What is the Popular Reading Collection?
The Popular Reading Collection (POP) was created to provide leisure reading materials for students, faculty, and staff at Santa Clara University. The collection includes both fiction and nonfiction titles and is located on the 1st floor near the Library Help Desk.
On a Woman's Madness
A classic of queer literature that's as electrifying today as it was when it originally appeared in 1982, On a Woman's Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America's tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by the passionate romances of the present but haunted by society's expectations and her ancestral past.
Let Us Descend
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
The House of Doors
The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When "Willie" Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one. Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings-and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley's past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction. A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.
Wings of Ebony
When her mother is shot dead on her doorstep, life for Rue and her sister Tasha changes forever. Taken from her neighborhood by the father she never knew, Rue is forced to leave her little sister behind, and whisked away to Ghizon-- a hidden island of magic wielders. Rue is the only half-god, half-human there, where leaders protect their magical powers at all costs and thrive on human suffering. Desperate to see Tasha on the anniversary of their mother's death, Rue breaks Ghizon's sacred Do Not Leave Law and returns to Houston, only to discover that Black kids are being forced into crime and violence. And her sister, Tasha, is in danger of falling sway to the very forces that claimed their mother's life.
Everything Is Figureoutable
Let's be honest--none of us were given an owner's manual at birth. If you're having trouble solving a problem or making a dream happen, the problem isn't you. It's not that you're not hardworking, intelligent or deserving, but that you haven't yet installed the one key belief that will change everything. My mom, who has the tenacity of a bulldog and curses like a truck driver, explained it to me this way, "Nothing in life is that complicated. You can do whatever you set your mind to if you just roll up your sleeves, get in there, and do it. Everything is figureoutable." Whether you want to leave a dead end job, break an addiction, learn to dance, heal a relationship, grow a business, master your money, travel the globe, or solve world hunger, Everything is Figureoutable will train your brain to think more creatively and positively--especially in the face of setbacks. Inside, you'll learn: The simple practice that makes it 42% more likely you'll achieve your goals. How to overcome a lack of time and money. How to find two free hours a day. What to do if you're multipassionate and want to follow all your dreams. How to deal with criticism, haters, and imposter syndrome. How to tell the difference between fear and intuition. A fail-proof test to make the right decisions, especially in high-stakes situations. You'll also hear triumphant stories of everyday people confronting loss, illness, and heart-wrenching pain. Like the 23-year-old single mom with no education past 10th grade who used the Everything is Figureoutable philosophy to get her GED and then her bachelor's degree, and now she's in law school. I wrote this book because, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, it's the one idea I'd want to leave behind. When I'm having a rough time or when a shitstorm comes to town, Everything is Figureoutable instantly turns things around. It's more than just a fun phrase to say. It's a philosophy of relentless optimism. A mindset. A mantra. A conviction. Most important, it's about to make you unstoppable.
Study for Obedience
A woman moves from the place of her birth to a remote northern country to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. The youngest child of many siblings--more than she cares to remember --from earliest childhood she has attended to their every desire, smoothed away the slightest discomfort with perfect obedience, with the highest degree of devotion. Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs--collective bovine hysteria; the demise of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog's phantom pregnancy; a potato blight. She notices that the local suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed particularly in her case. What is clear is that she is being accused of wrongdoing, but in a language she cannot understand and so cannot address. And however diligently and silently she toils in service of the community, still she feels their hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother's property. And inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill...
Love of My Lives
Madi Ramírez has it all ; a thriving career she loves, a successful boyfriend, and a wedding to plan ; when he finally proposes. So why does she feel like there is something missing? Jayden even has the right initials ; the JR that appeared to Madi years ago, in a dream visitation from her beloved, wise abuela. Madi's friends think her expectations are too high, but she can't help wishing for that dreamy feeling in real-life. Wishing that Jayden would show her a little more affection. That she could really believe they were meant to be . . .When a business trip to Puerto Rico presents itself, Madi is quick to take it. She can finally scatter her abuela's ashes on the beach, as she wished. And maybe time apart will remind Jayden how much Madi means to him ; and maybe he'll begin to show it. But in Puerto Rico, Madi finds something ; well, someone else. A man who makes her heart beat triple-time and who feels as right as someone Fated ; except for those nagging initials . . . Brimming with the magic of old San Juan and la Isla del Encanto, Love of My Lives is the perfect read for anyone who has longed for a legendary love story that transcends time and distance and the powerful magic of steering their own dreams.
The Devil of the Provinces
In a crime novel that upends all the genre's conventions, a biologist returns to Colombia after fifteen years abroad and quickly becomes entangled in the trappings of his past: a murdered brother, a dealer of beautiful thoughts, a private school where students disappear and girls give birth to strange creatures. A chance encounter with an old acquaintance leads to a job offer and launches an inner conflict full of holes and missteps. Ultimately, he may be destined to remain in the city he'd hoped never to see again.
Western Lane
Gopi has been playing squash since she was a small child. After the death of her mother, she is enlisted in a quietly brutal training regimen by her father. Soon the game becomes her world as she slowly distances herself from her sisters in hopes of becoming the best. On the court she is not alone: she is with the players who have come before her. And she is with Ged, a boy with his own formidable talent.
Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind
A piercing critique of late stage capitalism and a reckoning with its true cost, JONATHAN ABERNATHY YOU ARE KIND is about a man who takes a job as a dream auditor to pay off an insurmountable student loan debt.
Black Boy Smile
At nine-years-old, D. Watkins has three concerns in life: picking his dad's lotto numbers, keeping his Nikes free of creases, and being a man. Directly in his periphery is east Baltimore, a poverty-stricken city battling the height of a crack epidemic just hours from the nation's capital. Watkins, like many boys around him, is thrust out of childhood and into a world where manhood means surviving by slinging crack on street corners and finding himself on the wrong side of pistols. For thirty years, Watkins is forced safeguard every moment of joy he experiences, or risk losing himself entirely. Now, for the first time, Watkins harnesses these moments to tell the story of how he matured into the D. Watkins we know today--beloved author, college professor, editor-at-large of Salon.com, and devoted husband and father. Black Boy Smile lays bare Watkins' relationship with his father and brotherhoods with boys around him. He shares candid recollections of early assaults on his body and mind and how he coped through stoic silence disguised as manhood. His harrowing pursuit for redemption, written in his signature street style, pinpoints how generational hardship, left raw and unnurtured, breeds toxic masculinity. Watkins discovers a love for books, is admitted to two graduate programs, meets with his future wife--an attorney--and finds true freedom in fatherhood. Equally moving and liberating, Black Boy Smile is D. Watkins' love letter to Black boys in concrete cities, a daring testimony that brings to life the contradictions, fears, and hopes of boys hurdling headfirst into adulthood. Black Boy Smile is a story that proves that when we acknowledge the fallacies of our past, we can uncover the path toward self-discovery. Black Boy Smile is the story of a Black boy who healed.
Queen of the Tiles
Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her friend Trina Low's death with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion, but all bets are off when Trina's formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe someone at the competition had something to do with Trina's death. It is up to Najwa to find out who is behind these mysterious posts-- not just to save Trina's memory, but to save herself.
People Collide
When Eli leaves the cramped Bulgarian apartment he shares with Elizabeth, his more organized and successful wife, he discovers that he now inhabits her body. Not only have he and his wife traded bodies but Elizabeth, living as Eli, has disappeared without a trace. What follows is Eli’s search across Europe to America for his missing wife—and a roving, no-holds-barred exploration of gender and embodied experience. As Eli comes closer to finding Elizabeth—while learning to exist in her body—he begins to wonder what effect this metamorphosis will have on their relationship and how long he can maintain the illusion of living as someone he isn’t. Will their new marriage wither completely in each other's bodies? Or is this transformation the very thing Eli and Elizabeth need for their marriage to thrive? A rich, rewarding exploration of ambition and sacrifice, desire and loss, People Collide is a portrait of shared lives that shines a refreshing light on everything we thought we knew about love, sexuality, and the truth of who we are.
Bluebeard's Castle
Judith is a successful novelist from a good family, even if that family favors her more beautiful sister. Her desperate yearning for romance appears close to satisfaction when she meets Gavin, a handsome and charming baron, at a wedding on the Cornish coast. His love transforms her from a plain, lonely girl into a beautiful, glamorous woman overnight. But soon her perfect marriage begins to fall apart, and she finds herself trapped in a nightmare. As Judith battles both internal and external demons, including sexual ambivalence, psychological self-torture, gaslighting, family neglect, alcoholism, and domestic abuse, she becomes more and more addicted to her wild beast of a husband, and more and more determined to tame him. The book poses the question: "Why do women stay with bad men?"
Words that Remain
A letter has beckoned to Raimundo since he received it over fifty years ago from his youthful passion, handsome Cícero. But having grown up in an impoverished area of Brazil where the demands of manual labor thwarted his becoming literate, Raimundo has long been unable to read. As young men, he and Cícero fell in love, only to have Raimundo's father brutally beat his son when he discovered their affair. Even after Raimundo succeeds in making a life for himself in the big city, he continues to be haunted by this secret missive full of longing from the distant past. Now at age seventy-one, he at last acquires a true education and the ability to access the letter. Exploring Brazil's little-known hinterland as well its urban haunts, this is a sweeping novel of repression, violence, and shame, along with their flip side: survival, endurance, and the ultimate triumph of an unforgettable figure on society's margins. The Words That Remain explores the universal power of the written word and language, and how they affect all our relationships.
Old God's Time
Recently retired policeman Tom Kettle is settling into the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a Victorian castle overlooking the Irish Sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, catching only glimpses of his eccentric landlord and a nervous young mother who has moved in next door. Occasionally, fond memories return, of his family, his beloved wife June and their two children, Winnie and Joe. But when two former colleagues turn up at his door with questions about a decades-old case, one which Tom never quite came to terms with, he finds himself pulled into the darkest currents of his past.
Call It What You Want
Once-popular Rob and overachiever Maegan, both dealing with serious family issues, quickly form a bond that is threatened when Rob confides plans to repair damage his father caused.
Still Born
Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura is so determined not to become a mother that she has taken the drastic decision to have her tubes tied. But when she announces this to her friend, she learns that Alina has made the opposite decision and is preparing to have a child of her own. Alina's pregnancy shakes the women's lives, first creating distance and then a remarkable closeness between them. When Alina's daughter survives childbirth--after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite--and Laura becomes attached to her neighbor's son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions, their needs, and the needs of the people who are dependent upon them
We Are All so Good at Smiling
When hospitalized for her clinical depression, Whimsy connects with a boy named Faerry, who also suffers from the traumatic loss of a sibling, and together they work to unearth buried memories and battle the fantastical physical embodiment of their depression.
The Marvelous Mirza Girls
To cure her post-senior year slump, made worse by the loss of her aunt Sonia, Noreen decides to follow her mom on a gap year trip to New Delhi, hoping India can lessen her grief and bring her voice back. In the world's most polluted city, Noreen soon meets kind, handsome Kabir, who introduces her to the wonders of this magical, complicated place. With the help of Kabir--plus Bollywood celebrities, fourteenth-century ruins, karaoke parties, and Sufi saints--Noreen discovers new meanings for home. But when a family scandal erupts, Noreen and Kabir must face complex questions in their own relationship: What does it mean to truly stand by someone--and what are the boundaries of love?
The New Girl
Lia Setiawan is the new girl at school: she won a full ride to prestigious Draycott Academy on a track scholarship. She's determined to make it work, but feels out of place. But Draycott isn't as shiny as the brochures say. When a dead girl is discovered in the classroom of the teacher who is determined to see Lia fail, she begins to dig deeper into the school's secrets. Everyone at the school-- and in her life-- has something to hide. And Lia may be the next girl to wind up dead....
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin
For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal--kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia's freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic...requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition. When Malik rigs his way into the contest, he and Karina are set on a heart-pounding course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?
A Spell of Good Things
Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future. Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician. When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Eniola's lives become intertwined. In her breathtaking second novel, Ayobami Adebayo shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.
The Trouble With Hating You
Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents' latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she's out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later -- the new lawyer hired to rescue her struggling company. What's not surprising: he's not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco. Jay Shah looks good on paper ... and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He's also infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance? Find out in this laugh-out-loud romantic comedy debut about first impressions, second chances, and finding the love of your life in the most unexpected way.
When You Look Like Us
When you look like us--brown skin, brown eyes, black braids or fades--everyone else thinks you're trouble. No one even blinks twice over a missing black girl from public housing because she must've brought whatever happened to her upon herself. I, Jay Murphy, can admit that, for a minute, I thought my sister Nicole just got caught up with her boyfriend--a drug dealer--and his friends. But she's been gone too long. Nic, where are you? If I hadn't hung up on her that night, she would be at our house, spending time with Grandma. If I was a better brother, she'd be finishing senior year instead of being another name on a missing persons list. It's time to step up, to do what the Newport News police department won't. Bring her home.
Wildblood
Kidnapped at the age of six and manipulated by the Exotic Lands Touring Company, Victoria has worked as a tour guide ever since with a team of fellow Wildbloods who take turns using their magic to protect travelers in a Jamaican jungle teeming with ghostly monsters. When she's passed over for a promotion in favor of Dean, her ex, she's determined to prove herself. Their new client, Thorn, a renowned goldminer determined to reach an untouched gold supply deep in the jungle, entrusts Victoria with his mission. Kindness turns to mutual respect, then affection, then love. But between hypnotic river spirits, soul-devouring women that shed their skin like snakes, and her ex out for revenge, Victoria must decide if promotion at a corrupt company is what she wants.
The World Doesn't Require You
Established by the leaders of America's only successful slave revolt in the mid-nineteenth century, [the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland] still evokes the rhythms of its founding. With lyrical prose and singular dialect, Rion Amilcar Scott pens a saga that echoes the fables carried down for generations -- like the screecher birds who swoop down for their periodic sacrifice, and the water women who lure people to their deaths. Among its residents -- wildly spanning decades, perspectives, and species -- are David Sherman, a struggling musician who just happens to be God's last son: Tyrone, a ruthless yet charismatic Ph.D. candidate, whose dissertation about a childhood game ignites mayhem in the neighboring, once-segregated town of Port Yooga; and Jim, an all-too-obedient robot who obeys his Master
This Is Not a Personal Statement
As the youngest graduating senior at her hypercompetitive high school, Perla Perez is certain all the late nights and crushing stress will be worth it when she gets into the college of her (and her parents') dreams: Delmont University. When she's rejected, Perla panics-- and forges her own acceptance letter. Now she's heading to Delmont, acceptance or not. Her plan is to gather on-the-ground intel to beef up her application and reapply spring semester before she's caught. As her guilty conscience grows and campus security looms large, will her plan succeed? And is this dream she's worked for her entire life is something she even wants?
The Maniac
A story centered around one of the great geniuses of the modern age, the Hungarian polymath John von Neumann, tracing the uncanny circuit of his mind deep into our own time's most haunting dilemmas. A prodigy whose gifts terrified the people around him, John von Neumann transformed every field he touched, inventing game theory and the first programable computer, and pioneering AI, digital life, and cellular automata. Through a chorus of family members, friends, colleagues, and rivals, Labatut shows us the evolution of a mind unmatched and of a body of work that has unmoored the world in its wake.
Kingdom of Souls
Heir to two lines of powerful witchdoctors, Arrah years to finally display some of their power -- if only to get that look of disapproval off her mother's face. When the Kingdom's children begin to vanish, she turns to a forbidden ritual --trading away years of her own life for power-- in order to find them. The ritual exposes secrets long hidden within her families, and as Arrah discovers the kidnapper, she's forced to decide if she can afford the price that fighting will cost.
The Ivory Key
Four siblings. A country in ruins. One quest to save them all. Vira is desperate to get out of her mother's shadow and establish her legacy as a revered queen of Ashoka. But with the county's only quarry running out of magic--a previous resource that has kept Ashoka safe from conflict--she can barely protect her citizens from the looming threat of war. And if her enemies discover this, they'll stop at nothing to seize the last of the magic. Vira's only hope is to find a mysterious object of legend, the Ivory Key, which is rumored to infiltrate enemy territory and retrieve it, she must reunite with her siblings, who have been torn apart by the different paths their lives have taken. Each of them has something to gain from finding the Ivory Key--and even more to lose if they fail. Ronak plans to sell it to the highest bidder to escape from his impending political marriage. Kaleb, falsely accused of assassinating the former maharani, needs it to clear his name. And Riya, a runaway who cut all family ties, seeks the key to prove her loyalty to the rebels who want to strip the nobility of its power. They must work together to survive the treacherous journey. But with each sibling harboring secrets and their own agendas, the very thing that brought them together could tear apart their family--and their world--for good.
In Every Mirror She's Black
A timely and arresting debut for anyone looking for insight into what it means to be a Black woman in the world. Three Black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people. Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation's largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi's move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life. A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the U.S. propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege--a life she's not sure she wants--as the object of his unhealthy obsession. And Somali refugee Muna Saheed, who lost her entire family, finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny's office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home. Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She's Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced yet accessible contemporary novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.
Honey & Spice
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she's made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of "situationships", players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as "The Wastemen of Whitewell," in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink. They're soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures. Kiki has never surrendered her heart before, and a player like Malakai won't be the one to change that, no matter how charming he is or how electric their connection feels. But surprisingly entertaining study sessions and intimate, late-night talks at old-fashioned diners force Kiki to look beyond her own presumptions. Is she ready to open herself up to something deeper?
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe's theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe. As these characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town's white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community--heaven and earth--that sustain us. Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.
For the Culture
Chef and writer Klancy Miller found her own way by trial and error--as a pastry chef, recipe developer, author, and founder of For the Culture magazine--but what if she had known then what she knows now? What if she had known the extraordinary women profiled within these pages--entrepreneurs, chefs, food stylists, mixologists, historians, influencers, hoteliers, and more--and learned from their stories? Like Leah Penniman, a farmer using Afro-Indigenous methods to restore the land and feed her community; Ashtin Berry, an activist, sommelier, and mixologist creating radical change in the hospitality industry and beyond; or Sophia Roe, a TV host and producer showcasing the inside stories behind today's food systems. Toni Tipton-Martin, Mashama Bailey, Carla Hall, Nicole Taylor, Dr. Jessica B. Harris . . . In this gorgeous volume these luminaries and more share the vision that drives them, the mistakes they made along the way, advice for the next generation, and treasured recipes--all accompanied by stunning original illustrated portraits and vibrant food photography. In addition, Miller shines a light on the matriarchs who paved the way for today's tastemakers--Edna Lewis, B. Smith, Leah Chase, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and Lena Richard. These collective profiles are a one-of-a-kind oral history of a movement, captured in real time, and indispensable for anyone passionate about food
The End of Drum-Time
In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse's daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders--of cultures, of beliefs, and of political divides--as Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea. Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, The End of Drum-Time immerses readers in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.
Cursed Bunny
Collection of short stories that blend horror, surrealism, and speculative fiction to take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and reign of big tech.
Blackouts
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book--Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns--and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. The voices of these subjects have been filtered, muted, but it is possible to hear them from within and beyond the text, which, in Juan's tattered volumes, has been redacted with black marker on nearly every page. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion; they resurrect loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. In telling their own stories and the story of the book, they resist the ravages of memory and time.
Black Girls Must Have It All
After a whirlwind year, Tabitha Walker's check list has changed drastically. Her picture perfect plan for the perfect job, husband, and home has now become: diapers changed (infinite), showers taken (zero), tears cried (buckets), and hours of sleep (what's that?). Don't get her wrong, Tabby loves her new bundle of joy and motherhood is perhaps the only thing that's consistent for her these days. When the news station announces that they will be hiring outside competitors for the new anchor position, Tabby throws herself into her work. But It's not just her role as a weekend anchor that Tabby has to worry about maintaining--all of her relationships seem to be spiraling out of their regular orbits. And when Marc presents her with an ultimatum, and his mother comes for an extended "visit", Tabby is forced to take stock of her life and make a plan for the future. As the demands of motherhood accumulate, the alienation from her friends and family deepens, and Tabby must figure out how to ask for the support she so desperately needs. But help is always there when you ask for it, and Tabby's village of friends and family will once again rally around her for her biggest challenge yet
Black Girls Must Be Magic
Discovering she's pregnant--after she was told she may not be able to have biological children--Tabitha throws herself headfirst into the world of "single mothers by choice." When an unexpected turn of events draws Marc--her on and off-again ex-boyfriend--back into her world with surprising demands, and the situation at work begins to threaten her livelihood and her identity, Tabitha must make some tough decisions. It takes a village to raise a child, and Tabitha turns to the women who have always been there for her. Will she harness the bravery, strength, and self-love she'll need to keep "the village" together, find her voice at work, and settle things with Marc before the baby arrives?
Beyond the Door of No Return
Paris, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman's Maram. The key to this mysterious woman's identity is Adanson's unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. Therein lies a story as fantastical as it is Maram, it turns out, is none other than the fabled revenant. A young woman of noble birth from the kingdom of Waalo, Maram was sold into slavery but managed to escape from the Island of Gorée, a major embarkation point of the transatlantic slave trade, to a small village hidden in the forest. While on a research expedition in West Africa as a young man, Adanson hears the story of the revenant and becomes obsessed with finding her. Accompanied by his guide, he ventures deep into the Senegalese bush on a journey that reveals not only the savagery of the French colonial occupation but also the unlikely transports of the human heart.
Abyss
Claudia seeks the attention of her melancholic mother, also named Claudia, who occupies her days reading gossip magazines and tending to the family's teeming collection of house plants in their Cali, Colombia, apartment. The mother is particularly obsessed with the deaths of famous women such as actor Natalie Wood, who died in 1981, and tells the narrator they took their own lives to escape from domineering men. The older Claudia married the narrator's father, Jorge, at 19 when he was 42, and though he's away working most of the time, the younger Claudia reveres him. The older Claudia then begins a secret love affair with her 30-year-old brother in law, which is exposed during a family trip to a seashore city, and Jorge threatens to kick Claudia out. Overhearing this, the narrator changes her view of Jorge, likening him to a monster. Later, the older Claudia's best friend, Gloria dies by suicide, and Claudia's comments on Gloria, who suffered from depression, make the narrator worried about her mother's safety and well-being. Visceral images propel the story ("Mama laughed so wide, you could see the roof of her mouth, hollow and grooved like an underfed torso"), as the narrator grows increasingly concerned about what's going to happen next.
All You Can Ever Know
What does it mean to lose your roots--within your culture, within your family--and what happens when you find them? Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up--facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn't see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from--she wondered if the story she'd been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. [This book] is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets--vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.
The Beautiful Struggle
Adapted for teen readers, a father-son memoir documents the National Book Award-winning author's youth in the "murder capital" of 1980s Baltimore and his relationship with his father, Vietnam veteran Paul Coates, throughout the latter's activism as a Black Panther and Afrocentric scholar.
Bengali Harlem
In the final years of the nineteenth century, small groups of Muslim peddlers arrived at Ellis Island every summer, bags heavy with embroidered silks from their home villages in Bengal. The American demand for Oriental goods took these migrants on a curious path, from New Jersey's beach boardwalks into the heart of the segregated South. Two decades later, hundreds of Indian Muslim seamen began jumping ship in New York and Baltimore, escaping the engine rooms of British steamers to find less brutal work onshore. As factory owners sought their labor and anti-Asian immigration laws closed in around them, these men built clandestine networks that stretched from the northeastern waterfront across the industrial Midwest. The stories of these early working-class migrants vividly contrast with our typical understanding of immigration. Vivek Bald's meticulous reconstruction reveals a lost history of South Asian sojourning and life-making in the United States. At a time when Asian immigrants were vilified and criminalized, Bengali Muslims quietly became part of some of America's most iconic neighborhoods of color, from Treme in New Orleans to Detroit's Black Bottom, from West Baltimore to Harlem. Many started families with Creole, Puerto Rican, and African American women. As steel and auto workers in the Midwest, as traders in the South, and as halal hot dog vendors on 125th Street, these immigrants created lives as remarkable as they are unknown. Their stories of ingenuity and intermixture challenge assumptions about assimilation and reveal cross-racial affinities beneath the surface of early twentieth-century America.
Black Cake
In this moving debut novel, two estranged siblings must set aside their differences to deal with their mother's death and her hidden past--a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her famous black cake. In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking journey Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child, challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their family, and themselves. Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to 'share the black cake when the time is right?' Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever? Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch
Candelaria
A sweeping, mystical, intergenerational novel about mothers, daughters, and unsettled pasts, Candelaria is a story of predetermined futures and love that eats us alive
Chasing Pacquiao
Bobby's motto is self preservation. That's how he survived his notoriously violent high school unscathed. Being out and queer would put an unavoidable target on his back, especially in a Filipino community that frowns on homosexuality. When Bobby is unwilling outed, he no longer has the luxury of being invisible. A vicious encounter has him scrambling for a new way to survive: by fighting back. Inspired by champion Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, he takes up boxing and challenges his tormentor. Then Pacquiao publicly declares his stance against queer people, and Bobby's faith-- in his hero and in himself-- is shaken to the core.
Do You Remember Being Born?
Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels's moving, innovative novel about an aging poet laureate who "sells out" by agreeing to collaborate with a Big Tech company's poetry AI
Early Departures
What if you could bring your best friend back to life -- but only for a short time? Jamal's best friend, Q, doesn't know that he died, and that he's about to die again. He doesn't know that Jamal tried to save him. And that the reason they haven't been friends for two years is because Jamal blames Q for the accident that killed his parents. But what if Jamal could have a second chance? A new technology allows Q to be reanimated for a few weeks before he dies permanently. And Q's mom is not about to let anyone ruin this miracle by telling Q about his impending death. So how can Jamal fix everything if he can't tell Q the truth?
I'm Not Done With You
A new, twisted suspense novel by national bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto. Jane is unhappy. A struggling midlist writer whose novels barely command four figures, she feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage, just scraping by to pay a crippling Bay Area mortgage for a house--a life--she's never really wanted. There's only ever been one person she cared about, one person who truly understood her: Thalia. Jane's best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative Writing days at Oxford. It was the only good year of Jane's life--cobblestones and books and damp English air, heady wine and sweet cider and Thalia, endless Thalia. But then one night ruined everything. The blood-soaked night that should have bound Thalia to Jane forever but instead made her lose her completely. Thalia disappeared without a trace, and Jane has been unable to find her since. Until now. Because there she is, her name at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: A Most Pleasant Death by Thalia Ashcroft. When she discovers a post from Thalia on her website about attending a book convention in New York City in a week--"Can't wait to see you there!"--Jane can't wait either. She'll go to New York City, too, credit card bill be damned. And this time, she will do things right. Jane won't lose Thalia again
On Rotation
Ghanaian-American Angela Appiah has checked off all the boxes for the Perfect Immigrant Daughter: enroll in an elite medical school, snag a suitable lawyer/doctor/engineer boyfriend, surround self with a gaggle of successful and/or loyal friends. But then it all quickly falls apart: she bombs the most important exam of her medical career, her boyfriend dumps her, and her best friend pulls away. And her parents, whose approval seems to hinge on how closely she follows the path they chose for her, are a lot less proud of their daughter than they were when things were going according to plan ... Angie, who has always faced her problems by 'working twice as hard to get half as far,' is at a loss. Suddenly, she begins to question everything: her career choice, her friendships, why she's attracted to men who don't love her as much as she loves them. And just when things couldn't get more complicated, enter Ricky Gutiérrrez--brilliant, thoughtful, sexy, and, most importantly, seems to see Angie for who she is instead of what she can represent
Rising Class
Making it through the first year of college is tough. Even tougher? Being the first in your family to do it. Miller shadows Briana, Conner, and Jacklynn-- from before they stepped foot on their respective campuses, through their freshman year, and long after that year concluded. The trio are real people, making their way into the world and trying to figure out their place in it, while dealing with the developing COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.
This Place Is Still Beautiful
The Flanagan sisters are as different as they come. Seventeen-year-old Annalie is bubbly, sweet, and self-conscious, whereas nineteen-year-old Margaret is sharp and assertive. Margaret looks just like their mother, while Annalie passes for white and looks like the father who abandoned them years ago, leaving their Chinese immigrant mama to raise the girls alone in their small, predominantly white Midwestern town. When their house is vandalized with a shocking racial slur, Margaret rushes home from her summer internship in New York City. She expects outrage. Instead, her sister and mother would rather move on. Especially once Margaret's own investigation begins to make members of their community uncomfortable. For Annalie, this was meant to be a summer of new possibilities, and she resents her sister's sudden presence and insistence on drawing negative attention to their family. Meanwhile Margaret is infuriated with Annalie's passive acceptance of what happened. For Margaret, the summer couldn't possibly get worse, until she crosses paths with someone she swore she'd never see again: her first love, Rajiv Agarwal. As the sisters navigate this unexpected summer, an explosive secret threatens to break apart their relationship, once and for all. This Place Is Still Beautiful is a luminous, captivating story about identity, sisterhood, and how our hometowns are inextricably a part of who we are, even when we outgrow them.
The Thousand Steps Into Night
In the realm of Awara, where gods, monsters, and humans exist side by side, Miuko is an ordinary girl resigned to a safe, if uneventful, existence as an innkeeper's daughter. But when Miuko is cursed and begins to transform into a demon with a deadly touch, she embarks on a quest to reverse the curse and return to her normal life. Aided by a thieving magpie spirit and continuously thwarted by a demon prince, Miuko must outfox tricksters, escape demon hunters, and negotiate with feral gods if she wants to make it home again. But with her transformation comes power and freedom she never even dreamed of, and she'll have to decide if saving her soul is worth trying to cram herself back into an ordinary life that no longer fits her... and perhaps never did.