Showing results by narrator "Kevin R Free" in All Categories

Sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus is trying his best. He tries to be the best employee he can be at the local ice cream shop; the best boyfriend he can be to his amazing girlfriend, Talia; the best protector he can be over his little brother, Isaiah. But as much as Alex tries, he often comes up short.

Former presidents have an unusual place in American life. King George III believed that George Washington’s departure after two terms made him “the greatest character of the age.” But Alexander Hamilton worried former presidents might “[wander] among the people like ghosts.” They were both right. Life After Power tells the stories of seven former presidents, from the Founding to today. Each changed history. Each offered lessons about how to decide what to do in the next chapter of life.

Calvin knows how to pass for white. He's done it plenty of times before. For his friends in Chicago, when they wanted food but weren't allowed in a restaurant. For work, when he and his dad would travel for the Green Book. This is different. After a tragedy in Chicago forces the family to flee, they resettle in an idyllic all-white suburban town in search of a better life. Calvin's father wants everyone to embrace their new white lifestyles, but it's easier said than done.

Winner of the Gold Pen, Romantic Times Career Achievement, and Zora Neale Hurston Literary Awards, Rochelle Alers has nearly two million copies of her books in print. Here she crafts the tale of a hotshot athlete and the woman who can fulfill his dreams. Super Bowl MVP Brandt Wainwright’s good fortune runs out when he crashes his SUV into a tree. During the long recuperation, the fun-loving quarterback becomes cranky and sullen - until private nurse Ciara Dennison shows up for duty.

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

On a moonless night in the spring of 1851, a young slave makes a bid for freedom with only the North Star to guide him. Best-selling novelist and historian Robert Morgan returns with a stunning new work of historical fiction.

It’s been three months since the Patriarche was beheaded, leaving behind no known heir. Now, the planet of Laterre is unrecognizable. General Bonnefaçon has cleaned up the streets, fed the hungry, and restored peace while the next leader is decided upon. From the outside, Laterre seems to be flourishing. But dangerous rifts threaten to shatter the planet from within.

The music that would come to be known as hip-hop was born at a party in the Bronx in the summer of 1973. Now, fifty years later, it’s the most popular music genre in America. Just as jazz did in the first half of the twentieth century, hip-hop and its groundbreaking DJs and artists—nearly all of them people of color from some of America’s most overlooked communities—pushed the boundaries of music to new frontiers, while transfixing the country’s youth and reshaping fashion, art, and even language.

A finalist for the National Book Award, Lost in the City features 15 poignant short stories, each set in Washington, D.C. Far removed from marble monuments and the offices of rich politicians, the nation's capital that Jones captures is inhabited by self-willed African-Americans struggling to live their lives as best they can.

Kelly Phillips has been out and proud since he was a young teenager, and thanks to the gay youth group he frequents, he's never been short on friends or lovers. But when you have almost everything, it's hard not to focus on what's just out of reach: a best friend who would be Mr. Right if he wasn't already Mr. Straight. Or that handsome athlete at school who would be easier to wrangle if not for his angel wings. And then there's the guy who might be a perfect fit, maybe even a soul mate...if only he wasn't convinced he didn't need anyone.

Orson Scott Card, Kevin J. Anderson, and Larry Niven have seen the future. Now you can, too. A constellation of the brightest lights in the science fiction and fantasy firmament have judged these authors to be the best, the brightest, the truest emerging stars in the field.

Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics - and their impact on people of color - are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime.

From the widely acclaimed poet, novelist, critic, and scholar, a lucid and edifying exploration of the building blocks of poetry and how they've been used over the centuries to assemble the most imperishable poems.

After growing up in the care of his nagging grandmother and coasting through school with a mediocre GPA, Keeper Chance gets invited to try out for a spot in his local chapter of EVIL. Keeper’s not sure his unremarkable life makes him villain material, but things get more remarkable, and fast, when Keeper and another new recruit, Toby, face the chapter’s first test—and disasters begin to snowball.

Thanks to an elderly spinster sleuth and her ingenious cat, Christopher Holmes has enjoyed a celebrated career as a bestselling mystery writer. Until now. Sales are down and his new editor is allergic to geriatric gumshoes. On the advice of his agent, he reinvents his fortyish, frumpy, recently dumped self into the sleek, sexy image of a literary lion, and heads for a Northern California writers conference to try and resurrect his career.

Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay in racially segregated Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a sign painter and a housekeeper. He went on to become a heavyweight boxer with a dazzling mix of power and speed, a warrior for racial pride, a comedian, a preacher, a poet, a draft resister, an actor, and a lover. Millions hated him when he changed his religion, changed his name, and refused to fight in the Vietnam War. Jonathan Eig sheds important new light on Ali’s politics, religion, personal life, and neurological condition through unprecedented access to all the key people in Ali’s life.

Life isn’t easy for a gay teenager living in the nineties. Ben thought coming out was his best chance of finding love. Instead he ended up lonelier than before. After a not-so-accidental collision with Tim, an attractive athlete and artist, Ben is convinced that he’s met his soulmate. Their budding romance is soon tested by spreading rumors, the danger increasing along with their passion for each other until it pushes them to the breaking point.

For fans of Tune In, an anthology of essays from 30 luminaries about their favorite Beatles songs. Blauner anthologizes essays from 30 authors, actors, and musicians reflecting on their favorite Beatles songs, creating a monument to the enduring impact of the most popular band of all time. The diversity of favorite tracks and the variety of reasons contributors love them speak to the range of the Beatles' song catalog and the power their music still has more than 50 years after they arrived in the United States.

When 16-year-old Tariq Johnson dies from two gunshot wounds, his community is thrown into an uproar. Tariq was black. The shooter, Jack Franklin, is white. In the aftermath of Tariq's death, everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events line up. Day by day, new twists further obscure the truth. Tariq's friends, family, and community struggle to make sense of the tragedy, and to cope with the hole left behind when a life is cut short.

Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation’s most important historical artifacts.