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African American Literature Book Club - The #1 Site for "Readers of Black Literature" |
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2006 marks the start of AALBC.com's 10th year of selling books
on-line. We sell books directly and as an affiliate of Amazon and B&N.com.
Commissions generated through book sales help support the
AALBC.com family of web sites. We sincerely appreciate you business!
AALBC.com's Best Selling Books for January and February 2006
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The Zane Effect 58% of the top 10 fiction titles sold |
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Fiction to Non fiction ratio 78% to 22% |
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Top Selling Book (most number of copies sold this period): Confessions of a Video Vixen |
| Fiction | Nonfiction |
| #1
by Zane Paperback: 240 pages Breaking the Cycle is a stunning and moving anthology of stories, each of which focuses on an aspect of domestic abuse. This powerful collection is sure to serve as a wake-up call for people either dealing with a domestic abuse situation, or those watching someone else endure it. In the title story, Zane describes the turmoil that a young girl suffers at the hands of her stepfather. The girl and her mother plan their escape, but at the last minute the mother falters—causing her to break down and tell her daughter the long history of domestic abuse in her own family. In D.V. Bernard’s “The Lonely Echoes of My Youth,” readers are introduced to a young boy who witnesses an alluring young girl who encourages the boys around her to physically fight one another until they become violent by nature. And Nane Quartay’s provocative story “The Grindstone,” a tale based on the author’s own experience, describes a boy who witnesses a brutal murder, in which a woman decapitates her abusive husband with a machete. The boy’s mother is a victim of abuse herself, and as her son relates the story over and over, she starts speculating about the benefits of sharpening knives on a grindstone. These stories capture the dangerous realities of domestic abuse, while also pointing toward the steps that need to be taken to break the cycle that perpetuates it. It is sure to serve as a rallying cry for all those who desire victory over their own victimization, and a guide for understanding the complex undercurrents that make such patterns possible. |
#1
ISBN: 0060842423 Read an AALBC.com Book Review by Kam WilliamsGlass 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!?!? |
| #2
ISBN: 1400082587 Here's the next big collection of Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, the most subversively funny, controversial, and politically engaged strip to be found in America's comics pages. Featuring Huey Freeman, a radical preteen conspiracy theorist, and his little brother Riley, a desperately cute thug-in-training, The Boondocks skewers targets from George W. Bush and Ralph Nader to Queen Latifah and Bill Cosby. With more than 500 previously uncollected strips—including strips banned from newspapers around the country—Public Enemy #2 is a must-have collection of the sharpest satire being crafted today. |
#2
by Kola Boof ISBN: 0971201986 Kola Boof's long awaited autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl" is nothing less than magnificent. Many will be spellbound by more than 90 pages detailing her terrifying experience as Osama Bin Laden's former mistress, but the Sudanese-born Novelist/Poet writes even more profoundly about the hardships of being vaginally circumcised, about witnessing her birth parents killed in her presence as a small child, about slavery and Arabism in Sudan, about being adopted and raised in the U.S. by African Americans, about her quest for true love, and in one particularly daring chapter, about her hopes for the future of her sons. Add to that years of psychiatric treatment, a struggle with manic anger and quite a few daring romances other than Bin Laden and you've got the perfect ingredients for a feature film. Readers will find themselves fascinated as innocent young Naima Bint Harith tragically becomes the vitriolic complicated temptress Kola. A doomed movie starlet, feminist activist and "kept woman"...who ultimately emerges as the loving mother, outspoken novelist/poet and professional cook that we know today as Kola Boof. Throughout the book, Kola speaks in a voice so utterly naked, truthful
and unpretentious that it's impossible not to fall in love with her. |
| #3
by Zane 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. |
#3
ISBN: 0385507755
James Frey's memoir of drug addition and recovery was a
bestseller even before Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club in 2005,
but the subsequent revelations about discrepancies between the story and the
author’s real life touched off a national debate about the line between fact
and fiction. In January 2006, the author acknowledged the truth of charges that many details in the book were embellished or fabricated. In a note to readers that was prepared for subsequent printings, he apologized to those who felt they had been misled and explained why he wrote the book the way he did. Reactions to these revelations included soul-searching by publishers about their responsibilities for ensuring accuracy, ruminations by critics on the line between fact and fiction in modern culture, and spirited defenses of the author by readers who maintained that the book's inspirational message was of primary importance. One thing seems certain: A Million Little Pieces is a book that promises to have a long-lasting impact. - excerpted B&N Review |
| #4
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. |
#4
by Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D. as told to Jo Coudert, Format: Hardcover, 272pp. Read an AALBC.com Book Review by Paige Turner The remarkable power of family values as articulated by an uneducated black man and his wife is played out in this loving memoir. Thornton is one of five daughters born to a laborer in a New Jersey shore town who was almost obsessed with the importance of education for his children and the nurturance of their talents. He strictly monitored their musical training, scrimping and wheedling where necessary to pay for their lessons. Eventually the Thornton Sisters Band was formed A family enterprise whose financial success became the source of the daughters' college tuition. Although only two of the girls fulfilled their father's dream that they become doctors, all of them have successful careers. This picture by Thornton and Coudert (Advice from a Failure) of a black man's single-minded devotion to his family is a tribute to an extraordinary father who transcended racial prejudice to raise appreciative daughters to be independent women. —Publishers Weekly |
| #5
ISBN: 0743470974 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. |
#5
by J. A. Rogers ISBN: 0960229469 Africa's Gift to America is another classic which should be added to the library of every serious student of African American history. He lays out in clear and fascinating detail the role of the African American from the founding of the nation in the 17th century through the Revolutionary War period to the Civil War and early Post-Civil War era. His use of first hand documents such as newspapers, magazines, political cartoons, journals, and his extensive citation to then-contemporary historical works is masterfully woven to create a rich historical tapestry. His mentioning of obscure historical facts such as the Corwin Amendment, the rejected original form of the 13th Amendment that would have preserved rather than abolished slavery, as well as the role of slave Jo Anderson in creating the McCormick reaper, are but a small sampling of the treasures within this invaluable volume. |
| #6
Zane (Editor) ISBN: 0743482387 As a bestselling 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. |
#6
by Donna Rand, Toni Trent Parker ISBN: 0471375268 "Offers a wonderful overview of literature with black children in its
focus." |
| #7
by Chunichi
A GANGSTER'S GIRL is the story of Ceazia a very attractive, very good girl who has just left the safety of her parents’ home and entered into the world of bad boys and fast money. Ceazia thinks the world belongs to her when she meets Vegas, one of the tidewater Virginia area’s most notorious drug dealers. Even though she knows a relationship with Vegas goes against everything her parents taught her, she still can’t resist his bad boy persona. He’s fine, sexy, and ready to give her anything her heart desires—just what the doctor ordered for a broke, wannabe diva. The only problem is this might just end up being the biggest mistake of her life. Chunichi is a native of south Virginia who grew up with her mother and step father. She has lived most of the things she writes about and still considers herself a good girl looking for a bad boy. Chunichi is a spoken word poet. |
#7
ISBN: 0465017614 When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands were left behind to suffer the ravages of destruction, disease, and even death. The majority of these people were black; nearly all were poor. The Federal government’s slow response to local appeals for help is by now notorious. Yet despite the cries of outrage that have mounted since the levees broke, we have failed to confront the disaster’s true lesson: to be poor, or black, in today’s ownership society, is to be left behind. Displaying the intellectual rigor, political passion, and personal empathy that have won him acclaim and fans all across the color line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. |
| #8
ISBN: 1400048575 Here’s the first big book of The Boondocks, more than four years and 800 strips of one of the most influential, controversial, and scathingly funny comics ever to run in a daily newspaper. “With bodacious wit, in just a few panels, each day
Aaron serves up—and sends up—life in America through the eyes of two
African-American kids who are full of attitude, intelligence, and rebellion.
Each time I read the strip, I laugh—and I wonder how long The Boondocks can
get away with the things it says. And how on earth can the most truthful
thing in the newspaper be the comics?” |
#8
ISBN: 0913543209 Publisher: African American Images |
| #9
Format: Paperback, 128pp. Since its debut in April 1999, The Boondocks has found a home in more than 250 newspapers, making its launch the strongest since Calvin And Hobbes and For Better Or For Worse. The rich, multilayered comic strip offers a frank yet often funny look at race in America. It starts with a simple premise: Two young boys, Riley and Huey, move from inner-city Chicago to live with their grandfather. The tension increases, however, because the two boys are African-Americans now compelled to adapt to a white suburban world. They must take all they've learned in the 'hood and apply it to life in the 'burbs. Aaron McGruder has created a strip unlike any other. Superbly illustrated, The Boondocks has stirred controversy, attracted widespread media coverage, and won readers who've applauded McGruder's unapologetic and humorous approach to race. This second collection includes some of the year's most compelling story lines. The Boondocks is a groundbreaking strip of enormous proportions. It's certain to only increase in popularity. |
#9
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. |
| #10
ISBN: 1886433852 #1 Best Selling Book On AALBC.com for 2004! 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. In no time, Carmen is on top running a call-girl service, fencing operation, and drug cartel--and add to that, being a mom. With money on her mind and her mind on money, Carmen's hustle is taking the streets by storm but the ever-present danger brought on by the police and rival hustlers makes staying in the game perilous. Carmen wants out the game but her powerful drug connect, Dragos, wants her in. If she stays in, the police will force her to implicate Dragos. Her love interest, Delano, a noble hustler, wants Carmen out the game at all costs. Her first love and father of her son, Chino, wants Carmen in the game so he can connect with Dragos. . Carmen's made enough money and she wants out. But can she get out alive? And can she get out in time? Can Carmen, her infant son, and Delano live happily ever after? Vickie M. Stringer adroitly weaves fact and fiction and has written the most honest, provocative and compelling novel of the "Bad-Girl" genre. |
#10
by Jack Olsen Format: Hardcover, 500pp. With the epic scope of A Civil Action, Last Man Standing
is an unforgettable chronicle of the twenty-seven-year struggle to break a
conspiratorial abuse of power and free one of America's most famous
political prisoners. |
Breaking
the Cycle
Confessions
of a Video Vixen
Public
Enemy #2: An All-New Boondocks Collection
Diary
of a Lost Girl
The
Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth
A Million Little Pieces
Getting
Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles 2, Vol. 2
The
Ditchdigger's Daughters: A Black Family's Astonishing Success Story
Afterburn
Africa's Gift to America: The Afro-American in the Making and Saving of the
United States : With New Supplement, Africa and Its Potentialities
Chocolate
Flava: The Eroticanoir.com Anthology
Black Books Galore!
Guide to Great African American Children's Books about Girls 
A
Gangster's Girl
Come
Hell or High Water: 
A
Right to Be Hostile: The Boondocks Treasury
Countering
the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys: Volume III
Fresh
For '01.... You Suckas: Boondocks Collection
Donald
Writes No More: A Biography of Donald Goines
Let
that Be the Reason
Last
Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt AALBC.com generates book sales directly and through a number of affiliate programs. Our bestsellers list reflects sales generated via Amazon.com. This ranks book sales from January 1st through February 11th 2006.
For permission to reproduce this bestseller list, please
contact
troy@aalbc.com
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