Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul

Written by Tanisha C. Ford, PhD, Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul examines how black women from the Black Power era of the 1960’s to the present have used their beauty and fashion choices as a tool of resistance.

I’ll Never Write My Memoirs

Legendary influential performer Grace Jones offers a revealing account of her spectacular career and turbulent life, charting the development of a persona that has made her one of the world’s most recognizable artists.

The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks

Food and culinary arts are important part of African-American culture. For many, culinary arts are a symbol of resilience, love, adaptation, and a connection to West African roots.

In her latest book, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, Toni Tipton-Martin, an award-winning food journalist, and community activist explores the complex history behind African-American food and the culture behind it.

Negroland: A Memoir

Written by Pulitzer-winning writer and cultural critic Margo Jefferson, Negroland: A Memoir is more than your typical personal narrative. Instead, the book is a unique profile of the microcosmic world that Jefferson inhabited — one that illustrates the intersections of race, gender, power, and privilege.

Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women

Edited by Mia E. Bay, Farah J. Griffin, Martha S. Jones, and Barbara D. Savage, as part of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture , Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women, takes a critical look at the scholarship of often neglected black women thinkers and intellectuals.

The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

This first book by author Tamara Winfrey Harris, takes a critical look at the classic tropes of the Mammy, the Jezebel, and the Sapphire, and how these tropes manifest themselves in modern media.

The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History

In her book The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History, Pulitzer Prize winning fashion critic Robin Givhan takes a look at the legendary fashion show and how race played a role in helping American designers to define themselves on the world stage.

God Help the Child

Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child—the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment—weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult.

Sew Fab: Sewing and Style for Young Fashionistas

Lesley Ware is a writer, designer, entrepreneur, educator, zine-maker, and self-described dream-chaser. The Muskegon, Michigan native, who currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, recently released her first book, Sew Fab: Sewing and Style for Young Fashionistas. The book features 8 sewing projects for tailor-made for young girls.

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

[Issa] Rae covers everything from cybersexing in the early days of the Internet to deflecting unsolicited comments on weight gain, from navigating the perils of eating out alone and public displays of affection to learning to accept yourself—natural hair and all.

The Bible For Black Girls

A hilarious collection of text posts from tumblr user pinkvelourtracksuit come together to create a book that can best be described as uplifting, honest, and inspirational. Written by Chelsea N. Claverie and organized DeKeshia S. Horne

Alphabet: A Selected Index of Anecdotes & Drawings

Nigerian-born, New York-based visual artist Toyin Odutola has gained quite a following online for her uniquely complex pen and ink drawings. Interestingly enough, Odutola doesn’t offer prints of her works, preferring to work with printers to release printed images of her work in book format. She recently announced the re-elease of her 2012 book Alphabet. A book which she describes as “a singular work: combining an abridged version of my MFA Thesis (documenting my methodology, process, conceptual themes, even journal entries) and high-quality ballpoint pen drawings up to that point.”

We Should All Be Feminists

In this personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-admired TEDx talk of the same name—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah, offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman now—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.

Bad Feminist: Essays

In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, SISTER OUTSIDER celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.

Dawn (Xenogenesis, Bk. 1)

Lilith lyapo awoke from a centuries-long sleep to find herself aboard the vast spaceship of the Oankali. Creatures covered in writhing tentacles, the Oankali had saved every surviving human from a dying, ruined Earth. They healed the planet, cured cancer, increased strength, and were now ready to help Lilith lead her people back to Earth–but for a price.

An Untamed State

Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience. In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over thirteen days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath.

My Life on a Plate: Recipes From Around the World

“My Life on a Plate” tells Kelis’ personal story through the food she creates. Her style has been molded by her culture, her travels, and all the people she met along the way. This book is a collection of her favorite recipes. It features a mix of foods from her Puerto Rican heritage, such as Pernil (Puerto Rican Pork Shoulder), Arroz con Gandules, and Shrimp Alcapurias along with dishes she created after discovering them on her travels around the world such as Malay Curry Chicken and Swedish Meatballs.

The Face That Changed It All: A Memoir

A revelatory and redemptive memoir from Beverly Johnson, the first black supermodel to grace the cover of Vogue, and who, over five hundred magazine covers later, remains one of the most successful glamour girls ever.

A Real Southern Cook: In Her Savannah Kitchen

Dora Charles, a former chef for Paul Deen, is striking out on her own and sharing her roots, with a new Southern cookbook. Her new cookbook, A Real Southern Cook: In Her Savannah Kitchen, includes bits of family history as well as useful tips for any cook.

Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship

In Shapeshifters Aimee Meredith Cox explores how young Black women in a Detroit homeless shelter contest stereotypes, critique their status as partial citizens, and negotiate poverty, racism, and gender violence to create and imagine lives for themselves. Based on eight years of fieldwork at a local shelter for women and girls, Cox shows how the shelter’s residents—who range in age from fifteen to twenty-two—employ strategic methods she characterizes as choreography to disrupt the social hierarchies and prescriptive narratives that work to marginalize them.

Binti

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

In this poignant, hilarious, and deeply intimate call to arms, [Shonda Rhimes,] Hollywood’s most powerful woman, the mega-talented creator of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal and executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder reveals how saying YES changed her life—and how it can change yours too.