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On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated outside of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. What happened inside room 306 on the evening of April 3 is the subject of Katori Hall's The Mountaintop. Hours after King's final speech, punctuated by his immortal line "I've been to the mountaintop", the celebrated reverend forms an unlikely friendship with a motel maid as they talk into the early hours of what will be his final day.

Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by society and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband. In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters to God. The letters, spanning 20 years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women.

In this 1983 short story - the only short story Morrison ever wrote - we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.

It is the story of 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond.

Aaliyah is determined to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a boyfriend. And after a failed blind date, the local bartender, Ahmad, suggests she joins a dating app. Filled with lies, catfish, and fetishizing, the wild world of online dating makes Aaliyah think she’s in over her head. And she is. But with her two best friends and a protective bartender by her side, what could go wrong?

Canonized, overlooked, and forgotten African American poets star in Terrance Hayes's brilliant contemplations of personal, canonical, and allegorical literary development. Proceeding from Toni Morrison's aim to expand the landscape of literary imagination in Playing in the Dark ("I want to draw a map, so to speak, of a critical geography"), Watch Your Language charts a lyrical geography of reading and influence in poetry.

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).

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.

I came home and ended up with two enemies because of the women I choose to love. Kendra was the one I thought I loved, but the feeling I felt when I looked into Alaia's eyes told me that I had never experienced love with Kendra. When I looked into my Joy's eyes, I wanted to give her the stars, moons, and the sky wrapped up with a big fat ass bow. So, for her, I would go to war to make sure Tweety had no part in touching her ever again.

Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where Black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver. There's Aibileen, raising her 17th white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another.

Claudia Rankine's bold new audiobook recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV - everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive.

After my Yaya passed away, I didn't have anyone that cared for me. I mean, not even a month after Yaya was in the ground, he sat me down in the living room and sold me to a thirty-year-old man. I was sixteen, and my big brother, the man who was supposed to protect me, sold me off like cattle on a farm. My entire life has been to please Zayne. I'm his fourth wife and the youngest wife. Nobody has ever protected or cared for me. I was tossed the cards that life handed me and had to make do with them. That is until Cappadonna Delgato and I cross paths—again.

The three sections of Terrance Hayes’ seventh collection explore how we see ourselves and our world, mapping the strange and lyrical grammar of thinking and feeling. In “Watch Your Mouth,” a tree frog sings to overcome its fear of birds; in “Watch Your Step: The Kafka Virus,” a talking cat tells jokes in the Jim Crow South; in “Watch Your Head,“ green beans bling in the mouth of Lil Wayne, and Bob Ross paints your portrait.

Be Holding is a love song to legendary basketball player Julius Erving—known as Dr. J—who dominated courts in the 1970s and ‘80s as a small forward for the Philadelphia ‘76ers. But this book-length poem is more than just an ode to a magnificent athlete. Through a kind of lyric research, or lyric meditation, Ross Gay connects Dr. J’s famously impossible move from the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers to pick-up basketball and the flying Igbo and the Middle Passage, to photography and surveillance and state violence, to music and personal histories of flight and familial love.

Amari Rivera's world has been turned upside down. After a shocking revelation about her husband Domonick's past, she flees, only to find herself trapped in a precarious situation. Navigating the looming threat of the Rossi crime family, Amari must confront her inner demons to survive. Meanwhile, Domonick is spiraling, betrayed by his own blood. As he races to save his wife, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues, drawing in the entire Moody and Rivera organizations. Blood will be shed as old feuds resurface and new alliances are forged in the shadows.

Amari Moody, the daughter of a powerful mafia boss, is navigating her life with a mental health disorder and a troubled past. Just as she is finding her footing, her world is turned upside down when her father arranges a marriage between her and Domonick Rivera, the son of a rival cartel leader. Amari is hesitant, but as she gets to know Domonick, she finds herself drawn to him in ways she can't explain. Meanwhile, finding out her best friend Britt is pregnant with Amari's brother Channing's child causes a rift in their lifelong friendship.

After the passing of her granny and with her sister in prison, the weight of the world seems to be fitting uncomfortably on Honesty Barret's shoulders. Now, her only living situation in Parkway Gardens appears to be in jeopardy as her aunt and her pimp bombard their way into her granny's home. With aspirations of moving out of the Gardens and creating a better life for herself by doing hair, unbeknownst to Honesty, her dreams are about to become a reality, but not in the way that she expects.

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.

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.

Jrue and Jream are two broken, and tortured souls. Entering one another's orbit could be dangerous, causing everyone to be sucked into a black hole, or they may just have the luck of a shooting star on their side.

Jordan Peele, the visionary writer and director of Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of brand new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our world. Featuring an introduction by Jordan Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world, and redefine what it means to be afraid. Very afraid.

Harlow Shaw feels naïve for believing in happily ever afters, but she craves a love that lights her up. She thinks she has it all with her boyfriend—Until his promising baseball career overshadows their relationship, and he asks her a life-changing question. It causes her to wonder if what they have is all she ever truly wanted. Harlow is yearning for more than the curated life she is living. A trip to Bali, a move to Seattle, and an alleged burned cup of coffee lead her to a friendship she didn't know she needed and a love so deep she can feel it in her bones.

Every day I turned my camera on, sat in front of my tripod, and recorded myself doing my makeup, hair, or getting ready for an event. My supporters watched wishing they had the newest designer bag that I had just worn, or the mountains upon mountains of PR every brand sent to my front door. They wanted to be Harlym J., and I mean, I couldn’t blame them. I made this lifestyle look like a piece of cake with three cherries on top.

Qua loves Wynner. Wynner loves Qua. Easy enough, right? But Wynner came with two brothers who couldn't stand Qua with their baby sister. Qua couldn't stand not having Wynner with him, even if he didn't have his life together. With faith, his word, and love, he grabs his love's hand and marries her at the court house. Flash forward five years, and all the promises that Qua has made Wynner he has come through on them. To stay true, secure the bag, and be her ace through all her pain. With Wynner always being sick, everyone babies her and is always worried about her.

Sylvia Blackwell has it all, or so she thinks. She and her handsome husband, Garrett, are the epitome of success: an immaculate house of their dreams, a beautiful and talented 17-year-old daughter, flourishing careers, and nearly 20 years of perfectly wedded bliss. Just as they are making plans for their vow renewal celebration, a call in the middle of the night interrupts their picture-perfect lives. Now Sylvia has to deal with the reality of Garrett's dead mistress and a love child she never knew about.

Marlee Harper is the perfect girlfriend. She's definitely had enough practice by dating her NFL-star boyfriend for the last 10 years. But when she discovers he has been tackling other women on the sly, she vows to never date an athlete again. There's just one problem: Gavin Pope, the new hotshot quarterback and a fling from the past, has Marlee in his sights.

Jim Crow Florida, 1950. Twelve-year-old Robert Stephens Jr., who for a trivial scuffle with a white boy is sent to The Gracetown School for Boys. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there.

Recovering from heartbreak, unlucky-in-love events manager Cara has vowed to avoid relationships. That is until fate throws her into the path of handsome and kind Henry, who is worlds apart from the men she’s dated before. Unfortunately, this encounter is short-lived when Cara misses her coach home—and with it, any chance of seeing him again. But fate is not finished with the mismatched couple.

Jaylin Jerome Rogers, an investment broker worth millions, lives a high-class life with plenty of women to share it with. Nestled in his lavishing home in Chesterfield, Missouri, he captures women with his wealth, charm, nine-plus inches of goodness, and amazingly good looks. Although his bed is never empty, his heart is. He feels nothing for the women who love him dearly and continues his search for the "perfect" one. When Scorpio Valentino, an attractive, seductive, and charming woman saunters into his view, she offers Jaylin a life of altering changes.