Book Shelf

When the 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, Raymond Joseph, the former Haitian ambassador to the United States, found himself rushing back to his beloved country. The earthquake ignited a passion in Joseph, inspiring him to run for president against great competition, including two well-known Haitian pop stars, his nephew Wyclef Jean and Michel Martelly. But he couldn’t compete in a democratic system corrupt to the core.

“I was not born to be what someone said I was. I was not born to be defined by someone else, but by myself, and myself only.” When, in the fall of 1987, the poet Quincy Troupe traveled to the south of France to interview James Baldwin, Baldwin’s brother David told him to ask Baldwin about everything—Baldwin was critically ill and David knew that this might be the writer’s last chance to speak at length about his life and work.

From the author of the groundbreaking bestseller Queer in America, a myth-shattering look at the present and future of gay rights.

In The Presidency in Black and White, journalist April Ryan gives readers a compelling and personal behind-the-scenes look at race relations in contemporary America from the epicenter of American power and policy making—the White House, her beat since 1997.

Gwen Thomas is the founder of Fresh Perspectives Seminars. She is the author of "The Parents Smart Guide to Sending you Kids to College without Going Broke".

It is June 1968. The Civil Rights movement is winding down after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Negroes in the town of Canaan, Virginia have been used to acting the same, thinking the same and sharing in the unadulterated hatred of a common enemy. Evan is ten years old and, in the jargon of the times, young, gifted and black. In the presence of his parents and a summer porch gathering of their friends, he makes a startling declaration. From that moment on, the central question of his life is born. Is he black enough?

A chronicle of the American experience during World War I and the unexpected changes that rocked the country in its immediate aftermath—the Red Scare, race riots, women’s suffrage, and Prohibition.

A deeply moving work of narrative nonfiction on the tragic shootings at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes.

My Life on the Courts is the candid memoir of an African American federal judge that chronicles his journey through the courts and out of the depths of depression.

By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi (winner of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year) had opened—and closed—one of the most talked about restaurants in America. He had launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars that he made from selling candy on the subway, yet he’d been told he would never make it on television because his cooking wasn’t “Southern” enough. In this inspiring memoir about the intersection of race, fame, and food, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age.

But before he reinvented haute couture, Daniel R. Day was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time.

In Saving Our Cities, William W. Goldsmith shows how cities can be places of opportunity rather than places with problems.

Beloved TV chef (ABC’s Emmy Award-winning The Chew and fan favorite on Bravo’s Top Chef), Carla Hall takes us back to her own Nashville roots to offer a fresh, lip-smackin’ look at America’s favorite comfort cuisine.

Gail Campbell Woolley (1957–2015) grew up in Washington, D.C., and was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia at age seven. She studied journalism and international relations at Syracuse University and worked as a reporter for the Washington Star, the Baltimore Sun, and the Washington Times before beginning a career in corporate public relations. She died at age 58, exceeding the life expectancy her doctor predicted by more than 20 years.

The struggle for equality is as old as the nation itself. Each marginalized demographic has fought to achieve the opportunity for self-determination as guaranteed by the Constitution. The American military has contributed as much to the notion of American exceptionalism as American leaders of industry and American artisans.

The Trump administration is remaking the government. It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America tells us exactly how it is making America worse again.

A blistering critique of the forces threatening the American intelligence community, beginning with the President of the United States himself, in a time when that community’s work has never been harder or more important.

Author Gil Klein reveals the role of Lafayette Square in the nation's history

A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America―and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free.

It has been called the political crime of the century: a foreign government, led by a brutal authoritarian leader, secretly interfering with the American presidential election to help elect the candidate of its choice. Now two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post national security reporter Greg Miller investigates the truth about the Kremlin’s covert attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump win the presidency, Trump’s steadfast allegiance to Vladimir Putin, and Robert Mueller’s ensuing investigation of the president and those close to him.