales, fibbing, improvising, “jazzing.” What emerges is a persuasive argument for the many ways that African American culture is American culture, and for the centrality of art—and artfulness—to our daily life. Moving from gospel to soul, funk to freestyle, Young sifts through the shadows, the bootleg, the remix, the grey areas of our history, literature, and music. 

     

  13. We Have Been Believers: An African American Systematic Theology by James H. Evans Jr.
    (Fortress Press, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Seeking to overcome the chasm between church practice and theological reflection, James H. Evans Jr., a major and distinctive voice in American religion, situates theology squarely in the nexus of faith with freedom. There, with a sure touch, he uplifts revelatory aspects of black religious experience that reanimate classical areas of theology, and he creates a theology with a heart, soul, and voice that speak directly to our condition. Edited and introduced by Stephen G. Ray Jr., the second edition, published on the twentieth anniversary of the first, includes three new essays that identify the value of the book for womanist, evangelical, and black church audiences. The new edition concludes with an Afterword by the author himself.

     

  14. On the Flip Side (Fab Life) by Nikki Carter
    (KTEEN / Dafina, 2012-03-01, Paperback)
    Living your dreams is the hard part . . .Sunday Tolliver has a mega-smash album up for major awards–and her first few months as a college freshman are everything she hoped for. But juggling all this and her long-distance romance with boyfriend Sam is taking drama to mad-crazy levels. Hot up-and-coming video star DeShawn isn’t letting Sunday’s relationship keep him from getting close. And relentless online gossip is seriously shaking Sunday’s trust in Sam. On top of that, her jealous diva cousin, Dreya, just won’t stay out of Sunday’s face–especially now that she’s in the running for the same music awards. The only way Sunday can stop the madness and get back on track is to trust her instincts–and get a little help from her friends. . .

     

  15. The Erotic Life of Racism by Sharon Patricia Holland
    (Duke University Press Books, 2012-03-05, Paperback)
    A major intervention in the fields of critical race theory, black feminism, and queer theory, The Erotic Life of Racism contends that theoretical and political analyses of race have largely failed to understand and describe the profound ordinariness of racism and how it operates as a quotidian practice. If racism has an everyday life, how does it remain so powerful and yet mask its very presence? To answer this question, Sharon P. Holland moves into the territory of the erotic, understanding racism’s practice as constitutive to the practice of racial being and erotic choice.Reemphasizing the black/white binary, Holland reinvigorates critical engagement with race and racism. She argues that only by bringing together critical race theory, queer theory, and black feminist thought into conversation with each other can we fully envision the relationship between racism and the personal and political dimensions of our desire. The Erotic Life of Racism provocatively redirects our attention to a desire no longer independent of racism but rather embedded within it.

     

  16. She Ain’t the One by Carl Weber and Mary B. Morrison
    (Dafina, 2012-03-01, Mass Market Paperback)
    From New York Times bestselling authors Carl Weber and Mary B. Morrison comes this powerful, unforgettable novel about the ultimate player who has finally run into the wrong woman… After a rocky marriage, irresistibly seductive Jay Crawford is ready for a new woman–and a new challenge. It doesn’t take him long to discover both in one fine package: Ashlee Anderson. With a face and body that scream sex, she’s just what he’s looking for–hard-to-get, feisty, and freaky. But he’d never suspect just how freaky… Ashlee turns out to be every bit as sexy as Jay suspected. What should’ve been a one-night stand extends into months of lovemaking that’s too hot to give up and designed to burn him like never before. For Ashlee has no intention of letting their relationship ever end. Now Jay is in over his head with a woman who will go to any lengths to possess him. Trouble is, Ashlee’s psycho behavior turns him on like nothing else. Maybe they’re both crazy. But when Ashlee makes a shocking confession, Jay knows she definitely ain’t the one and he’s got to get away from her before she completely destroys his life…

     

  17. Temptation Rising by A.C. Arthur
    (St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2012-03-27, Mass Market Paperback)
    Washington D.C. police officer Kalina Harper still dreams about that night, two years ago, when a huge cat-like creature saved her from a crazed attacker. Although she kept the truth to herself, Kalina can never forget the ferocious strength of the beast’s fangs and claws—or the raw animal hunger in its eyes. Until she meets Roman Reynolds…Muscular, magnetic, and all man, Roman is a high-powered attorney with a predatory smile and seductive charm. He is also a criminal suspect with suspicious connections to the Amazon jungle. But when Kalina discovers that Roman is linked to a secret race of shapeshifting jaguars—who hunt down maneaters—she is forced to put her trust in a man who unleashes her wildest fantasies and fears. A fierce creature of the night whose nature is to protect his female at any cost…

     

Author JavaNoir
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