Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs....

Cotton Comes to Harlem

by Chester B. Himes

Con man Deke O'Hara is out of the state penitentiary and back on the street working the scam of a lifetime. The $87,000 he has schemed to get has been hijacked and hidden in a bale of cotton. Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are on everyone's trail in one of their most entertaining thrillers.

Black Betty : Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Gator Green"

Black Betty : Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Gator Green"

by Walter Mosley

1961: For most black Americans, these were times of hope. For former P.I. Easy Rawlins, Los Angeles's mean streets were never meaner...or more deadly. Ordinarily, Easy would have thrown the two bills in the sleazy shamus' face -- the white man who wanted him to find the notorious Black Betty, an ebony siren whose talent for all things rich and male took her from Houston's Fifth Ward to Beverly Hills. There was... (more)

The Dahomean;: An historical novel

by Frank Yerby

A Woman Called FancyFrank. Yerby

A Woman Called Fancy

by Frank. Yerby

Jubilee

by Margaret Walker

Here is the classic--and true--story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his black mistress, a Southern Civil War heroine to rival Scarlett O'Hara. Vyry bears witness to the South's prewar opulence and its brutality, to its wartime ruin and the subsequent promise of Reconstruction. It is a story that Margaret Walker heard as a child from her grandmother, the real Vyry's daughter. The author spent... (more)

Russian journal ;: Sarah Phillips (Griot editions)

Russian journal ;: Sarah Phillips (Griot editions)

by Andrea Lee

“A subtly crafted reflection of both the bleak and golden shadings of Russian life . . . Its tones belong more to the realm of poetry than journalism.” –The New York Times Book Review At age twenty-five, Andrea Lee joined her husband, a Harvard doctoral candidate in Russian history, for his eight months’ study at Moscow State University and an additional two months in Leningrad. Published to enormous critical... (more)

The Richer, the Poorer

by Dorothy West

A collection of essays and stories spans seventy years in a woman's life and offers a perspective on the African-American middle class during the 1920s. Reprint. NYT.

Spooks, Spies, and Private Eyes

by Paula L. Woods

An outstanding anthology of twentieth-century African-American mystery and suspense fiction ranges from Pauline E. Hopkins's locked-room tale ""Talma Gordon,"" first published in 1900, to a new short story by best-selling author Walter Mosley. Reprint.

Cowboys (Reflections of a Black Cowboy)

by Robert H. Miller

from Sankofa Books, an imprint of Just Us Books... Will the Real West Please Stand Up?! The exciting adventures of Black cowboys, pioneers, soldiers, and other frontiersmen join the celebrated folklore of the wild West in the Reflections of a Black Cowboy series. Through colorful, masterfully crafted vignettes that rival the tall tales of the old frontier, author Robert H. Miller shares stories of important... (more)

Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction

Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction

by Melissa Fay Greene, Melissa Fay Greene

Finalist for the 1991 National Book Award and a New York Times Notable book, Praying for Sheetrock is the story of McIntosh County, a small, isolated, and lovely place on the flowery coast of Georgia--and a county where, in the 1970s, the white sheriff still wielded all the power, controlling everything and everybody. Somehow the sweeping changes of the civil rights movement managed to bypass McIntosh ... (more)

All Souls' Rising

by Madison Smartt Bell

In this first installment of his epic Haitian trilogy, Madison Smartt Bell brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery, the uprising successfully transformed Haiti... (more)

The Ebony Cookbook: A Date With a Dish

by Freda De Knight

The first "A Date With a Dish" appeared in 1948; it reappeared as "The Ebony Cookbook" in 1962, and has stood the test of time. Freda DeKnight's selection from the thousands of American Negro recipes in her collection is unique. It preserves many dishes that might otherwise be lost to a TV-dinner generation. It provides a guide and reference for everyone, from novice cook to discriminating gourmet, who loves good... (more)

An Odor of Sanctity A Novel of Moorish Spain

An Odor of Sanctity A Novel of Moorish Spain

by Frank Yerby

Historical Novel

Everything and Nothing : The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy

Everything and Nothing : The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy

by Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Dandridge's life story is the stuff Hollywood dreams--and nightmares. Completed shortly before her tragic death in 19665, Everything and Nothing recounts her rags-to-riches-to-rags story form her personal point of view. Dandridge recalls her humble beginnings in Depression-era Cleveland, Ohio, her rise to fame and success as the first African American to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination (for her... (more)

Missing Pages: Black Journalists of Modern America: An Oral History

Missing Pages: Black Journalists of Modern America: An Oral History

by Wallace Terry

Before his death, acclaimed journalist and author Wallace Terry conducted taped interviews with 19 pioneering black journalists. The result is this book: an oral history stretching from World War II through the presidencies of Eisenhower to Reagan, including the Civil Rights Movement--the Black Muslims and Black Panthers--the Vietnam War--Prison Riots--the Chicago Seven Trial--and Civil Wars in Africa. ... (more)

The Wedding, Limited Edition

by Dorothy West, Laurey Bright

In a novel that documents the rise of the black middle class, a racially mixed wedding is about to take place on Martha's Vineyard in the 1950s--amidst extreme tension and resistance. Reprint.

Pride's CastleFrank Yerby