Showing results by narrator "Adenrele Ojo" in All Categories

According to the Washington Post, no one who cares about contemporary African-American cultures can ignore Bell Hooks's electrifying feminist explorations. Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture presents a collection of essays that pulls no punches. As Hooks herself notes, interrogations of popular culture can be a "powerful site for intervention, challenge and change." And intervene, challenge, and change is what hooks does best.

Thorn Marsh was raised in a house of whispers, of meaningful glances and half-finished sentences. Now she's a journalist with a passion for truth, more devoted to her work at the London Journal than she ever was to her ex-husband. When the newspaper is bought by media giant The Goring Group, who value sales figures over fact-checking, Thorn openly questions their methods, and promptly finds herself moved from the news desk to the midweek supplement, reporting heart-warming stories for their new segment, The Bright Side, a job to which she is spectacularly unsuited.

Before Their Crimes: Childhood Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Surprising Journey to Adult Healing is a groundbreaking book that sheds new light on the relationship of childhood trauma and juvenile crime. Wendy Smith uses the framework of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to explain how the toxic stress of early childhood trauma can make children vulnerable to committing criminal acts. Smith draws from interviews with twenty men and women from across the racial and social divide who spent years in prison after committing serious crimes as children.

Aspiring artist Neale Delacroix should be on top of the world. She’s landed a spot in an exclusive art program that’s sure to be her ticket to success, but then her best shot at stardom goes up in flames - literally. When her relationship follows suit, Neale finds herself a stone’s throw from rock bottom. Her heart broken and her dream deferred, Neale decides to work a soul-crushing nine-to-five job until the heat dies down. However, that’s not exactly what happens when she meets Anthony, a sizzling coworker with a perfect smile.

Why have White supremacists and Black activists been so focused on Black mobility? From Plessy v. Ferguson to #DrivingWhileBlack, African Americans have fought for over a century to move freely around the United States. Curious as to why so many cases contesting the doctrine of "separate but equal" involved trains and buses, Mia Bay went back to the sources with some basic questions: How did travel segregation begin?

New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey, whose characters The Atlantic calls "bold, smart women oozing sexuality and vulnerability" introduces an unbreakable quartet of friends looking for love in his next delectable romance. They call themselves the Blackbirds. Kwanzaa Browne...

Things were going a little too well for Dylan Delacroix. After upstaging her boss on a big account, she gets dispatched to the last place she wants to be: her hometown, Seattle. There, she must use her superstar corporate-consulting skills to curb the worst impulses of an impossibly eccentric tech CEO - if she doesn’t, she’s fired. The fun doesn’t stop there: Dylan must also negotiate a ceasefire in the endless war between her bohemian parents and the straitlaced neighbors.

Amber Jones is back home...temporarily. In 6 months, she plans to drive away from the town that still holds painful memories and back to her big city life. But a newcomer with a voice like the darkest roast and an ever-present smile unexpectedly makes returning to the hustle and bustle of the city, and the boyfriend she shares it with, seem much less appealing.

Jessica Anderson has been my best friend since college. A single mom who found herself mixed up with a dangerous man years ago, she’s been living a safe, quiet life in Miami after helping police put him behind bars. We both knew her safety, and that of her daughter, was reliant on him staying locked up. So when I see an alert that he’s escaped from his maximum security prison, I know where he’s heading to exact his revenge. Now it’s a race against time to get to Jessica before he does.

Exposes the new generation of whiteness thriving at the expense and borrowed ingenuity of black people—and explores how this intensifies racial inequality. American culture loves blackness. From music and fashion to activism and language, black culture constantly achieves worldwide influence...

There are two sides to every story. The surface reality that’s presented to the world. And then, there’s the other side. The real one. The one that matters. Seventeen-year-old self-proclaimed asshole Toby Page is alone. No friends. No family. He trades maintenance work in exchange for room and board. Every day, he fights demons no one else can see. Every day, he wants to give up. But he can’t. Not yet. When Alice Eliot moves in downstairs, she offers Toby some light in his dark world.

Haitian Vodou is a fascinating spiritual tradition rich with ceremonies and magic, songs and prayers, dances and fellowship. Yet outside of Haiti, next to no one understands this joyous and profound way of life. In Haitian Vodou, Mambo Chita Tann explores the historical roots and contemporary practices of this unique tradition.

bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance. Both an expression of the joy of self-healing and the need to be ever vigilant in the struggle for equality, Sisters of the Yam continues to speak to the experience of black womanhood.

With ex-firefighter Cole Brannigan in command of the Smoke Eaters, the dragon menace is under control. Thanks to non-lethal Canadian tech, the beasts are just tranquilized and locked up. But for Tamerica Williams, a job filled with action and danger has become routine. She's so bored she nearly gets her whole team killed, and Brannigan has to step in. When a new threat emerges, the legendary bird of fire - the Phoenix - spreading fire like a plague and whipping dragons into a frenzy, it's a perfect task for Williams, but killing the Phoenix just brings it back stronger.

The first female sheriff of Toole County, Montana, Nicole Cobain earned the position through mental and physical grit, and when a young girl is found murdered on icy Lake Maria, every bit of it is tested. But what begins as a chase for the killer quickly unravels into a high-stakes medical transaction with harrowing consequences.

In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart—one black, one white; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager—fight for their families’ survival in this lyrical and powerful...

More than just a collection of spells, The Marie Laveau Voodoo Grimoire contains tips and recommendations for improving one's spell-crafting skills and living a magical, spiritual life. The author draws upon her own Creole heritage to bring this unique and regional style of magic to the greater public in a clear and accessible way.

The sky is not the limit. From an alley in New York to an interstellar wormhole, the path to the future looks different for everyone. These cosmic short stories from some of today’s most influential Black authors reveal a universe of possibilities.

“If you enjoyed An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, read The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls...an absorbing commentary on love, family and forgiveness.”—The Washington Post “A fast-paced, intriguing story...the novel’s real achievement is its uncommon perceptiveness on...

When 26-year-old Reese accepts a position as a grad assistant, she has no idea an unpleasant encounter with a student will lead to the discovery of what she calls "the trifecta": fine, intellectual, and a little bit rude - three qualities she finds irresistible in a man. She has no intention of doing anything with that discovery. But everybody knows what happens to best laid plans. Jason is a grown man. He's at Blakewood State University to finish his degree and move on. The last thing he's interested in is the female population on campus...Reese might be a notable exception.