Showing results by narrator "Adenrele Ojo" in All Categories

According to the Washington Post, no one who cares about contemporary African-American cultures can ignore Bell Hooks's electrifying feminist explorations. Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture presents a collection of essays that pulls no punches. As Hooks herself notes, interrogations of popular culture can be a "powerful site for intervention, challenge and change." And intervene, challenge, and change is what hooks does best.

Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that's made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead of moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn't much better than a prison cell. Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she's headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan - a race of sentient alien ships - to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.

The Narwhal and Jelly books are delightfully silly graphic novels full of heart, friendship, and playful adventure. Adapted for audio with sound effects and a full cast - including a special appearance by the author - listeners can now get the first five books (Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea, Super Narwhal and Jelly Jolt, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Narwhal's Otter Friend, and Happy Narwhalidays) in the series in one audiobook collection.

Bootlegging was Milton and Yvonne Hamilton's ticket out of poverty, prison time, and plain bad luck. Now they've moved on - to a bigger, richer pool of clientele - right in their own respectable new middle-class backyard. And their growing friendship with seemingly-perfect couple Joyce and Odell Watson is proving golden in more ways than one. As Milton soon learns, Odell is hiding an outside family and dubious business dealings. It's the perfect recipe for a blackmail scheme that will help Milton hide his own dirty secrets - even from Yvonne....

Raymond, a young black lawyer from the South, struggles to come to terms with his sexuality and with the grim reality of AIDS. Nicole, an aspiring singer/actress, experiences frustration in both her career and in her attempts to find a genuine love relationship. Both characters share an eclectic group of friends who challenge them, and the listener, to look at themselves and the world around them through different eyes.

The sky is not the limit. From an alley in New York to an interstellar wormhole, the path to the future looks different for everyone. These cosmic short stories from some of today’s most influential Black authors reveal a universe of possibilities.

From the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Moor’s Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant—at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next 200 years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

North Carolina, 1863. As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedpeople's Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the "old life". It is where the March family has finally been able to safely put down roots with four young daughters.

Hugo continues his superhero training, eager to join the good fight. But when a deadly new enemy strikes close to home, he’s forced to make a choice: become the hero he wants to be, or the hero his city needs. After exposing Titan’s murderer, Quinn’s next story explores the world of teen superheroes. And the deeper she digs, the more layers of corruption she uncovers.

On a rainy day in May 1964, history professor Cecily Bridge-Davis begins to search for the sixty-five acres of land she inherited from her father’s family. The quest leads her to uncover a dark secret: In every generation, one offspring from each Bridge family unit vanishes—and is mysteriously whisked back in time. With only a family Bible and a map marked with the locations of mysterious containers to aid her, Cecily heads to the library, hoping to discover the truth of how this curse began, and how it might be ended.

Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret - Alexia Arthurs navigates these tensions to extraordinary effect in her debut collection about Jamaican immigrants and their families back home. Sweeping from close-knit island communities to the streets of New York City and midwestern university towns, these 11 stories form a portrait of a nation, a people, and a way of life.

Every hero has a beginning. So does every villain. Titan, the world’s greatest superhero, has been murdered by his longtime archenemy Lord Borealis. And from the ashes rises a new generation. Gifted with powers on the night of Titan’s death, 15-year-old Hugo awakes to the strange world of superheroes. A world he isn’t prepared for. But with godlike powers and a history of tragedy, will Hugo become a guardian of justice...or agent of chaos?

It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is 21, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth.

Successful romance author Gaia Anders has a secret: anything she dreams at night is magically written into her bestselling novels. After a lonely childhood in foster care, her dream life is the only one she trusts. Gaia's waking life just can't compare—until she gets caught in a real-life kiss. Workaholic businessman Jacob Scott has had a crush on his brother's best friend, Gaia, since forever—but he never expected to literally share her dreams. Living out their magical nighttime fantasies is explosive, but it's their waking desire turning his single-minded ways upside down.

Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins' stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues - race, gender, family, and sexuality - that shape the ordinary moments in our lives.

Thanks to her blog, Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah has spent decades talking openly and intimately to African women around the world about sex. For this book, she spoke to more than 30 African women across the globe while chronicling her own journey toward sexual freedom.

A debut of extraordinary distinction: through the trials of one unforgettable family, Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration, a story of love and bitterness and the promise of a new America. In 1923, 15-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.

Once in a great while a debut novelist comes along who dazzles us with rare eloquence and humanity, who takes us to bold new places and into previously unimaginable lives. Gaile Parkin is just such a talent - and Baking Cakes in Kilgali is just such a novel. This gloriously written tale - set in modern-day Rwanda - introduces one of the most singular and engaging characters in recent fiction: Angel Tungaraza - mother, cake baker, keeper of secrets - a woman living on the edge of chaos, finding ways to transform lives, weave magic, and create hope.

American culture loves Blackness. From music and fashion to activism and language, Black culture constantly achieves worldwide influence. Yet, when it comes to who is allowed to thrive from Black hipness, the pioneers are usually left behind as Black aesthetics are converted into mainstream success - and White profit. Weaving together narrative, scholarship, and critique, Lauren Michele Jackson reveals why cultural appropriation - something that's become embedded in our daily lives - deserves serious attention.