Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in African American

Nel and Sula's devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.

Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

In the wake of her grandmother's passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. But now, with her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt’s disappearance.

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.

As the only Black women at an antebellum-themed wedding, Kayla and Zorie should’ve known this heist was doomed from the start. They should never have come, but when their financial situation became dire, they agreed to hit one last wedding. Jaded and cynical Kayla has spent the last decade trying to fix her life since an angsty teen prank led to her arrest. Now, with her housekeeping job at a subpar hotel and her disappointing, Cinderella-esque relationship with her dad and obnoxious stepsister, she hates the life she’s built.

Recently divorced and fresh off a Pulitzer Prize win, Harper Stewart is in a new era. He’s working on a movie and living the ultimate bachelor life in his Brooklyn penthouse. But still, something is missing. What else explains the stubborn creative block? The carousel of women? And seventh-wheel status with his friends? Jordan Armstrong had to flee New York. First, to give herself distance from Harper and, second, to escape the corporate grind. In her beachfront Malibu property, the façade of a “healed” Jordan flourishes.

In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This novel “transforms a familiar refrain of jilted love into a bold, sustaining time of self-knowledge and discovery. Its rhythms are infectious” (People).

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. “It is true poetry she is writing,” M. F.K . Fisher has observed, “not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity.... It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night...it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes.”

Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy, growing up in the Southeast D.C. projects with a drug dealer for a father. But through determination and talent, and the loving support of his father’s girlfriend, Larissa, Curtis claws his way out of his challenging circumstances and rises to unimagined heights in the classical music world—even soloing with the New York Philharmonic. And then, suddenly, his life disintegrates. His father, Zippy, turns state’s evidence, implicating his old bosses. Now the family—Curtis included—must enter the witness protection program if they want to survive.

Loretha Curry’s life is full. A little crowded sometimes, but full indeed. On the eve of her 68th birthday, she has a booming beauty-supply empire, a gaggle of lifelong friends, and a husband whose moves still surprise. True, she’s carrying a few more pounds than she should be, but Loretha is not one of those women who think her best days are behind her - and she’s determined to prove wrong her mother, her twin sister, and everyone else with that outdated view of aging wrong. It’s not all downhill from here.

In I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and successful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia’s bravery reminds us that it’s never too late to become the person you want to be, and that taking chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile.

Maya Angelou, one of the best-loved authors of our time, shares the wisdom of a remarkable life in this best-selling spiritual classic. This is Maya Angelou talking from the heart, down to earth and real, but also inspiring. This is a book to be treasured, a book about being in all ways a woman, about living well, about the power of the word, and about the power of spirituality to move and shape your life. Passionate, lively, and lyrical, Maya Angelou’s latest unforgettable work offers a gem of truth in every minute.

"Amazing Peace" is a beautiful and deeply moving poem from Maya Angelou. Here she inspires us to embrace the peace and promise of Christmas, so that hope and love can once again light up our holidays and the world. "Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward," she writes, "and speak the word aloud. Peace." "Amazing Peace" is Maya Angelou's radiant affirmation of the goodness of life and is a touching celebration of the "Glad Season" that will resonate with people of all faiths.

Grace, dignity, and eloquence have long been hallmarks of Maya Angelou's poetry. Her measured verses have stirred our souls, energized our minds, and healed our hearts. Whether offering hope in the darkest of nights or expressing sincere joy at the extraordinariness of the everyday, Maya Angelou has served as our common voice.

Morrison shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires. According to the Chicago Tribune, Morrison "reimagines and remaps the possibility of America." Her brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition.

Jadine Childs is a Black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a Black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between Blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.

Where do you get an abortion in 1960 Georgia, especially if your small town’s midwife goes to the same church as your parents? For seventeen-year-old Doris Steele, the answer is Atlanta, where her favorite teacher, Mrs. Lucas, calls upon her brash, wealthy childhood best friend, Sylvia, for help. While waiting to hear from the doctor who has agreed to do the procedure, Doris spends the weekend scandalized by, but drawn to, the people who move in and out of Sylvia’s orbit.

Almost a decade ago, Willie Revel gave up her burgeoning journalism career in New York to help run her father’s struggling construction company in Philadelphia. An ambitious single mother, Willie has reluctantly put family first without being able to forget who she might have become. Now, as the president of the United States prepares to pass the Forgiveness Act, a bill that would allow Black families to claim reparations if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, Willie delves deeper into her family’s history, while also trying to keep the family from going into bankruptcy.

After the death of his father, a young journalist named Faruq Zaidi takes the opportunity to embed himself in a mysterious cult based in the California redwoods and known as “the nameless,” whose strikingly attractive members adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.”