September 18, 2011
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Jermaine Jackson — older than Michael by four years — offers a keenly observed memoir tracing his brother’s life starting from their shared childhood and extending through the Jackson 5 years, Michael’s phenomenal solo career, his loves, his suffering, and his tragic end. It is a sophisticated, no-holds-barred examination of the man, aimed at fostering a true and final understanding of who he was, why he was, and what shaped him.
Jermaine knows the real Michael as only a brother can. In this raw, honest, and poignant account, he reveals Michael the private person, not Michael “the King of Pop.”
Jermaine doesn’t flinch from tackling the tough issues: the torrid press, the scandals, the allegations, the court cases, the internal politics, the ill-fated This Is It tour, and disturbing developments in the days leading up to Michael’s death. But where previous works have presented only thin versions of a media construct, he provides a rare glimpse into the complex heart, mind, and soul of a brilliant but sometimes troubled entertainer. As a witness to history on the inside, Jermaine is the only person qualified to deliver the real Michael and reveal what made him tick, his private opinions, and unseen emotions through the most headline-making episodes of his life.
Filled with keen insight, rich in anecdotes and behind-the-scenes detail, You Are Not Alone is the book for any true Michael Jackson fan and for anyone trying to make sense of the artist whose death was so premature.
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June 18, 2011
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In this inspirational memoir, Grey’s Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington explains how filling in the gaps of his past led him to discover a new passion: helping those less fortunate. DNA testing revealed that Washington was descended from the Mende people, who today live in Sierra Leone. For many people, the story would end with the results of the search; for Isaiah, it had just begun. Discovering his roots has given him a new purpose, to lead an inspirational life defined by faith and charity.
After visiting Sierra Leone, and researching the country and its needs, Washington forged a strong relationship with the Mende people, and was inducted as Chief Gondobay Manga in May 2006. He established The Gondobay Manga Foundation to institute many improvements suggested by the country’s people, addressing educational concerns, practical issues (road building, water supply, and electricity), and rehabilitative projects.
Dual citizenship has been a dream of African-Americans such as W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, but Washington became the first to realize that honor in 2008. A twofold milestone, it was also the first time an African president granted citizenship based on DNA.
A Man from Another Land
by Isaiah Washington with Lavaille Lavette
Center Street
Available April 27, 2011 in Hardcover
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May 15, 2011
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In January 2007, Deval Patrick became the first black governor of the state of Massachusetts, one of only two black governors elected in American history. But that was just one triumphant step in a long, improbable journey that began in a poor tenement on the South Side of Chicago. From a chaotic childhood to an elite boarding school in New England, from a sojourn doing relief work in Africa to the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, and then to a career in politics, Patrick has led an extraordinary life. In this heartfelt and inspirational book, he pays tribute to the family, friends, and strangers who, through words and deeds, have instilled in him transcendent lessons of faith, perseverance, and friendship. In doing so, he reminds us of the power of community and the imperative of idealism. With humility, humor, and grace, he offers a road map for attaining happiness, empowerment, and success while also making an appeal for readers to cultivate those achievements in others, to feel a greater stake in this world, and to shape a life worth living.
Warm, nostalgic, and inspirational, A Reason to Believe is destined to become a timeless tribute to a uniquely American odyssey and a testament to what is possible in our lives and our communities if we are hopeful, generous, and resilient.
GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK is donating a portion of the proceeds from A REASON TO BELIEVE to A Better Chance, a national organization dedicated to opening the doors to greater educational opportunities for young people of color. To learn more, visit www.abetterchance.org.
Broadway
Available April 12, 2011 in Hardcover
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April 26, 2011
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He’s a hip-hop icon credited with single-handedly creating gangsta rap in the 1980s. Television viewers know him as Detective Odafin “Fin” Tutuola on the top-rated TV drama Law & Order: SVU. But where the hype and the headlines end, the real story of Ice-T — the one few of his millions of fans have ever heard — truly begins.
Ice is Ice-T in his own words — raw, uncensored, and unafraid to speak his mind. About his orphan upbringing on the gang-infested streets of South Central Los Angeles. About his four-year stint in the U.S. Army’s famed “Tropic Lightning” outfit. About his successful career as a hustler and thief, the car crash that nearly killed him, and the fateful decision to turn away from a life of crime and forge his own path to international entertainment stardom.
Ice by Ice-T is both a tell-it-like-it-is tale of redemption and a star-studded tour of the pop culture firmament. The acclaimed rapper and actor shares never-before-told stories about friends like Tupac, Dick Wolf, Chris Rock, and an antler-clad Flavor Flav, among others. Readers will ride along as Ice-T’s incendiary rock band Body Count narrowly escapes from a riotous mob of angry concertgoers in Milan, and listen in as the music legend battles the self-appointed censors over his controversial “Cop Killer” single.
Most of all, Ice is the place where one of the game’s most opinionated players breaks down his own secret plan for living, offering up candid observations on marriage and monogamy, the current state of hip-hop, and his latest passion: doing one-on-one gang interventions and mentoring at-risk youths around the country.
With insights into the cutthroat world of the street — and the cutthroat world of Hollywood — Ice is the inspirational story of a true American original.
Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood
by Ice-T and Douglas Century
One World/Ballantine
Available April 19, 2011 in Hardcover
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April 1, 2011
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Actor, singer, songwriter Tyrese Gibson crafts a memoir filled with every emotion and life experience one could possibly imagine. With personal experiences paired with reflective questions based on his extremely popular blog piece, “The Love Circle”, Tyrese hopes to inspire readers to pursue their dreams and not let life’s obstacles stand in the way.
HOW TO GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY is organized into a series of fundamental questions that helped Tyrese redefine who he was as a human being, and evolve into a new man. Tyrese stresses that life becomes infinitely richer when one takes the time to know him or herself and understand the true meaning of peace and fulfillment. This book is a guide to helping yourself, using his experiences as a learning tool. “It’s not about talking down to people, it’s about elevating them,” Tyrese says.
Some of Tyrese’s chapter-based questions include: How much do you love yourself? How much do you want for yourself? Why do men cheat? What is your bottom line? Are you ready for the next level?
Grand Central Publishing
Available April 7, 2011 in Hardcover
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July 29, 2010
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Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams
Penguin Press HC
Available April 29, 2010 in Hardcover
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A pitch-perfect account of how hip-hop culture drew in the author and how his father drew him out again-with love, perseverance, and fifteen thousand books.
Into Williams’s childhood home-a one-story ranch house-his father crammed more books than the local library could hold. “Pappy” used some of these volumes to run an academic prep service; the rest he used in his unending pursuit of wisdom. His son’s pursuits were quite different-”money, hoes, and clothes.” The teenage Williams wore Medusa- faced Versace sunglasses and a hefty gold medallion, dumbed down and thugged up his speech, and did whatever else he could to fit into the intoxicating hip-hop culture that surrounded him. Like all his friends, he knew exactly where he was the day Biggie Smalls died, he could recite the lyrics to any Nas or Tupac song, and he kept his woman in line, with force if necessary.
But Pappy, who grew up in the segregated South and hid in closets so he could read Aesop and Plato, had a different destiny in mind for his son. For years, Williams managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles- “keeping it real” in his friends’ eyes and studying for the SATs under his father’s strict tutelage. As college approached and the stakes of the thug lifestyle escalated, the revolving door between Williams’s street life and home life threatened to spin out of control. Ultimately, Williams would have to decide between hip-hop and his future. Would he choose “street dreams” or a radically different dream- the one Martin Luther King spoke of or the one Pappy held out to him now?
Williams is the first of his generation to measure the seductive power of hip-hop against its restrictive worldview, which ultimately leaves those who live it powerless. Losing My Cool portrays the allure and the danger of hip-hop culture like no book has before. Even more remarkably, Williams evokes the subtle salvation that literature offers and recounts with breathtaking clarity a burgeoning bond between father and son.
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March 20, 2010
Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted
by Todd Bridges, , Sarah Tomlinson (Contributor)
Touchstone
Available 03/16/10 in Hardcover
The former child star—best known as Willis Jackson on Diff’rent Strokes—shares the shocking but inspirational details of his struggles with addiction, brushes with the law, and fierce fight to carve a path through the darkness and find his true identity.
For Todd Bridges, early stardom was no protection from painful childhood events that paved the road to his own personal hell. One of the first African-American child actors on shows like Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Roots, Bridges burst to the national forefront on the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes as the subject of the popular catchphrase, “What’chu Talkin About Willis?” When the show ended, Bridges was overwhelmed by the off-camera traumas he had faced. Turning to drugs as an escape, he soon lost control.
Now, for the first time, Bridges opens up about his life before and after Diff’rent Strokes: the incredible reversals of fortune brought on by fame and the precipitous—and very public—descent that followed; the persecution from police; the drug addiction that nearly consumed him; the criminal charges that almost earned him a life sentence; and his successful legal defense led by Johnnie Cochran. Through it all, Bridges never relented in his quest to fight his way back from the abyss, establish his own identity—separate from Willis Jackson—and offer his ordeal as a positive example for those struggling to overcome similar challenges. His triumphant story of recovery and redemption is recounted here as well.
Todd Bridges has lived a life of remarkable twists and turns—from the greatest heights to the lowest lows imaginable. In this shocking but ultimately hopeful memoir, he proves that what he was really talking about was survival.
September 11, 2009
So many have been asking: What caused you to write 8 books within the last year? Additionally, writing the screenplay for and producing a docu-drama based on my second book “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101)” – all within the same time frame? Basically, I fell in love with writing. I’ve studied many successful people and realized that they have one thing in common and that is – THEY LOVE WHAT THEY DO. Therefore they are good at it. Love is one of the most powerful forces given to man, though it is often overlooked. “For love we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, endure hardships. Without love mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, and hardships our plight in life,” writes Gary Chapman in “The Five Love Languages.”
I never envisioned myself being a writer. I moved to Hollywood in 1996 and just wanted to act. As I stated in my book “When The Dust Settles” I was forced into writing or putting it more subtly it became as a blessing in disguise. While almost going bankrupt in 2004 I stumbled into a 1970s classic film which I so badly wanted to remake. At the time I had no prior experience in film making, except that which I had picked up previously on movie sets. Nonetheless, I was determined to succeed.
For the next three weeks, I made phone calls to find out who held the rights to my intended pet project. When I finally made contact with the studio, a woman answered the phone and told me they were not interested in selling the rights to a third party.
That statement didn’t sit well with me. You see, my plane had already taken off, the fasten-your-seat-belt signs were already extinguished, and the hostess was serving the beverage of the day.
I composed myself, contacted a writer friend whose script was recently optioned by a major studio, and asked him to assist me in writing my script. He did one of the best things a person can do for another: instead of giving me a fish, he showed me how to fish by sending me guidelines for writing a screenplay. I got busy. My mantra echoed for several months, “I’ll write my own. I’ll show them. They’ll be begging for my work someday.” My imaginary airplane was swiftly gaining altitude.
I knew if it was going to be – it was up to me! So I committed my time skill and resources to writing consistently. Each book I wrote, in that process I acquired a subsequent title and embarked upon the task of writing it.
Prior to 2007 I had written two screenplays and in spring of that same year my first book “The 5 Steps to Changing Your Life” was etched. In the summer of 2008 I wrote published and released “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101).” This book has become my bestseller and as a spin off “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101) Workbook” and “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101)” Journal were etched in early 2009. “When the Dust Settles (A True Hollywood Story)” based on my ten year quest in Hollywood followed in tow. This summer saw the release of “Dare to Make A Difference (Success 101),” “Dare to Make A Difference (Success 101) For Teens,” “The 52 Weeks Goal Setting Quest” and “The SUCCESS Triangle.” The latter is a volume of three eclectic books from my inspirational series relating to my climbing up from the bottom.
Back in 2007 after the release of my first book, I had a heart to heart talk with myself and decided that I wasn’t using much of my potential. I decided that no one was going outwork me. Still not adept at using the computer’s keyboard; I had never taken a typing class. My word per minute ratio no doubt was about a few words a minute – I’ve never checked. Someone once said: When the dream is big enough the facts don’t count. It’s my belief that if my thoughts can produce it – I can write it. This fall I’ll be releasing my tenth book “Total Commitment (The Mindset of Champions).”
If writing be the air that I breathe “write on.” When God brings it he doesn’t mess around.
A 2009 Books That Will Enhance Your Life – Release. All Rights Reserved.
April 18, 2009
Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness
by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Atria Paperback
Award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction Jewell Parker Rhodes is a master of her craft, understanding how both real and imagined stories can serve as a pathway to enlightenment. Porch Stories is Rhodes’s tribute to her beloved grandmother, a real account of the love she received and the lessons she learned.
Jewell Parker Rhodes was left in the care of her father and his mother when her own mother abandoned the family. Grandmother Ernestine’s house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was home to four other grandchildren as well. And while its crumbling bricks, lack of air-conditioning, and neighborhood rodents meant that life was anything but easy, the family house was filled with love. Everyone on their street knew and loved Grandmother Ernestine; men would tip their hats and children would rush up for a hug any time she was outside.
No one loved Grandmother Ernestine more than Jewell, who would pass up a movie with her cousins to sit outside on Ernestine’s front stoop and listen to her stories and her words of comfort. Jewell would later move out West to live with her mother and father as they reattempted marriage. But that was a short-lived experience. Before long, she was back in the loving arms of her grandmother, whose wisdom and warmth gave all of her children the tools to overcome the ordinary and extraordinary challenges life brings. Porch Stories, described by Rhodes as “an intergenerational love song,” is a loving tribute that is at once candid, courageous, and reverent — a literary portrait of family love that readers from all walks of life can see in themselves.
E-Card Announcement
April 4, 2009
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Triangular Road: A Memoir
by Paule Marshall
Basic Civitas Books
Available January 26, 2010 in Paperback
In Triangular Road, famed novelist Paule Marshall tells the story of her years as a fledgling young writer in the 1960s. A memoir of self-discovery, it also offers an affectionate tribute to the inimitable Langston Hughes, who entered Marshall’s life during a crucial phase and introduced her to the world of European letters during a whirlwind tour of the continent funded by the State Department. In the course of her journeys to Europe, Barbados, and eventually Africa, Marshall comes to comprehend the historical enormity of the African diaspora, an understanding that fortifies her sense of purpose as a writer.
In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Paule Marshall offers an indelible portrait of a young black woman coming of age as a novelist in a literary world dominated by white men.
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