Dion Graham
81) The Wild Things
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The Wild Thing, based very loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay cowritten with Spike Jonze - is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can't control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has an interest in him. At the same time, Max finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness: he wears a wolf suit, bites his...
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Jeff Stetson offers a thought-provoking work of fiction with Blood on the Leaves. Old white men-alleged perpetrators of racial killings during the civil rights struggle-are being brutally murdered in the South. Now it's up to the only black deputy district attorney to prosecute these racially motivated crimes.
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Ethiopian EmigrE author Dinaw Mengestu is a skilled observer of people who earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly for this colorful debut. Insightful and swiftly paced, this novel evokes past and present in the course of its compelling narrative. It's the '70s, and one D.C. neighborhood is undergoing big changes. In the mix is Ethiopian grocery owner Sepha Stephanos-a man with a complex past who fled his homeland after seeing his father brutalized....
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Homeland is the remarkable memoir of George Obama, the youngest son of the Obama clan and President Obama's Kenyan half-brother. The father that the brothers shared was as elusive a figure for George as he had been for Barack Obama; he died when George was six months old and George was raised by his mother and stepfather. But after his mother and stepfather separated, he drifted into gangs and petty crime. Arrested for robbery, restless, willful,...
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Over the last two decades a new type of song has emerged. Today's hits bristle with "hooks," musical burrs designed to snag your ear every seven seconds. Painstakingly crafted to tweak the brain's delight in melody, rhythm, and repetition, these songs are industrial-strength products made for malls, casinos, the gym, and the Super Bowl halftime show. The tracks are so catchy, and so potent, that you can't not listen to them. Traveling from New York...
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One of Publishers Weekly's Best Picture Books of 2015. The Golden Gate Bridge is the most famous bridge in the world. It is also, not entirely coincidentally, the world's first bright-orange bridge. But it wasn't supposed to be that way. In this book, fellow bridge-lovers Dave Eggers and Tucker Nichols tell the story of how it happened-how a bridge that some people wanted to be red and white, and some people wanted to be yellow and black, and most...
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The Denzel Principle, also called "The Dizzle," according to journalist and author Jimi Izrael, is the belief that the perfect man, who is the epitome of all things women think Denzel Washington represents, exists off screen and not only can you get one for your very own, you also need not settle for less. The regular good man need not apply. Qualities of The Dizzle, aka Mr. Perfect: He's rich but earthy, handsome but not pretty, doting but not docile,...
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This New York Public Library selection as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century is a true-life portrait of growing up in the Chicago projects. This national best-seller chronicles the true story of two brothers coming of age in the Henry Horner public housing complex in Chicago. Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers are eleven and nine years old when the story begins in the summer of 1987. Living with their mother and six siblings, they...
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In the tradition of James Patterson and Thomas Harris, critically acclaimed author Jonathan Nasaw crafts taut thrillers that are sometimes shocking and always engrossing. A provocative and chilling tale, Twenty-Seven Bones is Nasaw's most accomplished work yet. FBI Special Agent E.L. Pender is bored with retirement and jumps at the chance to track down a lethal husband and wife serial killer team. But as the body count rises, Pender's frustration...
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Caryl Phillips has received international acclaim for his works, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, and membership in the Royal Society of Literature. Dancing in the Dark brilliantly re-creates the life of Bert Williams, the first black entertainer to achieve stardom in America. In 1896, when Bert decides to perform his stage routine in blackface, he is accused of reviling his race even as he becomes a star in...
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From noted journalist and professor David Dent comes this poignant and fascinating survey of contemporary African-American life. In Search of Black America is compilation of eclectic personalities and rare insights. Dent spent five years researching and travelling across the continent interviewing America's black middle-class. Filled with stories of real people and real places, this book examines the many ways in which blacks have carved out their...
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The story of one of the most controversial figures in all of hip-hop history, Dummy Boy tells the tale of Tekashi 6ix9ine and his meteoric rise to fame. In tracing Danny "Tekashi 6ix9ine" Hernandez's life from Bushwick to the heights of the rap scene, Complex reporter Shawn Setaro illuminates the story of the young rapper who forged an alliance with a notorious street gang to bolster his image and boost his internet clout. Before long, Tekashi's antics...
95) The Road South
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A spirited and striking memoir, The Road South tells the story of a man who struggled to make his place in society. "I hope my story will do nothing if not inspire. If I can overcome the hurdles of poverty, abuse, and racism, then so can anyone." Shelley Stewart's memoir is full of hope and promise, even in the midst of the most dire situations.
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The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that...
97) Bombingham
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Bombingham by Anthony Grooms is the powerful story of a middle-class black family living in a time of great unrest. Accepting the charge of writing a letter to the parents of a fallen friend and fellow soldier, Walter Burke begins to reflect on the effects that segregation has had on his family and the effect the Vietnam war is having on him. Narrator Dion Graham provides an exceptional reading of Grooms' unsentimental prose.
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Published for the first time, the pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, black modernism, and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux...
99) Middle Passage
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After the Confederacy falls, newly freed slave Rutherford Calhoun is eager to avoid marrying a prim schoolteacher and boards the first ship he finds moored at a New Orleans port. Unbeknownst to Calhoun, the vessel is a slave ship enroute to Africa. On the return trip, Calhoun is put to work as a cabin boy and quickly assists the newly captured slaves in revolting against the drunken crew. This compelling adventure is filled with a perfect blend of...
100) Cave of Wonders
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What marvels and mysteries await Dak, Sera, and Riq in the Golden Age of Baghdad? Europe is in the grip of the Dark Ages, but there is a light in the dark: Baghdad. The great city has become a center of learning, populated by scholars, merchants, and explorers from all across the known world. But danger lurks in the desert...and Dark, Sera, and Riq must act fast to save the world's greatest library from utter destruction.
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