Cultural Heritage category: 3433 books

Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, originally published in 1934, tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, "a living exultation" of a young man who loves too many women for his own good. Lucy, his long-suffering wife, is his true love, but there's also Mehaley and Big 'Oman,...

"I'm a Jamaican. Yardie to de bloodclaat core. I love stout more than wine. I love cricket more than baseball. . . . I love Bob Marley more than Beethoven or Basie. . . . And I think that the fat on a woman batty and hips is sexy thing that they shouldn't try to lose at the gym. . . ." As...

On Black Sisters Street tells the haunting story of four very different women who have left their African homeland for the riches of Europe—and who are thrown together by bad luck and big dreams into a sisterhood that will change their lives. Each night, Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce stand in...

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY DWIGHT GARNER, THE NEW YORK TIMES • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle |NPR | The Root | The Telegraph | The Globe and Mail NATIONAL BESTSELLER • FINALIST, PHILLIS WHEATLEY BOOK AWARD • TEJU COLE WAS NAMED...

“Moore, besides being laugh out loud hilarious, has a profound understanding of human nature . . . A truly remarkable writer. This book is a joy to read.” —Fannie Flagg, author of The Whole Town’s Talking and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe “The arrival of [Moore’s]...

I have called you here to reveal to you a truth that has been calling to you for many years. . . . Since then your soul has been seeking rest. Playwright Carey McCullough is a close guardian of his privacy, haunted by a recurring dream and a damaged past he would like to keep there. But some...

This novel reveals that lunacy is by no means restricted to the village madman. . . . “By far the funniest book I’ve read in a decade” (The Washington Post Book World). In Jamaica, Aloysius is tolerated by his neighbors, but forced to eke out a living by doing odd jobs and use the hospitable...

Everyone who's anyone in the Harlem music scene has heard of Honeybee McColor and the famous Friday night gathers that fill her house to bursting. In the early 1960s, nowhere but "The Big House" attracts so many renowned jazz and blues musicians—and no one but Miss Honeybee attracts talented...

The second novel in Nuruddin Farah's Blood in the Sun trilogy, Gifts is the beguiling tale of a Somali family and the struggles of its powerful matriarch to keep it whole. Duniya is a single mother, raising twins while working as a nurse in a Mogadiscio hospital. Her self-sufficient world is rocked...

New from the Blackboard-bestselling author of When All Hell Breaks Loose: When some old secrets make office politics spiral out of control, three women will have to decide how far they’re willing to go to climb the corporate ladder. At first glance, you couldn’t find three women more different...

It's a Sunday morning, and while most people are thinking about getting the paper and breakfast, Gregory Alston has something other than eggs on his mind. Today he's going to propose to Adrian Jenkins, his girlfriend of three years. But when he actually does, all hell breaks loose and he gets a lot...

A poet craving authenticity ventures into a gritty Philadelphia neighborhood in this novel by the award-winning author of The Chaneysville Incident.   Philadelphia’s South Street is a world of contradiction. The hardscrabble neighborhood is filled with prostitutes and gangsters; working...

The author grew up in the only mixed-race family in an all-white suburb; with Mostly White, she speaks to mixed-race experiences many have but do not see widely depicted in literature. A strong theme of institutionalized racism ties in to current nationwide discussions of race and class. The...

"Gettin’ Paid" transports readers to a world of crime-by-choice through the eyes of street thug Nat Turner. From his jail cell, Turner narrates his life of crime, from department store rushes and stickups to drug spot hits, leading up to the hit that landed him a well-deserved life sentence....