In this shocking novel of a young girl alone on the streets, Donald Goines delves into yet another facet of the ghetto experience - the dark, despair-ridden world of a black girl's soul.

Sandra took to the streets when she was eight years old and tried to fight off the hunger pangs by shoplifting and moving into the profits of drug pushing. Then she met Chink, and with him she discovered love and affection...as well as rape and murder.

From one of the most revolutionary writers of the twentieth century comes the uncensored and gritty novel that inspired today's street lit and hip-hop culture. After my ninth birthday, I began to really understand the meaning of my name. I began to understand just what my mother was doing for a living. There was nothing I could do about it, but even had I been able to, I wouldn't have changed it.

A blueprint. A bible. What Sun Tzu’s Art of War was to ancient China, Pimp is to the streets. As real as you can get without jumping in, this is the story of Iceberg Slim’s life as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it. It is a trip through hell by the one man who lived to tell the tale—the dangers of jail, addiction, and death that are still all too familiar for today’s Black community. By telling the story of one man’s struggles and triumphs in an underground world, Pimp shows us the game doesn’t change; it just has a different swagger.

A large part of Goines' 39 years of life was spent being a successful pimp, a heif, an operator of corn liquor houses, an armed robber, and a small-time dope dealer. He lived the life of the streets, and out of that experience he created Prince, the anti-hero of Black Gangster. It's the story of the shocking underworld of Black organized crime and the fledgling Black "godfather" who goes from teenager ganglord to powerful Detroit mobster. Like the gangsters of the 1920s, he begins with bootlegging and branches out into every known crime.

Barely out of his 20s, Chester Hines knows the score. He's just another bug crawling through the streets of Detroit, waiting to be squashed under the heel of a system meant to keep a brother down. But with his old lady on his back, his only options are on the wrong side of the law. He didn't need a fortune-teller to tell him that sooner or later he'd end up in a system more brutal than the one that forced him there.

King David was determined to claw his way out of the mean streets of New York City any way he could. It didn't matter if that meant battering and robbing old people, conning the innocent, or even killing a kid's mother. Lacing cocaine with battery acid for revenge was acceptable, too. Ultimately, it meant leaving town. Now King's made it big and made his way back, flush with cash and a Cadillac. But he hasn't been forgotten - or forgiven. And when payback time hits, he's only got one wish - not to die alone.

To Jeezy’s legion of fans, his name is synonymous with hustle, grit, and the integrity to go out there and achieve your dreams. In his first book, Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe, Jeezy shares never heard stories of what it took for him to beat the odds and get out of the streets, his mindset he carefully honed to get an edge, and the lessons that changed his life and business.

Continuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film. A literary classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s. With its focus on the “militancy” that characterized the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, this is the story of one man’s reaction to ruling-class hypocrisy.

In Pimpology, star of the documentaries Pimps Up, Ho's Down and American Pimp and Annual Players Ball Mack of the Year winner Ken Ivy pulls a square's coat on the unwritten rules that took him from the ghetto streets to the executive suites. Ken's lessons will serve any person in any interaction. Whether at work, in relationships, or among friends, somebody's got to be on top. To be the one with the upper hand, you've got to have good game, and good game starts with knowing the rules.

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.

A prequel to Ashley and JaQuavis' New York Times best-selling Cartel series, this story follows the rise of notorious gangster Carter Diamond, taking listeners through his days on the mean streets of Michigan to his becoming the biggest drug lord Miami has ever seen. Before the cartel was ever created, he stood alone.

Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.

Mama Black Widow tells the tragic story of Otis Tilson, a stunning black drag queen trapped in a cruel queer ghetto underworld. In hopes of escaping the racial bigotry andeconomic injustice of the South, Otis' family journeys north from their plantation to an urban promised land. Once in Chicago, Otis and his siblings become prisoners to a wasteland of violence, crime, prostitution, and rape. This is the gut-wrenching tale of the destruction of a family and the truest portrayal of homosexuality in the ghetto ever told.

In this often violent but always introspective memoir, Mobb Deep’s Prodigy tells his much anticipated story of struggle, survival, and hope down the mean streets of New York City. For the first time, he gives an intimate look at his family background, his battles with drugs, his life of crime, his relentless suffering with sickle-cell anemia, and much more.

From one of the most revolutionary writers of the twentieth century comes the uncensored and gritty novel that inspired today's street lit and hip-hop culture. After my ninth birthday, I began to really understand the meaning of my name. I began to understand just what my mother was doing for a living. There was nothing I could do about it, but even had I been able to, I wouldn't have changed it.

In this shocking novel of a young girl alone on the streets, Donald Goines delves into yet another facet of the ghetto experience - the dark, despair-ridden world of a black girl's soul.

Sandra took to the streets when she was eight years old and tried to fight off the hunger pangs by shoplifting and moving into the profits of drug pushing. Then she met Chink, and with him she discovered love and affection...as well as rape and murder.

Nobody's better at taking out bodies than Larry Jackson, aka "Daddy Cool." Long as he's paid in full, he'll pull the trigger or stick a knife deep, whatever it takes to get the job done. No questions asked. Nobody's better. Nothing knocks him off his game-except his own family. Dead ass. He's got two stepsons wasting space and a wife he almost forgot about. But his daughter is another story.

Johnny Washington is a ruthless survivor, a Black teen raised on the streets of LA, a battlefield of broken families, rival gangs, and minimum wage—all under the cold, watchful eye of the men and in blue. But Johnny's found a loophole. He knows the freight yards like the back of his hand. He and his crew, Josh and Buddy, hit them often, stealing just enough to get by. Until Josh is gunned down by a security guard, who gets his brains bashed in by Buddy. Out of options, Johnny turns to Elliot Davis, a local kingpin who recruits and exploits Johnny's sister until she's no longer useful.

A large part of Goines' 39 years of life was spent being a successful pimp, a heif, an operator of corn liquor houses, an armed robber, and a small-time dope dealer. He lived the life of the streets, and out of that experience he created Prince, the anti-hero of Black Gangster. It's the story of the shocking underworld of Black organized crime and the fledgling Black "godfather" who goes from teenager ganglord to powerful Detroit mobster. Like the gangsters of the 1920s, he begins with bootlegging and branches out into every known crime.

A blueprint. A bible. What Sun Tzu’s Art of War was to ancient China, Pimp is to the streets. As real as you can get without jumping in, this is the story of Iceberg Slim’s life as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it. It is a trip through hell by the one man who lived to tell the tale—the dangers of jail, addiction, and death that are still all too familiar for today’s Black community. By telling the story of one man’s struggles and triumphs in an underground world, Pimp shows us the game doesn’t change; it just has a different swagger.

Barely out of his 20s, Chester Hines knows the score. He's just another bug crawling through the streets of Detroit, waiting to be squashed under the heel of a system meant to keep a brother down. But with his old lady on his back, his only options are on the wrong side of the law. He didn't need a fortune-teller to tell him that sooner or later he'd end up in a system more brutal than the one that forced him there.

King David was determined to claw his way out of the mean streets of New York City any way he could. It didn't matter if that meant battering and robbing old people, conning the innocent, or even killing a kid's mother. Lacing cocaine with battery acid for revenge was acceptable, too. Ultimately, it meant leaving town. Now King's made it big and made his way back, flush with cash and a Cadillac. But he hasn't been forgotten - or forgiven. And when payback time hits, he's only got one wish - not to die alone.

Prison buddies Billy Good and Jackie Walker made time pulling small jobs here and there. Not a bad living if you liked scraping by. The thing to worry about was the next fix. Nothing else mattered. When Billy and Jackie fell in with Kenyatta, a ghetto lord ready to take back the streets, they thought they'd hit the big time. Dealing with drug pushers and crooked cops in the name of justice sure felt good, but in a world where "kindness was the sweetest con of all", every bullet fired echoed with the sound of payback.

It's not that Curtis Carson is hating on the Latinos in his backyard dice games. He just happens to roll the dice better. But the Latinos don't see it that way, and when one of their brothers is brutally gunned down in a barroom shootout because of Curtis's dealings with the drug dealer Fat George, it's Curtis who ends up with a target on his back and his brother who ends up with a wrecked body far from the hoop dreams he once harbored. If things aren't tragic enough, Curtis is hellbent on setting things straight. He's on a deadly path of vengeance that will leave the streets running red...

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

Continuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film. A literary classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s. With its focus on the “militancy” that characterized the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, this is the story of one man’s reaction to ruling-class hypocrisy.

Mama Black Widow tells the tragic story of Otis Tilson, a stunning black drag queen trapped in a cruel queer ghetto underworld. In hopes of escaping the racial bigotry andeconomic injustice of the South, Otis' family journeys north from their plantation to an urban promised land. Once in Chicago, Otis and his siblings become prisoners to a wasteland of violence, crime, prostitution, and rape. This is the gut-wrenching tale of the destruction of a family and the truest portrayal of homosexuality in the ghetto ever told.

In Pimpology, star of the documentaries Pimps Up, Ho's Down and American Pimp and Annual Players Ball Mack of the Year winner Ken Ivy pulls a square's coat on the unwritten rules that took him from the ghetto streets to the executive suites. Ken's lessons will serve any person in any interaction. Whether at work, in relationships, or among friends, somebody's got to be on top. To be the one with the upper hand, you've got to have good game, and good game starts with knowing the rules.

With the same unforgettable and distinctive prose on display in his other books, Airtight Willie & Me is further evidence that Iceberg Slim was an expert at capturing the language of the streets. Always compelling, sometimes funny, and often bleak, Slim gives us six slices of city life that will leave you thirsting for more.