AALBC.com's
Best Selling Books for May and June 2007
Fiction | Nonfiction |
#1
Addicted
Format: Paperback, 336pp. Addicted is the story of Zoe, an African-American female arts dealer. It traces her life from the time she first meets her husband, Jason, in the fifth grade, falls in love with him over a game of Twister in the eighth grade, loses her virginity to him in high school and eventually marries him. Everything seems perfect in Zoe's life to her friends and family as she secretly deals with serious problems in her marriage. After failing to get Jason to open up to her sexually, Zoe becomes involved in not one, not two but three extramarital affairs. By the time she seeks the aid of a prominent female African-American therapist, the walls of her picture perfect life have already started to crumble. The book shifts into high gear as Zoe finds out that everyone from her lovers to her husband to her own mother are hiding secrets of their own. Her best friend, Brina, is physically abused by her alcoholic boyfriend, Dempsey. Zoe discovers under hypnosis that her fascination with sex stems from two incidents in her early childhood she had buried deeply into the crevices of her mind. She is stalked and attacked. The book comes to a head on a cold, dark mountain following a trail of murders and the true murderer is anyone's guess. Addicted does for women what Fatal Attraction did for men. It will make a woman think twice before risking it all. |
#1
Letters
to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny Hill Harper ISBN: 1592402003 Voted One of the Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2006 �Young men today have been bombarded with images of
wealth and success that tell them that buying the hottest car or the most
bling-blingin� jewelry is what they should be motivated by. There is an
overwhelming sales pitch targeted at these young men that subliminally
suggests that material goods are what makes them real men. I want young men
to have knowledge of the things that bring them true empowerment: education,
a strong sense of purpose, compassion, confidence, and humility, to name a
few. |
#2
Around
the Way Girls Angel Hunter, LA Jill Hunt, Dwayne S. Joseph ISBN: 0974363693 There's a saying in Brooklyn that if you come from my part of town that you're from around the way. Well Sydni, Angel and Cream are all from around the way. They all live in Crown Heights, one of the most notorious sections of Brooklyn, but to them it's just a place they call home. Around the Way girls is a fast paced look at the life of three street smart woman who think they know it all but are about to get the lessons of their lives. Angel Santiago has got it going on. She's young, fine and can get what she wants, whenever she wants it, the way she wants it. That's because she knows the key to the game. Control-that's what it's all about and nobody controls the situation like Angel does. At least not until she meets Frido. He's everything all the other guys aren't and while Angel may know the game, Frido's the one who invented it. Cream White is the mother of one, caretaker of another and one of the hardest working strippers in Brooklyn. Tired of the game, the ghetto and the hustle, she takes part in a scam that will hopefully provide her with a way out of the hood. Surprisingly, the one who introduced her to the game is the only one who holds the key to getting her out of it. All Sydni Johnson wants to do is get the hell outta New York. The worst thing her mother could have done was uproot her and the family and move her from Atlanta to Brooklyn five years ago. Now, her brother is dead, her sister is out of control, and to make matters worse, her mother's about to be marry a man Sydni can't stand. What's a sister to do? Make some loot, of course, so she can get the hell out of Brooklyn and go back down south in style. Only, when it's all said and done she might just be too smart for her own good. |
#2
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African
and African American Experience Format:
Hardcover, 2144pp. In 1909, W.E.B. Du Bois dreamed of editing an "Encyclopedia Africana" filled with all that scholars knew of the history, literature and art of the great continent and diaspora. Such a tome, Du Bois hoped, would, like Diderot's Encyclop�ide, serve as a springboard for future scholarship and a bulwark against racist misconceptions. At the century's close, editors Appiah and Gates - an African and African-American respectively - have fulfilled Du Bois's vision with aplomb. For this accessible, fascinating volume, the two Harvard professors have commissioned and condensed more than 3000 articles by more than 400 scholars. Though the bulk of the entries are devoted to the African continent and its descendant cultures in Latin America, the Caribbean and North America, the encyclopedia also addresses the African presence in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world (each article is color coded for easy reference). Entries range from a paragraph on Abaku’s, "all male secret societies created by African slaves living in Cuba during the mid-19th century, "to Evelyn Brooks Higginborham's six-page essay on "Women and the Block Baptist Church." The selections, which run the gamut from the Middle Passage, Rastafarians, the Montgomery bus boycott, rap and every African country, are notable for their clear presentation of facts and their cogent, fair-minded analysis. Some entries such as John Burdick's "Myth of Racial Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Interpretation." are really treatises on significant social issues. And the many minibiographies of accomplished artists - such as actor Paul Robeson, singer Diana Ross and saxophonist Charlie Parker - highlight the tremendous impact African-Americans have had on North American culture. Bursting with information and enhanced by contributions from its illustrious advisory board, which includes Jamaica Kincaid, Nell Irving Painter, Cornel West and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, this book belongs on every family's reference shelf. Du Bois himself could not have done better. 1000 photographs, maps and illustrations. �Publishers Weekly |
#3
Echoes
of a Distant Summer Format: Hardcover, 584pp. Set in 1982, this marvelously entertaining sequel to Johnson's well-received first novel, Standing at the Scratch Line, continues the mythic saga of King Tremain, a knife- and gun-wielding Prohibition-era Robin Hood. Leaving a bloody trail of corpses from the bayous of Louisiana to New York and San Francisco, King's fight for survival against overwhelming odds offers a deeply affecting metaphor for black America's struggle for dignity and rights in the 20th century. The sequel picks up with San Francisco civil servant Jackson Tremain being summoned to the deathbed of his estranged grandfather, former mob-enforcer King, who has spent the past 28 years exiled deep in Mexico after being framed for the murder of white cops in San Francisco. Jackson flies to Mexico just in time to learn that he is the heir to a $50 million fortune. Returning to the Bay Area, Jackson learns that contracts are already out on his life from enemies determined to claim the fortune, and soon both he and his girlfriend are imperiled by King's old nemesis, bayou crime patriarch Pug DuMont, who's in cahoots with Bay Area mafiosi. Secret treasure, gang wars, voodoo, illegitimate heirs, damsels in distress in the hands of a lesser writer, this would be cheap pulp fiction, but the gifted Johnson gives sweep and emotional resonance to the action-packed hijinks. �Publishers Weekly |
#2
Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer ISBN: 1400066107 |
#4
Getting
Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles 2, Vol. 2 Zane (Editor) ISBN: 0743457013 Zane is back with Gettin' Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles II,
more stories for the legion of readers that made The Sex Chronicles a
bestseller. |
#4
Confessions
of a Video Vixen ISBN: 0060842423 Glass vases filled with marbles crashed all around us as he began tossing linens from the bed. As the marbles scattered, we laughed in unison ... I remember the exact moment that I first laid on my back for him ... My legs were wrapped around his waist and just before his body was to merge with mine, I noticed his upper right chest. On it was a tattoo with the words "Pain is Love." Confessions of a Video Vixen is the widely anticipated memoir of Karrine Steffans, the once sought-after sexy siren who appeared in the music videos of multiplatinum hip-hop artists such as Jay-Z, R. Kelly, and LL Cool J. A top-paid video dancer, Karrine transitioned to film when acclaimed director F. Gary Gray picked her to costar in his film A Man Apart, starring Vin Diesel. But the movie and music video sets, swanky Miami and New York restaurants, and trysts with the celebrities featured in the pages of People and In Touch magazines only skims the surface of Karrine's life. This memoir -- part tell-all, part cautionary tale -- shows how Karrinne came to be the confidante of so many, why she kept their secrets, and how she found herself in Hollywood after a life marked by physical abuse, rape, and drugs -- all before she was twenty-six. By sharing her emotionally charged story, she hopes to shed light on an otherwise romanticized industry. |
#5
Title:
Standing at the Scratch Line Publisher: Random House,
Incorporated |
#5
Cooking
With Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics ISBN: 0743253981 Cooking with Grease is a powerful, behind-the-scenes memoir of the life and times of a tenacious political organizer and the first African-American woman to head a major presidential campaign. Donna Brazile fought her first political fight at age nine -- campaigning (successfully) for a city council candidate who promised a playground in her neighborhood. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, she committed her heart and her future to political and social activism. By the 2000 presidential election, Brazile had become a major player in American political history -- and she remains one of the most outspoken and forceful political activists of our day. Donna grew up one of nine children in a working-poor family in New Orleans, a place where talking politics comes as naturally as stirring a pot of seafood gumbo -- and where the two often go hand in hand. Growing up, Donna learned how to cook from watching her mother, Jean, stir the pots in their family kitchen. She inherited her love of reading and politics from her grandmother Frances. Her brothers Teddy Man and Chet worked as foot soldiers in her early business schemes and voter registration efforts. Cooking with Grease follows Donna's rise to greater and greater political and personal accomplishments: lobbying for student financial aide, organizing demonstrations to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday and working on the Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton presidential campaigns. But each new career success came with its own kind of heartache, especially in her greatest challenge: leading Al Gore's 2000 campaign, making her the first African American to lead a major presidential campaign. Cooking with Grease is an intimate account of Donna's thirty years in politics. Her stories of the leaders and activists who have helped shape America's future are both inspiring and memorable. Donna's witty style and innovative political strategies have garnered her the respect and admiration of colleagues and adversaries alike -- she is as comfortable trading quips with J. C. Watts as she is with her Democratic colleagues. Her story is as warm and nourishing as a bowl of Brazile family gumbo. |
#6
2nd
Time Around Format: Paperback Yes, Raheim "Pooquie" Rivers and Mitchell "Little Bit" Crawford are back - they've got a serious love thang goin' on, and IT'S ALL JOOD. But for Raheim, it's a trip that promises to be both phat and frightening. As he struggles with being in love with another man for the first time, he must also come to terms with the murder of his homeboy, Derrick "D.C." Carter, and confront his father, who returns after abandoning him and his mother over sixteen years ago. Add his ever-curious five-year-old son, Junior, to the mix, and it's no wonder Raheim doesn't go mad crazy. Rut he manages to survive it all - thanks to the passion and patience of the man he loves. |
#6
Countering
the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys: Volume III ISBN: 0913543209 Publisher: African American Images
|
#7
Girls
From Da Hood
Nikki Turner and Chunichi
While Lady Bug's dope slaying boyfriend, Took sat in the city jail waiting to stand trial. Lady Bug was busy, recklessly spending, allowing Took's money to pass through her hands like running water. Never completely understanding that the stash money was for a rainy day. And when it rains, it pours. It is not until Lady Bug's phone is disconnected for non-payment that she is hit in the face with the reality, that Took won't be around to pay the phone bill, or any bill for that matter. Even with the best defense attorneys that money could buy, Took had to give the state of Virginia at least the next seven years of his life. With an empty refrigerator, a stack of bills piling up, a tenth grade education, a big butt and a smile, it could not have been any clearer to her, that she has to stand on her own just to survive the everyday struggle. It didn't take long for her to learn to pull the wool over the eyes of any joker who was blinded by her good looks. She was sure that one day some clown's slip up would be her ultimate come-up. And when it fell in her lap, her days of nickel and dime swindles would all be a thing of the past. Lady Bug knew that every scandalous chick had her day, but never thought her day would some too! Travel with Lady Bug as she navigates through the hood putting every petty hustle into play to chase hard times away from her door. Never having a bit of shame, her low-lifed scams are a sure disgrace to any gold digger, sac chaser, guttersnipe or chicken head. For she falls at the bottom of the barrel weighting in at nothing less than a hoodrat! The Princess of Hip Hop Fiction, Nikki Turner, took readers through the life of, A Hustler's Wife, then on to a safari with A Project Chick. Now she blesses them with the journey of, Girls From The Hood. |
#7
"Why Are All The Black
Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?": A Psychologist Explains the
Development of Racial Identity
Paperback: 320 pages Anyone who's been to a high
school or college has noted how students of the same race seem to stick
together. Beverly Daniel Tatum has noticed it too, and she doesn't think
it's so bad. As she explains in this provocative, though
not-altogether-convincing book, these students are in the process of
establishing and affirming their racial identity. As Tatum sees it, blacks
must secure a racial identity free of negative stereotypes. The challenge to
whites, on which she expounds, is to give up the privilege that their skin
color affords and to work actively to combat injustice in society.
|
#8
Forever
a Hustler's Wife: A Novel Paperback: 288 pages The high priestess of the hood, Nikki Turner, is back with
the novel fans have been feenin� for: the sequel to her #1 best-selling
novel, A Hustler's Wife. |
#8
100
Amazing Facts about the Negro with Complete Proof ISBN: 0960229477 Written in the 1940's and published in 1957. BLACK FACT: PROOF: |
#9
I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women. Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people--and the times--that touched her life. "This testimony from a black sister marks the beginning of a new era in the minds and hearts of all black men and women... I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity. I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood, when the people in books were more real than the people one saw every day, have I found myself so moved... Her portrait is a biblical study in life in the midst of death." �James Baldwin |
#9
A Celebration of Literature and Response: Children, Books, and Teachers
in K-8 Classrooms, Second Edition
Marjorie R. Hancock Paperback: 496 pages Reinforced by teachers' experiences in actual
classrooms, this book provides a wealth of ideas for projects, readings, and
response-based activities that will engage all learners in the joy of
reading and responding to literature. It blends an appreciation of
children's books across all genres with an emphasis on meaningful
instructional strategies for literacy programs. Coverage of
multicultural/international literature helps illustrate the universality of
themes in children's literature�providing a basis for establishing a library
of literature that expresses the totality of children's experiences and
speaks to children from all cultures and backgrounds. Coverage is based on
Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reader response, and organized
around five main �celebrations� that the author uses as a framework for
uniting the findings of reader-response theory with quality children's
literature and exemplary reflective, literature-based practice. Includes
expanded coverage on multicultural/international literature�including
numerous examples of children's literature written and published in other
countries. Includes extensive coverage of reader responses to
literature�oral and written responses, as well as those made through the
visual arts. For teachers of Children's Literature. |
#10
A
Chance at Love Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
an AALBC Best-Selling Book May/Jun 2007 The Marrying Kind... Strong, sensible Jake was hoping for a wife to help him raise his girls, but Loreli may be more than he can handle. He can't stop wondering what it would be like to hold the fiery enchantress close and kiss her deeply. Surely he could never compete with the sophisticated gents she has known, yet he intends to try. But will his honest passion be enough to take a chance on a long-shot called love? |
#10
A
Chronology of the Bible : Challenge to the Standard Version
ISBN: 0933121288 A chronology of the Bible (first published in 1972) is perhaps his most popular work. Originally prepared at the request of a group of Harlem-based ministers, Chronology documents the African origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Dr. Ben traces significant influences, developments, and people that have shaped and provided the foundation for the holy books used in these religions. About the Author |
AALBC.com generates book sales directly, and through a number of affiliate programs. Our bestsellers list reflects sales generated via Amazon.com. This list ranks book sales from March 1st through April 23rd 2007.
For permission to reproduce this bestseller list, please
contact
troy@aalbc.com