Peter Francis James
Author
Series
African trilogy (Chinua Achebe) volume 1
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
First published in 1959, this novel tells the story of Okonkwo, the leader of an Igbo (Ibo) community who is banished for accidentally killing a clansman. The novel covers the seven years of his exile to his return, providing an inside view of the intrusion of white missionaries and colonial government into tribal Igbo society in the 1890s.
4) Run
Author
Language
English
Description
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving possessive and ambitions father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see is sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children--all his children--safe. Set...
5) Monster
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.
6) Thrill!
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Lara Ivory is a movie star -- an incandescent beauty with cat-like green eyes, full luscious lips and honey blond hair. Lara has been at the top of her profession for eight years and everybody loves her. But at thirty-two she cannot find a man who can handle being with such an exquisite object of desire. Her ex-husband, Richard Barry, an extremely successful veteran film director, is currently married to Nikki, a feisty brunette clothes designer...
7) Road dogs
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Elmore Leonard is eternal. In Road Dogs, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award winner and America's greatest crime master brings back three of his favorite characters-Jack Foley from Out of Sight, Cundo Rey from La Brava, and Dawn Navarro from Riding the Rap-for a twisting, explosive, always surprising masterwork of crime fiction, a sly, violent, funny and superbly written story of friendship, greed, and betrayal.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming with cheap Jim Crow labor. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, vicious Sheriff McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves. Then the Ku Klux Klan rolled into town, burning homes and chasing hundreds of blacks into the swamps. So began the chain of events that would bring Thurgood Marshall, the man known as "Mr. Civil Rights," into...
9) Old Yeller
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
A stray dog is befriended by a family of poor farmers in 1869 Texas.
10) Native Son
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Now an HBO Film!
"If one had to identify the single most influential shaping force in modern Black literary history, one would probably have to point to Wright and the publication of Native Son." – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral...
11) Junebug
Author
Series
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
An inquisitive young boy who lives with his mother and younger sister in a rough housing project in New Haven, Connecticut, approaches his tenth birthday with a mixture of anticipation and worry.
Author
Series
Socrates Fortlow novels volume 1
Language
English
Formats
Description
Introducing Socrates Fortlow, an ex-con struggling to find his place in the world after 27 years in jail. Living in an abandoned apartment building in South-Central L.A., Socrates is one step away from the streets. He bags groceries at the supermarket, recycles bottles and cans for pennies, and feels himself slipping toward invisibility - until he meets 11-year-old Darryl, who is perilously close to a life of violence and bloodshed. Socrates' determination...
13) The Dream Bearer
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
David Curry doesn't know what to make of his father, Reuben, who's violent out bursts and chilling nightmares torment his family. His older brother, Tyrone, says Reuben is crazy. But lately, even Tyrone isn't acting like himself. Then David meets the mysterious Mr. Moses, who tells him that dreams might be the only things we have that are real. And it is Mr. Moses's gift of dreams that gives David a new way to see inside his father's troubled heart....
14) My Soul to Keep
Author
Series
African Immortals series volume 1
Language
English
Formats
Description
When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
Junior Brown is a musical prodigy losing touch with reality and everyone around him-except for one important friend Junior Brown is different than the other kids in his eighth-grade class. For one, he weighs three hundred pounds. He's also a talented musician with a serious future as a professional pianist-if he survives middle school. With an overbearing mom, disappointed teachers, and fellow students who tease him mercilessly, Junior starts to...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Reverse spin, triple pump, reverse dribble, stutter step with twist to the left, stutter into jumper, blind pass. These are me. The moves make the man. The moves make me. Jerome foxworthy -- the Jayfox to his friends -- likes to think he can handle anything. He handled growing up without a father. He handled being the first black kid in school. And he sure can handle a basketball. Then Jerome meets bix Rivers -- mysterious and moody, but a great athlete....
17) Fatal Flaw
Author
Series
Victor Carl novels volume 3
Language
English
Description
Some victims deserve nothing less than the truth . . .Ethically adventurous Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl usually does the right thing, but often for the wrong reasons. When old law school classmate Guy Forrest is accused of murdering his beautiful lover, Hailey Prouix, in their Main Line love nest, Carl agrees to represent him while keeping silent about his own prior romantic involvement with the victim, and his present determination to see that...
18) Black Boy
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A special 75th anniversary edition of Richard Wright's powerful and unforgettable memoir, with a new foreword by John Edgar Wideman and an afterword by Malcolm Wright, the author's grandson.
When it exploded onto the literary scene in 1945, Black Boy was both praised and condemned. Orville Prescott of the New York Times wrote that "if enough such books are written, if enough millions of people read them maybe, someday, in the fullness of time, there...
19) Past Due
Author
Series
Victor Carl novels volume 4
Language
English
Description
Author of the acclaimed novels Fatal Flaw, Bitter Truth, and Hostile Witness, bestselling writer William Lashner crafts dark, witty, engrossing tales of suspense involving one of the most intriguing characters of modern popular fiction: Victor Carl.
A defense attorney who lives his life in shades of gray, Victor Carl fights all the right fights for all the wrong reasons. With a failing legal practice, a dead-end love life, a pile of unpaid traffic...
20) Eclipse
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
California lawyer Damon Pierce finds his own life in danger when he accepts a desperate plea from his former lover to defend her freedom fighter husband against bogus charges involving the corrupt government of the oil-rich nation of Luandia.