Brothers, Clay and Anthony Taylor are an intriguing study in contrasts. Dark skinned like his father, Clay watches as his mother favors his light-skinned brother, creating dissension and jealousy between the two boys that lasts throughout the rest of their childhood. As adults, the tension only increases. Clay is a rough-talking, middle-class Chicago police officer, while "high yella" Anthony has become an accomplished junior executive in the world of finance. Everything has come easily to Anthony-maternal affection, athletic ability, girls, financial success-and Clay has watched Anthony's charmed life with growing envy and resentment. But Anthony finds Clay closedminded and uncivilized, and he sees his brother as an embarrassment. When a mutual acquaintance with a hatred for Anthony causes trouble that threatens the entire family, the brothers realize that they cannot support their family without first embracing one another. The Taylor brothers learn that they have more similarities than differences, and both yearn to repair their relationship, but they must overcome past hurts, lingering anger, and selfish pride to make that happen. A gritty novel of two brothers facing intraracial division, intimacy issues, and intense sibling discord, From Noon until Midnight is a compelling reminder about the value of family and the healing power of brotherhood.

Twelve-year-old twin brothers Judge and Jury fail to see eye to eye about whether to befriend the new black girl in their class at school and whether to interfere with their mother's plans to marry her boyfriend.

This anthology offers short chapters by notable black women writers on pivotal moments that strongly influenced their careers. It provides a thorough overview of the formal concerns and thematic issues facing contemporary black women writers, and includes an introduction that places these writers in the context of American literature in general and African American literature in particular.

In the midst of the turbulent 1960s, four girls enter college in Orangeburg, South Carolina. As Sardis, Grace, Dorcus, and Taletha develop friendships, they find solace, support, and laughter through a regular weekend card game that erases the harsh reality of the times. Unfortunately, the girls' worlds are about to be rocked with tragic results. Twenty years after the tragedy, the girls secretly reunite to finally finish the game interrupted on the worst night of their lives. After the old friends greet each other warmly, a strange atmosphere settles over the table. None of the women wants to step back into the dark place that will force them to relive their pasts and the horrible events that led up to the Orangeburg Massacre. But as the game marathon begins, Sardis, Grace and Dorcus soon realize that guilt still haunts them; until they can let go of the powerful emotions that have held them prisoner for so long, they will never be able to move forward. "Bid Whist at Midnight" is a compelling tale that illustrates the power of friendship as three girls embark on a coming-of-age journey that will lead them to forgiveness, love, and a long-awaited farewell to a friend.

A “bony-headed psychopath” makes his two step-sons clear out rats in the basement; a traveling American finds horror in a Casablanca opium den; a young man is driven insane by the voice of English writer Daniel Defoe; a former black player in the Negro Leagues tells the awful truth about why he quit playing; a grieving family tries to understand why a loved one committed suicide; and a drummer in a rock band hallucinates the Apostle John from the Book of Revelation flashing out of an MTV video. Reading Glitteration in the Night and Other Stories is like having a veil lifted from your eyes, revealing a world more intense, terrifying, and imaginary than you ever thought possible. Traveling through the book we meet an unforgettable cast of characters driven to all sorts of depravity---drugs---sex---suicide---madness---as they hurl ninety miles an hour down dangerous dead-end streets. Glitteration in the Night and Other Stories reveals in stark detail the omnipresence of the grotesque in everyday life. Mired in dystopia, these people have lost their fragile hold on sanity, entering a world where reality is up for grabs, bizarre and brutally ugly. Often they are innocent victims torn between the heartless demands of society and the desire to maintain their sense of identity and freedom.

A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner and a New York Times Notable Book “You’re in for a treat. The Reformatory is one of those books you can’t put down. Tananarive Due hit it out of the park.” —Stephen King A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead. Gracetown, Florida June 1950 Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory. Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late. The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

This work evolved from the personal and professional experiences of Grambling State University's first female president, albeit acting. The story occurs during troubled times, recounting the activities of the team she assembled to combat the foreboding issue of the university losing its regional accreditation. Ultimately, the book is designed to document the hard work, dedicated service, and committed spirit that the Grambling State University constituencies demonstrated to ensure that the University remained an outstanding academic institution, attracting students from throughout the United States and many foreign countries and that it continued to be the place "where everybody is somebody".

A shockingly frank memoir from a prize-winning economist, reflecting on his remarkable personal odyssey and his changing positions on identity, race, and belief. Economist Glenn C. Loury is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of our time: he’s often radically opposed to the political mainstream, and delights in upending what’s expected of a Black public figure. But more so than the arguments themselves—on affirmative action, institutional racism, Trumpism—his public life has been characterized by fearlessness and a willingness to recalibrate strongly held and forcefully argued beliefs. Loury grew up on the south side of Chicago, earned a PhD in MIT’s economics program, and became the first Black tenured professor of economics at Harvard at the age of thirty-three. He has been, at turns, a young father, a drug addict, an adulterer, a psychiatric patient, a born-again Christian, a lapsed born-again Christian, a Black Reaganite who has swung from the right to the left and back again. In Late Admissions, Loury examines what it means to chart a sense of self over the course of a tempestuous, but well-considered, life.

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner, a passionate, profound story of love and obsession that brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of Black urban life. With a foreword by the author. “As rich in themes and poetic images as her Pulitzer Prize–winning Beloved.... Morrison conjures up the hand of slavery on Harlem’s jazz generation. The more you listen, the more you crave to hear.” —Glamour 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). "The author conjures up worlds with complete authority and makes no secret of her angst at the injustices dealt to Black women.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all these more important undertakings where mind struggles against mind.” —Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” “Ha, ha, fool, ya lost! Rise and fly, %@#*!” —Uncle Ralph after running a Boston, Jones family reunion, 2002 Here’s a rollicking celebration and guide to bid whist, the official game of family reunions, cookouts, backyard barbecues, and house parties. In Rise and Fly, veteran journalists Greg Morrison and Yanick Rice Lamb explore the deeper secrets of the game, including: • strategies for beating the stuffing out of your opponents • hints for successful trash-talking • the official rules and exotic variations to keep things interesting • tips for organizing tournaments • resources for taking your game to the next level • a whole slew of recipes for whist-worthy snacks Full of history, lore, and the personal recollections of celebrities and regular folks alike, this is the first all-in-one book of bid whist, a treasure for anyone who’s ever pulled up to the table and been dealt in.