Windsor Armstrong is a polished, Harvard-educated African American professor of Russian literature. Her son, Pushkin X, is an exceedingly famous pro football player, an achievement that impresses his mother not at all. Even more distressing, however, her beloved son has just become engaged to a gorgeous white Russian emigre who also happens to be a lap dancer." "For Windsor this predicament is no laughing matter. Determined to get to the bottom of it, she embarks on a journey into her own rich past to her Motown childhood, where the Temptations danced across the stage and love came disguised as a sharply dressed gangster; to Harvard, where she endured the humiliation of being an unwed black teen mother; to St. Petersburg, where the verses of the brilliant Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, great-grandson of an African slave, moved through her head as she made love to her own white Russian. The urge to protect her son has been Windsor's only goal, but as she draws ever closer to the secret that has cast a shadow over her life, the identity of her son's father, she discovers that the half-lies she has fed her boy don't add up to the beauty of the truth."--BOOK JACKET.
Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a “lively, engaging, and often wise” (The New York Times Book Review) voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music. Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity. What emerges in My Black Country is a celebration of the most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.
An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings. From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph “Ziggy” Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit’s famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city’s African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he’s rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats. As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it. Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom’s venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City’s Harlem. Accompanying these “tributes” are thoughtfully paired cocktails—special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy’s saints—libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall’s wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.
Attending the funeral of her Pentagon special advocate ex-husband, a bewildered woman encounters a British socialist and probable spy who possesses very different knowledge of the deceased's personality, a situation that sparks their shared investigation into her ex's complicated life. By the NAACP Image Award finalist author of The Wind Done Gone.
Ada Howard, the wife of the preacher at Nashville's Full Love Baptist Tabernacle, has a whole lot of people to take care of. There's her husband, of course, and the flock that comes with him, plus the kids at the day care centre where she works, two grown daughters, and two ailing, wayward parents. It's no wonder she can't find time to take care of herself. And her husband's been so busy lately she's suspicious some other woman may be taking care of him...Then it comes: the announcement of her twenty-five-year college reunion in twelve months' time, signed with a wink by her old campus flame. It sets Ada thinking about the thrills of young love lost, and the hundred or so pounds gained since her college days, and she decides it's high time to change her body, and her life. So she starts laying down some rules. The first rule is: Don't Keep Doing What You've Always Been Doing. And so begins her unforgettable journey on the way to less weight and more love...For anyone who has ever found themselves at a crossroads, with one hand in their pocket and the other in the cookie jar, Ada's Rules is a warm, funny and soulfully wise novel about falling back in love with the life you have.
Held captive on an island, thirteen-year-old orphan Black Bee Bright must pass her Official Princess Test and undertake a dangerous journey to the east side of the island, where eight princesses help her discover what it truly means to be a princess.
Ada Howard, the wife of the preacher at Nashville's Full Love Baptist Tabernacle, has a whole lot of people to take care of. There's her husband and the flock that comes with him, plus the kids at the day care centre where she works, two grown daughters, and two ailing, wayward parents. It's no wonder she can't find time to take care of hersel. Then it comes: the announcement of her twenty-five-year college reunion in twelve months' time, signed with a wink by her old campus flame. It sets Ada thinking about the thrills of young love lost, and the hundred or so pounds gained since her college days, and she decides it's high time to change her body, and her life.
A mother-daughter duo reclaims and redefines soul food by mining the traditions of four generations of black women and creating 80 healthy recipes to help everyone live longer and stronger. NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER • “Soul Food Love has preserved our traditions but reinvented how they’re prepared. Its focus on health is a godsend.”—Viola Davis “This beautifully written compendium is literary history, cookbook, family album, motherwit, daughter-grace, and the gospel truth. I’ll be cooking from this book for years to come.”—Elizabeth Alexander, poet and professor After bestselling author Alice Randall penned an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Black Women and Fat,” chronicling her quest to be “the last fat black woman” in her family, she turned to her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, for help. Together they overhauled the way they cook and eat, translating recipes and traditions handed down by generations of black women into easy, affordable, and healthful—yet still indulgent—dishes, such as Peanut Chicken Stew, Red Bean and Brown Rice Creole Salad, Fiery Green Beans, and Sinless Sweet Potato Pie. Soul Food Love relates the authors’ fascinating family history, which mirrors that of much of black America in the twentieth century, explores the often-fraught relationship African American women have had with food, and forges a powerful new way forward that honors their cultural and culinary heritage.
Love, Alice is a sweet collection of poems penned by the author’s twin sister long years ago, hidden away for no one to see. Having discovered them more than a decade after her twin’s death, fully knowing what must be done; create a beautiful book as beautiful as the sister she always knew. A passionate child of God, penned from a heart in love with the Holy King. This is a celebration of a sister dearly loved.
*HA02, Departures: A Reader for Developing Writers, Randall L. Popken, Alice A. Newsome, M. Lanell Gonzales(all of Tarleton State University), H6249-0, 350 pp., 6 x 9, 0-205-16249-5, paperbound, 1995, $16.50nk, October*/Departures offers developmental writers a fresh, unique anthology to complement their writing courses. The readings are drawn exclusively from popular media and are chosen for their ability to interest students. Departures examines questions of immediate importance in modern American life, choosing topics that also have academic significance.
Quirky and always graceful, and with settings that range from San Francisco to North Carolina, from Paris to Mexico, the stories in this collection provide telling glimpses into the lives of "ordinary people made extraordinary by Adams's perception" ("Newsweek").
A story about a small town's surface appearance and the truths submerged below from the New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic. People tend to stay in their place in the town of Haddan. The students at the prestigious prep school don't mix with locals; even within the school, hierarchy rules as freshman and faculty members find out where they fit in and what is expected from them. But there are minor collisions happening everywhere: An awkward boy, the son of a teacher, is flirting with a pretty classmate, the daughter of a convenience-store cashier. A photographer in plastic flip-flops and an overflowing backpack is about to marry a staid, ambitious historian. And when a body is found in the river behind the school, a local policeman named Abey Grey will walk into this enclosed world and upset it entirely...
Meet Spacey Stacey and her band of fun friends! There is never a dull day on Planet Fiveways, where Stacey and her friends live. From space races to jetpack missions to outwitting pesky space bunnies, there is always a new adventure to be had. Hop into Stacey's Rickety Rocket and blast off!?A collection of three stories, including: Rickety Rocket, Jetpack Jelly and Picnic Planet.
Alice Foote was a gifted young writer whose talent wasn't showcased while she was alive. Years later and after her death, Alice's widower, Ed, found her shoe box of writings. He felt that the sentiments of the greeting cards she had purchased for him over the years had doubled in meaning now that he could read words she had written straight from her heart. He made it his life's mission to share her talent with the world. This book is a collection of the hidden treasures that Ed discovered.
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