2005 Best Selling Books

2005 is AALBC.com's 9th year of selling books on-line. We sell book's directly and as an affiliate of Amazon and B&N.com. This year's best sellers list is based upon online sales of 1,799 books

For more insight, on our best sellers list please read our Notes on the AALBC.com 2005 Best Sellers List

AALBC.com's Best Selling Books for 2005

Fiction

The Interruption of Everything
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by Terry McMillan

ISBN: 0670031445
Format: Hardcover, 384pp
Pub. Date: July 19, 2005
Publisher: Viking Adult

Since Terry McMillan's breakout novel Waiting To Exhale surged onto the bestseller lists, critics and readers alike have been captivated by her irreverent, often-hilarious take on the issues faced by contemporary women. With The Interruption of Everything she picks up, pitch-perfect, the dilemmas of midlife: an empty nest. Hormones gone wild. Too many irrelevant demands and too little room to breathe.

Marilyn Grimes is about ready to jump out of her skin. She's the consummate wife and mother of three grown kids. She's got a no-great-shakes-but-a-good-provider of a husband, Leon; and a live-in mother-in-law, Arthurine, who comes with a bingo-playing beau, Prezell, and an elderly pooch, Snuffy. Marilyn's two best friends, Paulette and Bunny, are the quintessential take-no-prisoners, vintage McMillan girlfriends who will be there when Marilyn jumps, but . . . she's just not sure exactly where that will be . . . or when. First, she needs to remember what she used to love and call back some of her own postponed dreams. But just as Marilyn's plans for making changes are taking shape, life comes up with a few twists of its own. Suddenly Marilyn must reinvent just about everything: marriage, friendship, family-and not least of all, herself.

The Interruption of Everything is a triumphant testament to the fact that the detour is the path, and living life "by the numbers" never quite adds up.

Senefer: A Young Genius in Old Egypt (Young Readers)
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by Beatrice Lumpkin, Linda Nickens (Illustrator)

ISBN: 0865432449
Format: Hardcover, 32pp
Pub. Date: March 1997
Publisher: Africa World Press
Age Range: 7 to 10

Who developed the first symbol for our numbers? The story of Senefer is based on the life of Ah'mose, who was a famous mathematician and engineer. A scribe to Hatshepsut, one of the famous women Pharaohs in Egypt, Senefer was singled out for education when his ability and love of numbers became evident. The interaction between his mother and father bring to life the rich culture of Africans in ancient Egypt. This story is a good resource for demonstrating to children that mathematics is important to master.�Leila Toledo

Getting Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles 2, Vol. 2
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Zane (Editor)

ISBN: 0743457013
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Pub. Date: October 2002
Publisher: Atria Books

Zane is back with Gettin' Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles II, more stories for the legion of readers that made The Sex Chronicles a bestseller.

Zane's erotic short stories have captivated the minds of both sexes and all races. The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth did exactly what its title implies -- exploded the myth that men are more sexual in nature than women, and that African-American women in particular are inhibited compared to their female counterparts of other cultures.

The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth
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by Zane

Format: Paperback, 2nd ed., 304pp.
ISBN: 0967460182
Publisher: Strebor Books International, LLC
Pub. Date: February 2001
Edition Desc: 2 ED

After more than two years of entertaining tens of thousands of loyal readers on the Internet with her vivid imagination, a large collection of Zane's erotica is finally available in a published format. Zane has captivated the minds of both sexes and all races. She has completely shattered the myth that men are more sexual in nature than women and that African-American women in particular are inhibited compared to their female counterparts of other races.

The erotica collection is divided into three sections: Wild, Wilder and Off Da Damn Hook. Her characters run the gamut from the sensual housewife that wants her husband to experiment more to the secret underground sorority of women that let it all hang out literally.

Afterburn
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Zane

ISBN: 0743470974
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: January 2005
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

In the latest romantic romp from New York Times bestselling author Zane, two hapless lovers get lost in a dating game gone awry.

When Washington, D.C., chiropractor Yardley Brown goes to his local bank, it isn't only to make deposits into his account. He has long since accrued some interest in Rayne Waters, a bank employee who's too beautiful to be true -- and too beautiful to be single. At least that's what Yardley believes, which is why he has never approached her.

Little does he know that Rayne is anything but taken. Not for want of trying, of course. But after barely surviving a dating disaster with her hairdresser's brother and then falling for a member of her church band who, it turns out, is celibate, she's on the verge of giving up. That is, until Yardley -- discouraged by his own slew of dead-end romances -- finally works up the courage to give her a try.

The true craziness, however, is just beginning, thanks to a cast of characters who seem bent on botching the young couple's relationship.

There's Rayne's erratic mother, who constantly boasts about being a "good whore"; Yardley's playboy buddies, always trolling for sex; and, worst of all, past lovers who make a habit of popping up and ruining things as only old flames (or previous mistakes) can. Weaving the carnal and the comical in true Zane fashion, Rayne and Yardley's struggle to find love in a world gone mad is a timeless talk about everything that can go wrong in the dating game -- and a few things that can go right.

Addicted
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by Zane

Format: Paperback, 336pp.
ISBN: 0743442849
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pub. Date: October 2001

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.

The Sisters of APF: The Indoctrination of Soror Ride Dick
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by Zane

ISBN: 0743466985
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Pub. Date: April 2003
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

The Sisters of APF is Zane's first book based on one of her most popular short story subjects, the sexy escapades of a sorority like no other.

APF stands for Alpha Phi Fuckem, a sorority dedicated to sexual freedom and the fulfillment of its members. Zane's APF stories have appeared in her earlier collections, including The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth, and are favorites among her readers.

Many readers have written to Zane and asked to join the sorority or to launch a new chapter in their region. APF is fantasy, but the enthusiasm of Zane's fans is real. So now, with The Sisters of APF, she's offering readers what they want, a book-length story chronicling the adventures -- and recruitment process -- of the fearlessly sexy women of APF.

Mary Ann is the daughter of a chicken farmer from South Dakota. She has never been more than fifty miles from home and has led a sheltered life. By the time she goes off to college in Washington, D.C., she has been intimate with only one man -- her high school sweetheart. The resident manager of Mary Ann's dormitory, Patricia, befriends the country bumpkin. She finds Mary Ann amusing, but also senses something intriguing about her, hidden under the surface. After Mary Ann becomes smitten with Trevor, the campus playboy, Patricia is determined to show Mary Ann how not to be a victim, but rather how to outdo the players and heartbreakers. She indoctrinates Mary Ann into the ranks of the sexiest secret society ever: the sisters of APF.

A Hustler's Wife
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by Turner, Nikki

ISBN: 0970247257
Format: Paperback, 259pp
Pub. Date: March 2003
Publisher: Triple Crown Publications

Sweet innocent Yarni, from a well-to do family, by chance, meets Richmond's notorious drug kingpin, Des. Immediately they develop an astronomical love, which separates her from her family and friends. But when Des, is sentenced to life in prison, she will learn, being a hustler's wife isn't as easy, with her sole provider behind bars.

Travel with Yarni, as she survives when the script if flipped. At times she plays the game, and at other times...the game plays her. Her journey is filled with laughter, tears, failures, triumphs and perseverance.

Nikki's debut novel is a smorgasbord of manipulation, street-life, greed, betrayal, envy, money, power and revenge.

Nervous
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by Zane

ISBN: 0743476239
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Pub. Date: September 2003
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

Zane's legion of fans can't get enough of her way of telling a juicy, sexy story. Now, the New York Times bestselling queen of erotica brings us a tale of a woman with a split personality -- one highly sexed and one sexually repressed.

Jonquinette Pierce has always been nervous when it comes to men. She took a job dealing with mostly women so she could avoid men. She goes to work and comes straight home during the week, but on the weekends her other self, Jude, takes over and goes on intense sexual escapades.

Jonquinette recognizes that her alter ego is a problem and seeks to resolve it with the help of Dr. Marcella Spencer, the psychiatrist Zane originated in her bestselling novel Addicted. Jude's response is to get angry and go on a sexual rampage. In the meantime, Jonquinette becomes interested in her new neighbor, Mason, after having a conversation with him at a mutual friend's wedding. Jude has no intention of letting Jonquinette fall in love and find happiness at her expense. Jude is having way too much fun using the body she shares with Jonquinette. This "two faces of Eve" scenario is a fun fantasy for women who have imagined their own alter ego behaving badly in a sexual way. But for the leading lady of Nervous, this is a nightmare. Based on a short story of the same title from her bestselling collection, The Sex Chronicles, Nervous is classic Zane with an edge. So, relax, sit back. You're in for a nerve-tingling read.

#10

A Project Chick
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by Turner, Nikki

ISBN: 0970247265
Format: Paperback, 353pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: Triple Crown Publications

Tressa is a fly girl accustomed to the lavish lifestyle that her possessive, deranged, baby's daddy, Lucky, has provider her with. In order to keep her high post standards of living, she has excused so many of his unforgivable actions. It is not until he pulls off the ultimate stunt that she realizes that no mink coat, car, house or any amount of money is worth her peace of mind.

Never blinking or thinking twice, Tressa leaves everything behind, with the exception of her street savvy, and sets out to make a life of her own, one that would be filled with hard times and even harder luck. Tressa soon finds herself making the transition from public figure to public assistance. Every day of her life seems like one drama-filled chapter after another. From the baby daddy drama, to the backstabbing friends, to the various unforgettable men she sorts through and disposes of.

There will be times she has to struggle and scramble just to make ends meet, and other times when she will stand tall and hold her own.

In this captivating tale, Tressa's voyage will expose readers to a side of a struggling single mother that has yet to be revealed to them

Nikki Turner, the best selling author of A Hustler's Wife, once again will take readers on a safari through the jungle of the fierce and stormy streets, leaving readers on the edge of their seats begging for an encore.

Nonfiction

Who's Gonna Take the Weight?: Manhood, Race, and Power in America
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by Kevin Powell

ISBN: 0609810448
Format: Paperback, 160pp
Pub. Date: August 2003
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

In three mind-jolting essays by one of the most passionate and eloquent voices of his generation, Who's Gonna Take the Weight? by Kevin Powell leads us to the heart of the searing issues facing us today, from manhood, violence, and gender oppression to celebrity culture and hip-hop. Using compelling personal stories as the connecting thread, he examines what this nation has become since the monumental upheavals of the 1960s and where it might be headed if we're not careful.

Confessions of a Video Vixen
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by Karrine Steffans

ISBN: 0060842423
Format: Hardcover, 205pp
Pub. Date: June 2005
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Read an AALBC.com Book Review by Kam Williams

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.

Read and interesting conversation from our discussion boards: WHO THE *bleep* IS SUPERHEAD!?!?

Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes
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by Maya Angelou

ISBN: 1400062896
Format: Hardcover, 240pp
Pub. Date: September 2004
Publisher: Random House Adult Trade Publishing Group

Throughout Maya Angelou's life, from her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, to her world travels as a bestselling writer, good food has played a central role. Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection. Now in Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant�and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.

Angelou tells us about the time she was expelled from school for being afraid to speak�and her mother baked a delicious maple cake to brighten her spirits. She gives us her recipe for short ribs along with a story about a job she had as a cook at a Creole restaurant (never mind that she didn�t know how to cook and had no idea what Creole food might entail). There was the time in London when she attended a wretched dinner party full of wretched people; but all wasn�t lost’she did experience her initial taste of a savory onion tart. She recounts her very first night in her new home in Sonoma, California, when she invited M. F. K. Fisher over for cassoulet, and the evening Deca Mitford roasted a chicken when she was beyond tipsy�and created Chicken Drunkard Style. And then there was the hearty brunch Angelou made for a homesick Southerner, a meal that earned her both a job offer and a prophetic compliment: �If you can write half as good as you can cook, you are going to be famous.�

Race Matters
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by Dr. Cornel West

Format: Hardcover, 112pp.
ISBN: 0807009180
Publisher: Beacon Press
Pub. Date: March 1993

Read an AALBC.com review

The scholar, theologian, and activist who has been acclaimed as one of the most eloquent voices in our ongoing racial debate now bridges the gulf between black and white America in a work of enormous resonance and moral authority. West takes on the questions of politics, economics, ethics, and spirituality and addresses the crisis in black leadership.

Race Matters contains West's most powerful essays on the issues relevant to black Americans today: despair, black conservatism, black-Jewish relations, myths about black sexuality, the crisis in leadership in the black community, and the legacy of Malcolm X. And the insights that he brings to these complicated problems remain fresh, exciting, creative, and compassionate. Now more than ever, Race Matters is a book for all Americans, as it helps us to build a genuine multiracial democracy in the new millennium.

Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys
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by Jawanza Kunjufu

ISBN: 0913543004
Format: Paperback, 77pp
Pub. Date: March 1987
Publisher: African American Images

Advice for parents, educators, community, and church members is provided in this guide for ensuring that African American boys grow up to be strong, committed, and responsible African American men. This book answers such questions as Why are there more black boys in remedial and special education classes than girls? Why are more girls on the honor roll? When do African American boys see a positive black male role model? Is the future of black boys in the hands of their mothers and white female teachers? and When does a boy become a man? The significance of rite of passage activities, including mentoring, male bonding, and spirituality, are all described.

The MIS-Education of the Negro
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Publisher: Africa World Press
Date Published: November 1990
Format: Trade Paper

by Carter Godwin Woodson

Woodson's 205-page monograph, The Mis-education of tbe Negro, reflects his profound concern for setting the record straight. His thesis, as outlined in his Preface, could well apply today: "The so-called modern education, with all its defects, however, does others so much more good than it does the Negro, because it has been worked out in conformity to the needs of those who have enslaved and oppressed weaker people." He was concerned with the way African American identity had been warped by racist approaches to history and education; he foresaw the ways that such a warped history would be internalized by black students who would never know of the achievements of their forebears, only of their humiliations and sufferings.

In the book's eighteen chapters, Woodson presents a systematic critique of the education system and offers a plan for change that would create a system that informs black students about their own history and addresses their unique challenges. The current proliferation of African American studies programs, Afrocentric schools, and multicultural curricula all bear Woodson's stamp. Still, Mis-education remains a biting indictment of a public school system whose promise of education of the masses has still been left sadly unfulfilled. �description from Sacred Fire

100 Amazing Facts about the Negro with Complete Proof
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by Joel Augustus Rogers

ISBN: 0960229477
Format: Paperback, 71pp
Pub. Date: January 1989 (originally published in 1934)
Publisher: Helga Rogers
Edition Description: REVISED

Written in the 1940's and published in 1957.

BLACK FACT:
White American slave-holders used to induce white women to marry Negro slaves in order to hold the women slaves for life.

PROOF:
In Sept. 1664, Maryland passed a law that any white woman who married a 'Negro' should serve the master of such slave "for life." Slave-holders took advantage of this law to induce the white women, some of whom were recent arrivals, to marry the "Negroes." MacCormac says, "Instead of preventing such marriages this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their (white) servants into slaves." In 1681, the Legislature was forced to issue the following law: "Divers freeborn English or white women sometimes by the instigation, procurement, and connivance of their master.... and always to the satisfaction of their lascivious and lustful desires....do intermarry with 'Negroes' and other slaves, be it enacted that if any master....having any freeborn English or white woman servant in their possession or property, shall by any instigation, procurement, knowledge, permission or contrivance," cause her to marry a slave she should be free at once and the master should pay a fine of "10,000 lbs. of tobacco." (Archives of Maryland, Vol. I, pp. 433-34; and Vol. III, pp. 203-04, also Johns Hopkins University Studies in Hist. & Pol. Science, No. 3 & 4.) What is true of Maryland was true of other states.

Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
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Andrea Davis Pinkney

ISBN: 015201005X
Format: Hardcover, 107pp
Pub. Date: September 2000
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Age Range: Young Adult

Ten freedom fighters let their lights shine on the darkness of discrimination.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus and sparked a boycott that changed America. Harriet Tubman helped more than three hundred slaves escape the South on the Underground Railroad. Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

The lives these women led are part of an incredible story about courage in the face of oppression; about the challenges and triumphs of the battle for civil rights; and about speaking out for what you believe in--even when it feels like no one is listening. Andrea Davis Pinkney's moving text and Stephen Alcorn's glorious portraits celebrate the lives of ten bold women who lit the path to freedom for generations.

About the Authors:
Andrea Davis Pinkney is the author of numerous award-winning picture book biographies. A former editor at Essence Magazine who now edits children's books, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Stephen Alcorn is an acclaimed painter and printmaker who has created artwork for a number of anthologies. He lives in Cambridge, New York.

Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
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Cornel West

ISBN: 1594200297
Format: Hardcover, 256pp
Pub. Date: September 2004
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The

In Democracy Matters, West returns to the analysis of the arrested development of democracy-both in America and in the crisis-ridden Middle East. In a strikingly original diagnosis, he argues that if America is to become a better steward of democratization around the world, we must first wake up to the long history of imperialist corruption that has plagued our own democracy. Both our failure to foster peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the crisis of Islamist anti-Americanism stem largely from hypocrisies in our dealings with the world. Racism and imperial expansionism have gone hand in hand in our country's inexorable drive toward hegemony, and our current militarism is only the latest expression of that drive. Even as we are shocked by Islamic fundamentalism, our own brand of fundamentalism, which West dubs Constantinian Christianity, has joined forces with imperialist corporate and political elites in an unholy alliance, and four decades after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., insidious racism still inflicts debilitating psychic pain on so many of our citizens.

But there is a deep democratic tradition in America of impassioned commitment to the fight against imperialist corruptions-the last great expression of which was the civil rights movement led by Dr. King-and West brings forth the powerful voices of that great democratizing tradition in a brilliant and deeply moving call for the revival of our better democratic nature. His impassioned and provocative argument for the revitalization of America's democracy will reshape the terms of the raging national debate about America's role in today's troubled world.

#10

Never Satisfied : How & Why Men Cheat
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by Michael Baisden

Format: Paperback, 3rd ed., 254pp.
ISBN: 0964367580
Publisher: Legacy Publishing
Pub. Date: January 1995

The book is a collection of interviews of men who have cheated. It examines how men are raised from childhood to be unfaithful and how parents play a large part in creating cheaters. It also takes a hard look at the role of the other woman as well as the tolerant wives and girlfriends. Never before has a book dealt with infidelity on such a realistic level. This is a book every woman and man should read

Notes on the AALBC.com 2005 Best Sellers list

It's Terry's Time. McMilian's The Interruption of Everything is the best selling book on AALBC.com for 2005!

Staying Power: Kevin Powell's Who's Gonna Take the Weight?: Manhood, Race, and Power in America has been on the AALBC.com annual best seller list, every year since it's publication in 2003.

Children leading the way: Senefer: A Young Genius in Old Egypt is one of the top selling young adult book of all time. This book failed to make a single AALBC.com best seller's list during the year, but sales for the year were enough to thrust it to the top.

...Malcolm Gladwell on New York Times list with The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking failed to make the top 500 in terms of sales

The Zane Efffect: Defined as the percentage of the top 10 selling fiction titles that hvae Zanes name on them. The Zane effect for 2005 is 47.6%.

Finishing with a Bang Confessions of a Video Vixen (no pun intended). Confessions came out in late June and has been a permanent fixture on our bestsellers list ever since.

Urban /Street Genre A Hustler's Wife and a Project Chick, making Nikki Turner the "Queen" of the genre Sheisty and Still Sheisty are top in this category making it into the top 50 and beating out the now classic the Coldest Winter Ever. Other titles in the genre in the top 50 inlcude Black by , Dime Piece by , Flipside of The Game by , and True to the Game by Teri Woods.

Related Links

The 500 Bestselling titles of 2005
http://books.aalbc.com/top_100_book_2005.htm

Best & Worst Non-Fiction 2005

AALBC.com Bestsellers Lists for each two month tracking period

Dec / Nov 2005
Sep / Oct 2005
Jul / Aug 2005
May / Jun 2005
Mar / Apr 2005
Jan / Feb 2005

Top 500 Books 2005

List of All 1,800 Titles Sold in 2005