AALBC.com's Best Selling Books 
September & October 2002
 

#1 Threesome: Where Seduction, Power and Basketball Collide Click to order via Amazon, Barnes and Noble or AALBC.com  by Brenda Thomas Format: Paperback, 144pp., ISBN: 0970380313 Publisher: Writers and Poets.com, Pub. Date: January 28, 2002 Read an AALBC.com Review Sasha is caught in the middle of the exciting, sexually charged underbelly of professional basketball, the sadness of suicide and constant self-destructive behavior. Follow along as the threads of love, happiness and self-worth are woven together to create the fabric of Threesome

#2 Boondocks Collection Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble Aaron McGruder Format: Paperback, 128pp., ISBN: 0740713957 Publisher: Andrews & McMeel, Pub. Date: May  2001 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.

#3 LONG TRAIN to the redeeming SIN: Stories about AFRICAN women Click to order via Amazon, Barnes and Noble  or AALBC.com Kola Boof  Format: Paperback, 5th ed., 176pp., ISBN: 0971201927 Publisher: North African Book Exchange, Pub. Date: November 2001 Read an AALBC.com Review Kola's powerful and shocking collection of short stories, "LONG TRAIN TO THE REDEEMING SIN" is developing a growing fan base and Kola Boof's strong feminist viewpoint is finally getting a look-see. Issues such as colorism, female genital mutilation, authentic love and the "sexual longing" of Black Women are what make Kola's work so daring. Her famous poetry can be downright chilling

#4 Echoes of a Distant Summer Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble Guy Johnson Format: Hardcover, 584pp., ISBN: 0375505679 Publisher: Random House, Incorporated Pub. Date: August 2002, Edition Desc: 1ST Read An AALBC.com Review violence and bloodlust that seemed to be his grandfather's way of life, Jackson chose to distance himself from King and live a simpler life. But now King is gravely ill, and his impending death places Jackson's life - as well as those of his family and friends - in jeopardy. Reluctantly, Jackson travels to Mexico to see King. But after a brief reconciliation, his grandfather is assassinated, and Jackson suspects that his grandmother Serena may have had a hand in it. Jackson takes control of King's organization, and as he does, he reflects on the summers he spent in Mexico as a child and the lessons he learned there at the knee of his strong-willed, complex grandfather.

#5 Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales From the Gulf States Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble by Zora Neale Hurston Format: Paperback, 320pp. ISBN: 0060934549 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, Pub. Date: September  2002 Every Tongue Got to Confess is the first new book by Zora Neale Hurston to be published in over 50 years. The most extensive volume of African American folklore that Hurston left behind, this collection of nearly 500 folktales gathered in the late 1920s represents a major part of her literary legacy and a rich slice of African American life in the rural South. The bittersweet and often hilarious tales reveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community. Together, these folktales weave a vibrant tapestry that celebrates the black oral tradition.

#6 Men Cry in the Dark Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble Michael Baisden Format: Hardcover, 305pp., ISBN: 0964367505 Publisher: Legacy Publishing, Pub. Date: June  1997 Read an AALBC.com Review Read bout the Stage Play for Men Cry in The Dark (First appeared on the AALBC.com's best sellers list in January 1999) The bad boy of literature is back! Michael is taking the book world by storm once again with a provocative new book that is sure to stir controversy. Men Cry in the Dark is an entertaining and realistic novel about relationships, fatherhood, and interracial dating from the man's perspective. Michael has courageously stepped outside the boundaries to prove once and for all that men do love their children, cherish their women, and yes, even cry.

#7 The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble by Frederick Douglass, Peter J. Gomes (Introduction) Preface by William Lloyd Garrison Format: Mass Market Paperback, 127pp.,  ISBN: 0451526732 Publisher: Viking Penguin,  Pub. Date: November 1997 In 1845, just seven years after his escape from slavery, the young Frederick Douglass published this powerful account of his life in bondage and his triumph over oppression. The book, which marked the beginning of Douglass's career as an impassioned writer, journalist, and orator for the abolitionist cause, reveals the terrors he faced as a slave, the brutalities of his owners and overseers, and his harrowing escape to the North. It has become a classic of American autobiography. This edition of the book, based on the authoritative text that appears in Yale University Press's multivolume edition of the Frederick Douglass Papers, is the only edition of Douglass's Narrative designated as an Approved Text by the Modern Language Association's Committee on Scholarly Editions. It includes a chronology of Douglass's life, a thorough introduction by the eminent Douglass scholar John Blassingame, historical notes, and reader responses to the first edition of 1845.

#8 Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble Carol Taylor (Editor) Format: Paperback, 272pp. ISBN: 0452282241 Publisher: Dutton/Plume Pub. Date: December 2000 #5 Best Selling Book for 2001 on AALBC.com  Silk sheets...jazz playing softly in the background. The many moods of Eros are explored in this rich and diverse array of black erotica, written especially for this Plume collection. Brown Sugar brings together some of the most acclaimed voices in today's black literary world-Sapphire, Natasha Tarpley, Reginald Harris, and Pamela Sneed, among them. These titillating stories cover the full spectrum of black experience and identity as they reveal sexuality and sensuality in all their varied and exotic forms. From the subtle to the graphic, Brown Sugar embraces the ardor and passion of black love and lust, and will appeal to both men and women. Featuring both well-established authors and promising new writers, this one-of-a-kind collection represents the past, present, and future of black literature at its pleasurable and outrageous best. It is a must-have for every lover, as well as every lover of first-rate fiction. Author Bio: Carol Taylor is a former book editor now working as a freelance editor and writer. She co-edited and contributed to Sacred Fire: The QBR 100 Essential Black Books.

#9 Black Mother Goose Book Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble by Elizabeth Murphy Oliver, Thomas A. Stockett (Illustrator) Format: Paperback, 2nd ed., 48pp., ISBN: 0912444126 Publisher: DARE Books, Pub. Date: August 1981 Edition Desc: 2ND "It is not often that a book of this quality geared toward African American children is available. The illustrations using an African American Humpdy Dumpy are the most impressive. I read this book to my neice until she got old enough to read it herself. I feel that she had an interest in this book because the characters resembled her." -Amazon Reviewer

#10 Spook Who Sat by the Door Click to order via Amazon or Barnes and Noble Sam Greenlee Format:Textbook Paperback, 1st ed., 182pp., ISBN: 0814322468 Publisher: Wayne State University Press Pub. Date: November 1990,  Edition Desc: REISSUE From Sacred Fire The Spook Who Sat by the Door was originally brought into print by a small publisher, Richard Baron Press, and quickly became an underground favorite. Published in the near aftermath of the Black Power movement, The Spook fictionalized the urban- based war for liberation that never quite manifested. Senator Gilbert Hennington is in a close race for reelection and needs an issue with which to galvanize the Negro vote. His answer: a public call for the integration of the heretofore lily- white Central Intelligence Agency (at its Field Operatives level). Of the hundreds who applied, twenty-three are chosen for training under express orders that no one successfully complete the course. With the exception of one, Dan Freeman, they are eliminated. Exasperated at Freeman's tenacity, Calhoun, the agency's judo instructor, tells him, "Im going to give you a chance. You just walk up to the head office and resign and that will be it. Otherwise, we fight until you do. And you will not leave this room until I have whipped you and you walk out of here, or crawl out of here, or are carried out of here and resign. Do I make myself clear?" Midway through the fight, Freeman wondered if he could keep from killing this white man. No, he thought, he's not worth it.... But he does have an ass-kicking coming and he can't handle it. This cat can't believe a nigger can whip him. Well, he'll believe it when I'm through. . .