AALBC Top 25
Sellers for all of 1998
(click title to order book, click author's name for additional author
information)
During 1998 the AALBC sold almost 400 different titles. The following titles represent the most frequently purchased titles during all of 1998.
#1
 Title: One
Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days and 40 Nights Towards Spiritual Strength and Personal
Growth(The all-time best selling book on the AALBC web site!) Author: Iyanla Vanzant Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Date Published: December 1997 Format: Trade Paper Both an inspiring guide and a hands-on measurement tool
that enables readers to chart their spiritual growth as it unfolds, One Day My Soul
Just Opened Up encourages readers to use journal-writing as a self-awareness process.
Vanzant introduces 40 principles to follow and embrace in daily living as guideposts on
the path toward spiritual strength and understanding. |
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 Title: In
The Meantime: Finding Yourself and The Love You WantAuthor: Iyanla Vanzant (The 2# all-time best selling book on the AALBC web site!) Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Date Published: January 1998 The best-selling author of "Acts of
Faith" and "The Value in the Valley"--whose books have empowered countless
women--now reaches out to anyone who yearns for love, in a book about relationships that
can help them reach new levels of awareness, spiritual growth, and fulfillment. |
| [back to top] #3 |
 Title: 360� - A Revolution of Black Poets(For sale directly by the AALBC and all time best selling poetry book!) Author: Edited by Kalamu ya Salaam & Kwame Alexander Publisher: BlackWords Date Published: September 1998 Format: Trade Paper |
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 Title: Faith
in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the Journey to PeaceAuthor: Iyanla Vanzant Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Date Published: April 1996 Format: Trade Paper A beautifully rendered meditation book to help and support women through the rough valley experiences of life--now reissued in a special keepsake edition that makes a wonderful Mother's Day gift. |
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 Title: Somebody
Else's Child(5 months as best-seller on the AALBC web site} Author: Terris McMahan Grimes Publisher: NAL/Dutton Date Published: February 1996 Format: Mass Market Paperbound Theresa is a career woman, a mother and a
wife. When her mother calls to say there's trouble at her elderly neighbor's house and
she's going over to investigate, Theresa has no choice but to get involved. Before the
night is over, Theresa finds herself caught up in the harsh brutality of the streets, with
a drive-by shooting, a mysterious kidnapping, and more. |
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 Title: Words
Don't Fit In My MouthAuthor: Jessica C. Moore Publisher: Moore Black Press Date Published: April 1997 Format: Trade Paper (4 consecutive months on the AALBC best seller list!) |
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 Title: The
Man Who Cried I Am(AALBC's "The Coffee Will Make You Black" Reading Group selection for October 1998 selection) Author: John A. Williams Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Date Published: April 1985 Format: Trade Paper In Amsterdam in the spring of 1964, a black American writer is dying of cancer |
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 Title: The
Wake of the WindAuthor: J. California Cooper Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated Date Published: September 1998 Format: Trade Cloth From the beloved and highly successful author of
"Family" and "In Search of Satisfaction" comes a dramatic and
thought-provoking new novel of one African-American family's triumph in the face of the
hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South. |
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 Title: A
Do Right ManAuthor: Omar R. Tyree Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Date Published: September 1998 Format: Trade Paper From the highly praised author of "Flyy Girl" here
is a novel about a handsome, successful African-American man looking for the one prize
that's missing from his life. 150,000 first print. |
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 Title: Black
American Short Stories: A Century of the Best: One Hundred Years of the BestAuthor: John Henrik Clarke Publisher: Hill & Wan Date Published: December 1992 Format: Trade Paper An expanded edition of American Negro Short Stories, which
has sold more than 250,000 copies. The new introduction offers a broad account of black
fiction from the last years of the 19th century to the present. Seven new contributions to
this expanded edition include stories by Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and James Alan
McPherson. |
The Next 15 Top Sellers
11
What a Woman's Gotta Do
Author: Evelyn Coleman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade
Date Published: February 1998
Using vivid details from her experiences as a journalist, Evelyn Colemen has created a
memorable black heroine--and written a groundbreaking debut thriller about a misogynist
and sinister conspiracy that threatens the world. 320 pp. National author publicity.
5-city author tour.
12
Paradise
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated
Date Published: December 1997
Morrison's eagerly awaited new novel--her first since she was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1993--is extraordinary for its breathtaking drive, stylistic panache,
and enlivening moral gravitas. Spanning the time from the Reconstruction to the 1970s,
this powerful work deftly manipulates past, present, and future as it reveals the interior
lives of the citizens of a fictional, all-black town called Paradise.
13
Push
Author: Sapphire
Publisher: Random House, Incorporated
Date Published: June 1996
14
Seventh Octave: The Early Writings of Saul Stacey
Williams
Author: Saul Stacey Williams, Jessica
Care Moore (Editor)
Publisher: Moore Blac
Date Published: February 1998
15
Billy
Author: Albert French
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Date Published: January 1995
Albert French's harrowing debut novel of 10-year-old Billy Lee Turner, convicted and
executed for murdering a white girl in Baines, Mississippi, in 1937, is an unsentimental
and ultimately heartrending vision of racial injustice. "A work of art . . . Billy
never lets up, not for one minute. . . . magnificent."--New York Daily News.
16
View from Here
Author: Brian Keith Jackson
Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: January 1998
A stunning debut novel in the tradition of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Anna
Anderson Thomas has devoted her life to stepping lightly around her husband's vast
silences and raising their sons. But now, with a sixth child on the way--a girl this time,
she's sure--Anna faces a challenge that threatens to destroy the family she's fought so
hard to preserve. 240 pp. NYC publicity. 25,000 print.
17
What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: Avon Books
Date Published: September 1998
This highly praised debut novel by a renowned African-American playwright/essayist is
a gritty yet warm and inspiring story of hope, love, and homecoming.
18
Silent Conspiracy: A Lincoln Keller Mystery
Author: Lee E. Meadows
Publisher: Proctor Publishers
Date Published: April 1997
19
Cane
Author: Jean Toomer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated
Date Published: July 1992
20
Sister, Sister
Author: Eric Jerome Dickey
Publisher: NAL/Dutton
Date Published: November 1997
Irresistibly appealing, this vibrant novel of African-American family relationships
marks the debut of a dazzling new talent. Three adult siblings living in L.A. embark on a
series of adventures in love that may cause them to lose their patience--but never their
sense of humor.
21
My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me
Author: Maya Angelou, Margaret Courtney-Clarke
(Photographer)
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Date Published: August 1994
My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me is the enchanting story of an
eight-year-old girl named Thandi, her village, her mischevious brother, her best friend--a
chicken--and the remarkable mural art that is produced by the Ndebele women. Features over
70 full-color photographs of the Ndebele people and their breathtaking paintings and
artwork.Full color.
22
My Soul to Keep
Author: Tananarive Due
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, Incorporated
Date Published: March 1998
Tananarive Due mixes nearly unbearable suspense with fantasy and horror in this
tightly woven tale. When people close to her begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths,
Jessica's husband makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago he and other
members of an Ethiopian sect gave up their humanity for immortality--a secret that he must
now protect at any cost. 352 pp. 15,000 print.
23
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
Author: Terry McMillan
Publisher: NAL/Dutton
Date Published: August 1998
"How Stella Got Her Groove Back" is the sexy tale of a fortysomething single
mother who falls in love with a 20 year old man while on vacation in Jamaica. Simultaneous
release with the Signet movie tie-in paperback and the Twentieth Century Fox movie
starring Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. Abridged.
24
Mama
Author: Terry McMillan
Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: December 1993
With her phenomenal New York Times bestseller Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan became
one of the most important American novelists writing today. Here, for the first time in
mass market paperback, is her extraordinary first novel. It is the exhilarating tale of
feisty Mildred Peacock, whose five children are her hope and her future.
25
Walking Thru Mirrors
Author: Brian Keith Jackson
Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: September 1998
Raised by his grandmother and aunt, young Jeremy never knew he had a father until he
was ten, when the man appeared with a "new" family. A gripping portrayal of
African-American family life in the South by the award-winning author of The View from
Here.
