AALBC.com's Best
Selling Books
| Fiction | Nonfiction |
| #1
ISBN: 1886433852 Let That Be the Reason is the first of a quasi-fiction trilogy based on
the author's real-life experiences. Pamela Xavier is abandoned by her drug
dealing infant son's father (Chino) with a stack of bills, no food in the
'fridge, and an impending eviction notice. With no job prospects, Pamela
feels backed into a corner and decides to get her "hustle" on. As a female
caught up in a male-dominated game, Pamela relies on her alter-ego, Carmen,
to deal with the streets, playas, dealers, drug lords, and of course, the
law. |
#1
Format: paperback, 55 pages Why nonviolence matters A new book in Facets: brief, brilliant treatments of vital aspects of faith and life. Reviving a publishing initiative and innovative format from Fortress Press's early days, we proudly re-introduce Facets, a series that answers contemporary calls for bold thinking, clear ideas, and words that succinctly go to the heart of the religious and moral quest. Facets offers gems of religious writing from leaders who address today's more important or pressing questions-biblical, theological, and moral. Each book, offered at an economical price, presents a special angle that uniquely illumines an area or issue. Eloquent and passionate, reasoned and sensitive, this pair of meditations by the revered civil-rights leader contains the theological roots of his political and social philosophy of nonviolent activism. |
| #2
ISBN:
0970247257 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. |
#2
by Frank A. Thomas ISBN: 0800630866 Like all human bodies, the body of Christ that we call "church" needs to attend to its health or it may become ill. Renowned pastor, preacher, and teacher Frank Thomas believes that many congregations exhibit a number of dysfunctional habits in conducting business that lead to rifts, divides, and even congregational splits. Often they are caused by leadership styles that are ineffective and controlling. Thomas examines how poor congregational leadership is often the result of personality conflicts among leaders and how many key leaders-both clergy and lay- participate in keeping unhealthy methods alive. Thomas's book will help lay and clergy leaders improve the health of their congregation by taking a close look at the styles of church leadership, methods of information flow, and levels of participation that exist within the body. Thomas offers a holistic solution based on a model of spiritual maturity for creating and preserving a healthy congregation. |
| #3
ISBN: 0743493478 Imagine This is the sequel to Vickie Stringer's best-selling Let That Be the Reason, her stunning debut novel based on life as she knew it in the shocking underworld of the sex and drug trade. Vickie Stringer has gained a legion of fans for her portrayal of Pamela, a.k.a. Carmen, a woman who had it all but lost out when the love of her life left her penniless and alone to raise their son. Pamela refuses to remain powerless, though. She pulls herself up, becomes a major hustler in the street game, gains independence, and makes big money -- but the consequences are more dreadful than she ever imagined. Imagine This continues the saga of Pamela as she does jail time and has to decide who she really is: Pamela, a woman who, more than anything, loves her son and wants to be there to raise him; or Carmen, the ruthless baller, who does the crime, serves the time, and honors, at any expense, the code of the street. |
#3
by Brett Pulley ISBN: 0471423637 The American dream is still alive, and if you don't believe it just take a close look at Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET) and a man who has traveled the classic American journey from humble origins to unimaginable wealth. Born to a poor family in Mississippi, Johnson, the son of factory workers and the only one among his ten siblings to attend college, parlayed a $15,000 loan in 1979 into Black Entertainment Television, one of the cable industry's richest franchises. Written by award-winning journalist Brett Pulley, The Billion Dollar BET
is the first-ever in-depth look at one of the most enigmatic and important
entrepreneurs of our time. This revealing book offers a colorful portrait of
a brilliant and relentlessly focused businessman, whose life is a window
into race, culture, and capitalism. From Johnson's rural Mississippi roots
and early years in blue-collar Illinois, to his graduate life at Princeton
University and career as a cable industry lobbyist on Capitol Hill, The
Billion Dollar BET traces his inspired climb to the top and his often
controversial tenure at the helm of one of the most influential media
outlets in the country. You'll discover how Johnson won the support of media
titans John Malone and Sumner Redstone, and watch as BET begins to take on
far greater social significance than even Johnson could ever have imagined.
You'll also learn how Johnson handled pivotal events in the company's
history, such as the public attacks on BET's program content and the
decision to sell the firm to media giant Viacom. |
| #4
ISBN:
0525947906 Dickey's tenth novel is packed
with twists and turns, filled with titillations and poignancy. Drive Me
Crazy is the latest example that "Dickey is an excellent writer at the top
of his game." (Chicago Defender) Dickey's millions of readers will be happy to see the reappearance of a femme fatale from Thieves' Paradise, who adds spice and surprises every time she turns up. This is Dickey writing at his best-a fast-paced novel of raw emotions, softened as always with his incomparable humor and characters you will always remember. impressive �outside of the box' novel while still in keeping with Dickey's passionate, sensual, rhythmic, comical, mellifluous prose that is sure to give him an even greater base. |
#4
by James L. King, Foreword by E. Lynn Harris ISBN: 0767913981 Delivering the first frank and thorough investigation of life "on the
down low," (the D.L.) J. L. King exposes a closeted culture of sex between
black men who lead "straight" lives. The trend is proving to have
skyrocketing health consequences for wives and girlfriends unwittingly
caught in the double lives of their men: African American women represent 68
percent of new HIV cases, and an alarming one out of 160 black women carries
the virus, compared to one in 3,000 white women. |
| #5
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. 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. |
#5
Haki R. Madhubuti minces no words in Run Toward Fear, a powerful new collection of poetry. Run Toward Fear offers readers a mixture of poems that challenge and cause both reflection and question on many of the headline issues that have launched this century. Madhubuti includes poignant moving tributes to Jacob Carruthers, Gwendolyn Brooks and Amiri Baraka, as well as, heartfelt words that provide comfort and guidance to the families of the twenty-one who lost their lives in Chicago’s E-2 night club tragedy. Madhubuti, motivated by constant requests from younger poets and teachers of poetry to share his insights on writing and the art of producing poetry, offers an added extra in Run Toward Fear. The final section of the book, �A Poet’s Handbook, provides personal and sometimes anecdotal insights on the craft of writing poetry. The �Handbook� serves as a practical answer to the book’s final poem �For the Consideration of Poets.� |
| #6
ISBN: 0970247265 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. |
#6
Janet Chatham Bell (Editor)
ISBN: 0316038253 Finally, the first book to introduce readers age 12 and up to the impressive words of African American role models from all areas of life-arts, education, politics, religion, sports, and entertainment. Here are powerful, inspiring selections by everyone from Aretha to Oprah, Martin Luther King to Marian Wright Edelman, and Booker T. Washington to Denzel Washington. A surprising, stimulating mix of important historical figures and today's high-profile black achievers, plus a sprinkling of ancient African proverbs, makes this a lively read. Sized to slide easily into a backpack and affordably priced at $8.95, this is a book teens will look to for inspiration on topics such as family, school, love, goals, safety, racism, and friendship. |
| #7
Format:
Paperback, 2nd ed., 304pp. 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. |
#7
Format: Paperback, 241pp. Dyson reveals the pernicious influence of racial thinking across the broad canvas of American social and cultural life, from the disjunction between how whites and blacks view the world, to the way perceptions of black masculinity thwart black leadership, to the politics of nostalgia that keeps us looking to an imaginary past rather than creating a positive future. Through painful examples drawn from within the black community - sexual conflict in the black church, the myth of the "head Negro," relations between black men and women - he depicts our ongoing failure to break free of the rule of race. "In a color-blind society, we can only see black and white," warns Dyson as he argues for color consciousness informed by history and shaped by hope. Provocative and compelling, Race Rules is the most important work to date from the "hiphop intellectual" who stands at the forefront of his generation of black public thinkers. |
| #8
by 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. |
#8
by John H. McWhorter
ISBN: 1592400019 Picking up where the best-selling Losing the Race left off, this penetrating and profound collection of essays by the controversial thinker and passionate advocate for racial enlightenment and achievement explores what it means to be black in America today. According to the author, nearly forty years after the Civil Rights Act, African-Americans in this country still remain "a race apart." He feels that modern black Americans have internalized a tacit message: "authentically black" people stress initiative in private but cloak the race in victimhood in public in order to protect black people from an ever-looming white backlash. He terms this the "New Double Consciousness" in homage to W.E.B. DuBois' description of a different kind of double consciousness in blacks a century ago. Within this context McWhorter takes the reader on a guided tour through the race issues dominant in our moment: racial profiling, getting past race, the reparations movement, black stereotypes in film and television, hip-hop, diversity, affirmative action, the word nigger, and Cornel West's resignation from Harvard. With his fierce intelligence and fervent eloquence, McWhorter makes a powerful case for the advancement of true racial equality. A timely and important work about issues that must be addressed by blacks and whites alike, Authentically Black is a book for Americans of every racial, social, political, and economic persuasion. Author Biography: John McWhorter is the author of the bestseller Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, and four other books. He is associate professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a contributing editor to The City Journal and The New Republic. He has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and has appeared on Dateline NBC, Politically Incorrect, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. |
| #9
Zane (Editor) ISBN: 0743482387 As a best-selling author and successful publisher of Strebor Books, Zane's name is synonymous with popular fiction -- especially erotica. Her website, Eroticanoir.com, gets over a million hits a year from around the world, and her fans look forward to every one of her publishing ventures with eager anticipation. Chocolate Flava is the first in a series of collections of great erotic fiction edited by Zane, the reigning queen of erotica. Based on the Featured Erotica section of her website, Chocolate Flava gathers twenty-five sizzling tales from some of the most talented -- and dedicated -- writers of erotica working today. This is a his-and-her collection. There are stories specifically written with female readers in mind, and others written expressly for men. Among the contributors are names already familiar to readers of erotica, such as Reginald Harris, Robert Edison Sandiford, Jonathan Luckett and, of course, Zane -- as well as emerging voices, such as Geneva Barnes and Robert Scott Adams. What they all have in common is that they are great at what they do, and have been handpicked by Zane -- an editor who knows a hot story when she sees it. Zane wanted stories "that took risks, that explored unique situations, that were creative beyond compare." She wanted to show that men and women can equally express themselves through the medium of erotic fiction. She wanted stories that would turn her on. This collection of selected sexy short stories will turn you on, too. |
#9
ISBN: 0385507860 "To be sure, this book is not a pity party - but, rather, a nuanced look at identity, and the irrepressible and graceful will of the human spirit. Peppering her narrative with "Postcards from the Color Complex," reminiscences of some of the author's most powerful experiences, Golden takes us inside her world, and inside her heart, to show what a half-century of intraracial and interracial personal politics looks like. We come to see the world through the eyes of the young Marita, and the dualism that existed in her own home: the ebony-hued father, who cherished her and taught her to be "black and proud," and the lighter-skinned mother, who one summer afternoon admonished Marita while she was outside, "Come on in the house - it's too hot to be playing out there. I've told you don't play in the sun, 'cause as it is, you gonna have to get a light-skinned husband for the sake of your children."" At every turn in her life - in high school, her black power college days, as a young married woman in Africa, as a college professor, as an accomplished author, and even today - race and color are the inescapable veils through which Golden has been viewed. |
| #10
by Francis Ray In her mind's eyes, she could see Wes, tall and elegant in his tailored tuxedo with a patterned vest, black tie, and snow white pocket square. Her red Valentino slip gown highlighted her honeyed complexion and chocolate brown eyes. The gown also picked up the red in Wes's vest and the red in the rose in his lapel. They were the perfect couple and it was show time. And she wanted to scream. Madison Reed, popular talk show host and America's darling and her husband, well-known TV correspondent Wes Reed is everyone's idea of the perfect couple. Bute knows that after the loss of their child, they became no more than polite strangers, maintaining the fa�ade, revealing only picture perfect happiness. But Madison's world is turned upside down when Wes is critically injured in a car accident and a woman is killed. Before he dies, Wes confesses that the woman who was killed was his mistress--and that he is the father of her nine-month-old daughter, Manda. He begs Madison to raise the child. Unsure if she can, Madison struggles to take charge of her fate and put her life back together. Overwhelmed, she accepts the help of Zachary Holman, her husband's best friend, only to discover that his life is also shrouded by lies. Can she forgive and forget--not just once, but twice? |
#10
by Eddie Stone ISBN: 087067949X Donald Goines was all of these things. He started as a kid, the product of a middle-class family. After high school he joined the Navy, and discovered the heroin that would rule the remainder of his life. On the streets, he turned to writing when he was straight enough to keep at it. He used the language of the streets and wrote of the streets and its people. His success was immediate and exciting, But eventually the streets claimed him. He was murdered as he sat writing a new book. Here for the first time is the completed story. |
Let
that Be the Reason
The
Measure of a Man 
A
Spiritual
Maturity: Preserving Congregational Health and Balance
Imagine
This
The
Billion Dollar Bet: Robert Johnson and the inside Story of Black
Entertainment Television
Drive
Me Crazy 
On
the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of "Straight" Black Men Who Sleep
With Men
Getting
Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles 2, Vol. 2
Run
Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet’s Handbook
A
Project Chick
Stretch
Your Wings : Famous Black Quotations for Teens
The
Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth
Race
Rules; Navigating the Color Line
Around
the Way Girls
Authentically
Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority
Chocolate
Flava: The Eroticanoir.com Anthology
Don't
Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey Through the Color Complex
I
Know Who Holds Tomorrow 
Donald
Writes No More: A Biography of Donald Goines
For permission to reproduce this bestseller list, please contact earl@aalbc.com
