New Books in May 2018

May 2018…a major literary event of seismic proportion. Is that hyperbolic? Yes, but how else do you respond when new literary content from Zora Neale Hurston is being published for the world to enjoy.

Get it…enjoy it…and tell a friend!

New Books in May 2018

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Barracoon: The Story of the Last
by Zora Neale Hurston

A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade–abducted from Africa on the last “Black Cargo” ship to arrive in the United States.

n 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope
Song of Blood & Stone: Earthsinger Chronicles, Book One (Earthsinger #1)
by L. Penelope

L. Penelope’s Song of Blood & Stone is a treacherous, thrilling, epic fantasy about an outcast drawn into a war between two powerful rulers.

Orphaned and alone, Jasminda lives in a land where cold whispers of invasion and war linger on the wind. Jasminda herself is an outcast in her homeland of Elsira, where her gift of Earthsong is feared. When ruthless soldiers seek refuge in her isolated cabin, they bring with them a captive–an injured spy who threatens to steal her heart.

Jack’s mission behind enemy lines to prove that the Mantle between Elsira and Lagrimar is about to fall nearly cost him his life, but he is saved by the healing Song of a mysterious young woman. Now he must do whatever it takes to save Elsira and its people from the True Father and he needs Jasminda’s Earthsong to do it. They escape their vicious captors and together embark on a perilous journey to save the land and to uncover the secrets of the Queen Who Sleeps.

Lighting the Fires of Freedom by Janet Dewart Bell
An Unkindness of Ghosts
by Janet Dewart Bell

One of Book Riot’s “29 Amazing New Books Coming in 2018” A groundbreaking collection based on oral histories that brilliantly plumb the leadership of African American women in the twentieth-century fight for civil rights–many nearly lost to history–from the latest winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Prize

In Lighting the Fires of Freedom Janet Dewart Bell shines a light on women’s all-too-often overlooked achievements in the Movement. Through wide-ranging conversations with nine women, several now in their nineties with decades of untold stories, we hear what ignited and fueled their activism, as Bell vividly captures their inspiring voices. Lighting the Fires of Freedom offers these deeply personal and intimate accounts of extraordinary struggles for justice that resulted in profound social change, stories that remain important and relevant today.

Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Lighting the Fires of Freedom is a vital document for understanding the Civil Rights Movement and an enduring testament to the vitality of women’s leadership during one of the most dramatic periods of American history.

Climb by Michelle Gadsden-Williams
Climb: Taking Every Step with Conviction, Courage, and Calculated Risk to Achieve a Thriving Career and a Successful Life
by Michelle Gadsden-Williams

In Climb, Gadsden-Williams combines her inspirational life story with pragmatic solutions to address problems facing women in corporate America, offering a professional playbook for tackling today’s most pressing workplace issues.

Renowned as a diversity and inclusion strategist, Gadsden-Williams held C-Suite positions at major organizations for many years…and then took the off-ramp to probe a different career path, launching Ceiling Breakers LLC, with the primary goal to help women and professionals of color reach their full potential. As a woman of color and corporate executive who has worked and traveled the world for several Fortune 500 companies–all while managing a chronic illness–she provides insight into overcoming the barriers facing professionals in today’s workplace.

Night Hawks: Stories/a> by Charles Johnson
Night Hawks: Stories
by Charles Johnson

“A masterful story collection–thirteen years in the making–from National Book Award winner Charles Johnson, showcasing the incredible range and resonant voice of this American treasure”

Spanning genres from science fiction to realism, these stories convey messages of tolerance, hope, and gratitude. With precise, elegant, and moving language, Johnson creates memorable characters and real, human struggles that have the power to enlighten and change us as we read.

In “The Weave,” Ieesha and her boyfriend carry out a heist at the salon from which she has just been fired–coming away with thousands of dollars of merchandise in the form of hair extensions. “Night Hawks,” the titular story, draws on Johnson’s friendship with the late playwright August Wilson to construct a narrative about two writers who meet at night to talk. In “Kamadhatu,” a lonely Japanese abbot has his quiet world upended by a visit from a black American Buddhist whose presence pushes him toward the awakening he has long found elusive. “Occupying Arthur Whitfield,” about a cab driver who decides to rob the home of a wealthy passenger, reminds readers to be grateful for what they have. And “The Night Belongs to Phoenix Jones” combines the real-life story of a “superhero” in the city of Seattle with an invented narrative about an aging English professor who decides to join him.

 

About MahoganyBooks 242 Articles
MahoganyBooks is an online bookstore that believes in social entrepreneurship. We take a leadership role in the African American community promoting reading, writing, and cultural awareness as tools to improve communities as well as enrich the lives of motivated individuals.

1 Comment

  1. I only wish your bookstore was here in Milwaukee Wisconsin I will be ordering books from you. We need our Black bookstores it is such a shame that Milwaukee no longer has any Black bookstores.

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