Toni Morrison

Zadie Smith

Recitatif, when researched is not a word, but in the world of Toni Morrison she makes it so, because that’s who she was. Recitatif does not favor infamous titles like  Sula or The Bluest Eye, it follows two girls in their individual torment in response to the foster/shelter system. 

The book’s uniqueness is in the fact that the protagonists are white and black, but which is which? The book’s gorgeous characterization and syntax look to the reader and asks them dig deep about their ideas of race, if you think you have a hold on it.

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

District of Columbia

A Story

A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Toni Morrison, in a stand-alone Knopf hardcover for the first time, with an introduction by Zadie Smith. In this 1983 short story--the only short story Morrison ever wrote--we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them. Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." We know that one is white and one is Black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage? A remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and how perceptions are made tangible by reality, Recitatif is a gift to readers in these changing times.

Recitatif

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bell hooks

Bone Black, cuts deep, bone deep into the juxtaposing steadfast/slow upbringing of our poised and demure social critic bell hooks. Somehow, the book is also about YOU in a way. You recognize the universal experiences of being punished for outspokenness, the surge of creativity that comes in solitude and joy that’s cultivated out of the will to survive and be better than your creators. (Not from spite but from love…sometimes from sorrow)

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Memories of Girlhood

Stitching together girlhood memories with the finest threads of innocence, feminist intellectual bell hooks presents a powerfully intimate account of growing up in the South. A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Black shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child’s journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the emotional vulnerability of children. She sheds new light on a society that beholds the joys of marriage for men and condemns anything more than silence for women. In this world, too, black is a woman’s color—worn when earned—daughters and daddies are strangers under the same roof, and crying children are often given something to cry about. hooks finds good company in solitude, good company in books. She also discovers, in the motionless body of misunderstanding, that writing is her most vital breath.

Bone Black

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Warsan Shire

Bless the daughter raised by a voice in her head, the title of titles. This book of poetry and prose wrings out the heart like a washcloth. It’s a pick up, put down and breathe (that’s how all poetry should be). 

Poems

Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire “The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger Mama, I made it / out of your home / alive, raised by / the voices / in my head. With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way toward womanhood. Drawing from her own life, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls. In Shire’s hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life, full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life, full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl. The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

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James Baldwin

This is my introductory novel to James Baldwin. The chemistry between Fonny and Tish is world-bending, and Baldwin, with a formidable pen, orchestrates a world of intimacy, pain, and injustice.

A love story about two badly frightended but intensely brave, black young people.

If Beale Street Could Talk

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Audre. Lorde

The one and only. The completed collection of Audre Lorde’s poetry.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

"These are poems which blaze and pulse on the page."--Adrienne Rich "The first declaration of a black, lesbian feminist identity took place in these poems, and set the terms--beautifully, forcefully--for contemporary multicultural and pluralist debate."--Publishers Weekly "This is an amazing collection of poetry by . . . one of our best contemporary poets. . . . Her poems are powerful, often political, always lyrical and profoundly moving."--Chuckanut Reader Magazine "What a deep pleasure to encounter Audre Lorde's most potent genius . . . you will welcome the sheer accessibility and the force and beauty of this volume."--Out Magazine

Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

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Claude McKay

The book sells itself as the “novel without a plot.” It entails descriptive characters like banjo playing drifters returning home after the war, “304” folk and the robust language of the West Indies. A book for those who appreciate adventure, promiscuity and Black Un-American folklore.

A Novel

"Lincoln Agrippa Daily, known on the 1920s Marseilles waterfront as 'Banjo,' prowls the rough waterfront bistros with his drifter friends drinking, looking for women, playing music, fighting, loving, and talking--about their homes in Africa, the West Indies, or the American South, and about being black"--Publisher marketin

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Toni Morrison; Zadie Smith

Recitatif

bell hooks

Bone Black

Warsan Shire

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

James Baldwin

If Beale Street Could Talk

Audre. Lorde

Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

Claude McKay

Banjo

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Toni Morrison; Zadie Smith

Recitatif

bell hooks

Bone Black

Warsan Shire

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

James Baldwin

If Beale Street Could Talk

Audre. Lorde

Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

Claude McKay

Banjo

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