African American English

A booksmart kid from Toronto, Eternity Martis was excited to move away to Western University for her undergraduate degree. But as one of the few Black students there, she soon discovered that the campus experiences she'd seen in movies were far more complex in reality. Over the next four years, Eternity learned more about what someone like her brought out in other people than she did about herself. She was confronted by White students in blackface at parties, dealt with being the only person of colour in class and was tokenized by her romantic partners.

One of five children, Pat watched as her alcoholic mother struggled to get by on charity, cons, and petty crimes. At age seven, Pat was taught to roll drunks for money. At 12, she was targeted for sex by a man eight years her senior; by 13, she was pregnant. By 15, Pat was a mother of two. Alone at 16, Pat was determined to make a better life for her children. But with no job skills and an eighth-grade education, her options were limited. She learned quickly that hustling and humor were the only tools she had to survive.

Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge - a tradition that continues today within some black populations.

Maddie and Theo have two things in common: 1. Alexa is their best friend. 2. They hate each other. After an "oops, we made a mistake" night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa's wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they're comfortable with.

In Salvage: Readings from the Wreck, Dionne Brand's first major book of non-fiction since her classic A Map to the Door of No Return, the acclaimed poet and novelist offers a bracing look at the intersections of reading and life, and of what remains in the wreck of empire. Blending literary criticism and autobiography-as artifact, Brand reads Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, among other still-widely studied works, to explore encounters with colonial, imperialist and racist tropes from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

Buck O'Neil once described him as "Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one". Among experts, he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America's most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today.

Taz is the ruthless leader of an elite group of bandits who rule the streets of Oklahoma City. No one has met the mysterious boss who gives them their orders via laptop, but the arrangement works for everyone involved. Their criminal enterprise keeps them rolling in dough, allowing them to purchase property and businesses all over town. When Taz falls in love with Sacha, an ambitious young lawyer, he makes an unexpected enemy. Cliff, another lawyer at the firm, wants Sacha for himself, and he'll stop at nothing to win her back from the thug she's with.

Nothing prepares Tyler Blake for the fast-paced living of New York City. A small-town girl from Georgia, she quickly gets caught up in the glamorous entertainment industry. While pursuing her dream of becoming an actress, Tyler continually gets sidetracked by men who promise to help her and finds herself going from one dysfunctional relationship to another. Just when Tyler finally believes she has found her ideal man in hip-hop producer Brian McCall, everything begins to go horribly wrong. Trapped in a nightmarish relationship, Tyler is determined not to go down without a fight.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s account of the first successful large-scale application of nonviolent resistance in America is comprehensive, revelatory, and intimate. King described his book as "the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth."

New York Times best-selling author Zane presents a tantalizing short story collection, Zane's Sex Chronicles, which is now the basis of the Cinemax series Zane's Sex Chronicles - the first urban erotic series on television. The series calls for a sexual revolution and brings forth our favorite characters - Patience James aka Zane, Maricruz, Lyric, Eboni, and Ana Marie - as a force to be reckoned with as they balance common day-to-day issues, a slew of hot sex, and the fine men in the big city. Learn more about their backgrounds in this special tie-in edition.

Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb.

Renee is queen of the city and runs it with an iron fist, but everything changes when people from her past resurface to seek revenge. They will stop at nothing until she's dead. Molested by her stepfather and verbally abused by her mother, Renee channeled her pain into passion and became the most ruthless queen-pin New York has ever seen. Haunted by her past and unable to let go of what was, she struggles to achieve inner peace while inflicting mayhem on the streets of New York.

Tiffany and Kory are settling into their happily-ever-after and enjoying matrimonial bliss, but they are missing the one thing that would make their family complete - a baby. After several months of trying to conceive, with no success, Tiffany shifts her focus on her career and her new role as CEO at TiMax. Eager and ready to move up the corporate ladder, Tiffany convinces her best friend, Rose, to move to L.A., offering her a new start. It's something Rose simply can't refuse, an opportunity not only for success, but also for love.

Patricia Haley’s inspirational series following the drama-filled Mitchell family shot her to the number-one spot on the Essence best-seller list. Anointed transports listeners back to the saga’s beginning, when Dave and Madeline Mitchell were still married, raising a family, and building a million-dollar business. Then Dave hires a pretty young assistant named Sherry Henderson, and temptation gives way to desire - setting events in motion that will haunt the Mitchell clan for decades to come.

Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. A neighbor's son murdered in a drive-by shooting. Things that haven't happened yet. Kev, born while Los Angeles burned around them, wants to protect his sister from a power that could destroy her. But when Kev is incarcerated, Ella must decide what it means to watch her brother suffer while holding the ability to wreck cities in her hands. Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative.

On a snowy Christmas Eve in an unnamed American city, the archangel Michael wanders the streets. He is alone and hungry, his clothes tattered, and when he sees his face reflected in a store window, it is that of a young African American boy. Who will offer him food and shelter and who will turn him away? And when he becomes a blonde, freckle-faced child, is his fate different?

Paris, 1941. With Nazi occupation imminent, journalist Elodie Mitchell plans to return home to Chicago. But an unexpected invitation to a Josephine Baker show changes everything. Mistaken for the star, Elodie is whisked backstage, where she uncovers an underground resistance movement hidden beneath the glitz and glamour. Drawn into a whisper network of spies, Elodie accepts a perilous mission: to go undercover as Josephine's cousin and gather vital intelligence.

Thalia, a 25-year-old wild girl gone good, moves back to her old neighborhood after a failed engagement and manages to catch the eye of the town's most wanted man - the incredibly sexy, single, devoted, and charismatic Reverend Isaac. Not only is there a large age difference between Thalia and the middle-aged pastor, but he also happens to be the father of Madison, her best friend since junior high school. Madison isn't trying to deal with her father dating anyone after her mother's death.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

Black Americans have long been shackled to the Democrats. Seeing no viable alternative, they have watched liberal politicians take the Black vote for granted without pledging anything in return. In Blackout, Owens argues that this automatic allegiance is both illogical and unearned. She contends that the Democrat Party has a long history of racism and exposes the ideals that hinder the Black community’s ability to rise above poverty, live independent and successful lives, and be an active part of the American dream.