African American English

There's a saying in Brooklyn that if you come from my part of town, you're from around the way. Well Lyric, Juicy, and Precious are all from around the way. They all live in Crown Heights, one of the most notorious sections of Brooklyn, but to them it's just a place they call home. Around the Way Girls 2 is a fast-paced look at the life of some street-smart women who think they know it all but are about to get the lessons of their lives.

Alicia was born to the good life, she's entitled to the best, and she'll do anything to get it. Even if it means piling up thousands of dollars in debt. Even if it means denying to everyone - even herself - that her love of shopping has gotten way out of control.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.

Ceazia Devereaux has seen it all on the streets. She's gone from a gangster's girl to being married to the game. After the murders of a few of her associates, she's ready to divorce herself from the lifestyle she once knew and become the "good girl" she was raised to be. Ceazia finds her way to Atlanta, where she hopes to find a man who can take care of her. Parlay is a big-name rapper who fits the bill perfectly. Ceazia sets up a chance encounter with him, thinking she's on her way to a fresh start.

Award-winning novelist Tayari Jones delivers a story based on the 1979-1980 Atlanta child murders. Told from the perspective of three fifth-grade classmates, Leaving Atlanta is a vividly disturbing, but hopeful novel.

Meet Marcel and Sabrina, a hitman and a bookkeeper for the Mob. The couple should have never met, let alone fallen in love. When they decide to go against the grain, all hell breaks loose. Somebody wants them dead; they just don't know who. It could be Leo, Marcel's jealous older brother; Othello, Sabrina's crooked father; or it could be The Family, a roundtable of the top contenders in the underworld. There is no honor amongst thieves. Marcel and Sabrina will find the old adage to be true the hard way.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. Among these problem solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation.

From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

John Small may be a successful Wall Street banker, but at heart he's a country boy from the sleepy town of Nedine, South Carolina. John wants to open Nedine’s first black-owned bank. But big dreams can bring big problems and John’s snooty New York City girlfriend is just the beginning. John is about to learn some hard truths about money, power, love, and loyalty. And when his future, and his family's legacy, is in danger, help will come from where he least expects it...

Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by society and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband. In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters to God. The letters, spanning 20 years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women.

Cheyenne and Kelsi grew up together in the hood. They're best friends who've always had each other's backs - until Cheyenne' s father is released from prison and Kelsi can't resist his advances. Their scandalous affair might do more than just tear apart a friendship; it could destroy Cheyenne's whole world.

Essence best-selling author Michelle Stimpson crafts the inspiring tale of a strong woman juggling independence with her desire for a family. Single mother Peaches Miller is rattled when her fiancé gets a promotion that would require they move far away. Then, her son’s father comes back into her life. But Peaches isn’t sure either man can make her happy—or whether she needs any man at all.

What happens when the relationship you thought was right ends up being so wrong? JaNair never imagined that her world would come crashing down the way it did at the grand opening of her boyfriend's nightclub. The secrets that were revealed about Jerome in front of her family and friends embarrassed her so much that she hopped on the first flight out of Los Angeles. Her destination: Houston, Texas. The whole gang is back in this final installment of the What Bae Won't Do series for one last ride. Will everyone get their happily ever after, or will their love lives stay in shambles?

After the Civil War, African Americans placed poignant “information wanted” advertisements in newspapers, searching for missing family members. Inspired by the power of these ads, Heather Andrea Williams uses slave narratives, letters, interviews, public records, and diaries to guide listeners back to devastating moments of family separation during slavery when people were sold away from parents, siblings, spouses, and children. Williams explores the usually unsuccessful journeys toward reunification.

Political activist and best-selling author Randall Robinson is a pillar of scholarship and insight within the African-American literary community. His acclaimed novel Makeda stars Gray March, a young man who, beginning in the 1950s, embarks on a journey of spiritual and historical enlightenment through stories he hears from his blind grandmother.

Motherhood isn’t easy, especially when you’re a mother of a Black son. Ten years ago, Cheryl jumped at the chance to send her son, Javonte, to an exclusive boarding school in New England - far away from Atlanta and the violence of the city streets. It was the American dream, or was it? Now settled in Vermont, Javonte is married and well-employed, but Cheryl hardly ever sees him, and when she does, her own son seems like someone she only used to know.

The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. Confederate Reckoning is the startling story of this epic political battle in which women and slaves helped to decide the fate of the Confederacy and the outcome of the Civil War.

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the US State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism.

In the third installment of the runaway hit series Girls from da Hood, street-fiction veterans KaShamba Williams and Mark Anthony are joined by newcomer MadameK as they turn up the heat with fiery stories that will leave the listener breathless.

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.