The Zane Effect: Zane's titles accounts for 12% of the top 10 fiction titles sold (the lowest percentage since 2004)

Fiction to Non fiction ratio: Fiction 47%, Nonfiction 53% (this is the 1st time the number of top 10 nonfiction titles sold has exceeded the top 10 fiction titles)

Top Selling Book: The Covenant with Black America

Highly Touted New Comer: Crystelle Mourning by Eisa Nefertari Ulen

"Where are they now?": Confessions of a Video Vixen (Vixen is the best selling book of 2006 but, but failed to make this period's top 10 list.)

Crystelle Mourning
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Eisa Nefertari Ulen

ISBN: 0743277589
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Pub. Date: August 2006
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

Why this book is Important

This profound and intense debut novel is the story of a young African American woman from West Philadelphia who finds her path to a bright future in gentrified Brooklyn, New York, blocked when she can't let go of the love she lost.

Crystelle has a well-employed fianc� and a life in New York City that most young professionals would envy. She has come a long way from skipping rope on the cracked sidewalks of the rough Philadelphia neighborhood where she was raised by a loving mother and grandfather. She experienced good times and bad in equal measure in a community where people worked, played, and sometimes fought hard too. She didn't leave the past behind her though. A ghost from those West Philly days haunts her, a spirit whose presence in her dreams is as welcome as it is unsettling. That spirit is Jimmie, her high school sweetheart -- the one who she watched get gunned down one hot, unforgettable night all those years ago.

Unnerved by her dreams of Jimmie and the suspicion that she may be pregnant, Crystelle takes a train back to her old neighborhood to reconnect with friends and family. There, with the help of Jimmie's mother -- a woman who Crystelle loves like family and who makes a prison visit to the young man who murdered her son -- Crystelle comes to grips with the memory that haunts her and learns the power of forgiveness and the need to move on.

With its deeply resonant depictions of urban African American life and the cultural forces that challenge and sustain their communities, Crystelle Mourning is a triumphant, lyrical beginning to a bright new talent in fiction.

Read an AALBC.com Review of The Covenant with Black America

Six years' worth of symposiums come together in this rich collection of essays that plot a course for African Americans, explaining how individuals and households can make changes that will immediately improve their circumstances in areas ranging from health and education to crime reduction and financial well-being.

Each chapter outlines one key issue and provides a list of resources, suggestions for action, and a checklist for what concerned citizens can do to keep their communities progressing socially, politically, and economically. Though the African American community faces devastating social disparities�in which more than 8 million people live in poverty�this celebration of possibility, hope, and strength will help leaders and citizens keep Black America moving forward.

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.

Destined to become a classic, We Speak Your Names is a treasure to keep forever and a precious, inspiring gift for the ones you love.

Eight-time New York Times best-selling author Eric Jerome Dickey's new novel is filled with intrigue, speed, and sex appeal. And an unforgettable female narrator rides her sexy yellow motorcycle right through it all.
Billie (aka "Ducati") is known as much for her extraordinary beauty as for the sexy yellow motorcycle she rides through the mean streets of Los Angeles. Tough, talented, and self-assured, Billie's used to doing things her way-but that was before love threw an oil slick in the road and spun her life into chaos.

Billie's first problem is simple: she's pregnant.
Her second problem is that her lover, Keith, is still married.

Keith has some "things" to deal with, and the people in his life are dark and duplicitous enough to take matters into their own hands, determined to keep Billie from having her baby. Billie suddenly finds herself confronted, attacked, run off highways, threatened and shadowed. Keith still has ties to his manipulative wife, Carmen, and he adores his fifteen-year-old daughter Destiny. Will he do the right thing by his new family, or stand by his old one?

Soon all eyes shift as everyone finds themselves desperately chasing Destiny, a troubled and deceptive girl dancing on the edge of womanhood. When the rubber meets the road, everyone's fighting dirty for what they want...and they're all willing to destroy their enemy or go down in flames to get it.

The Black Man in the Old Testament and Its World
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Alfred G. Dunston, Jr.

ISBN: 0865433054
Format: Paperback, 175pp
Pub. Date: April 1997
Publisher: Africa World Press

Since the opening years of the sixteenth century, Christian biblical scholarship has been the ally of racism, sometimes deliberately and sometimes unconsciously. The alliance has run the gamut from avid support of the black inferiority myth to a mere indifference to the situation; and at both extremes, the racial myths have found growing room. In all likelihood there are millions of Christians today who still believe that the curse of Noah feel upon the black man. This fallacy was once taught by leading scholars and writers of their day, and the successors of those scholars and writers have done very little to erase the fallacy. Secular writers have done more to correct these myths than biblical ones; and this is possibly one of the reasons that many young black Americans call the Holy Scripture 'the white man's bible.'

"This book attempts to do something that should have been done at least four hundred years ago. it attempts to portray the black man as he was viewed during the Old Testament times."

Birth of a Nation starts with a scenario drawn from the botched election of 2000 and spins it into a brilliantly absurd work of sharply pointed satire. Along the way the authors lay into a host of hot social and cultural issues--skewering white supremacists, black nationalists, and everyone in between--drawing real blood and real laughs in equal measure in this riotous send-up of American politics.  

Holla Back...but Listen First: A Life Guide for Young Black Men
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Mister Mann Frisby

Paperback: 159 pages
Language: English
ISBN: 0971996628

�I hope that young brothers who read this book will walk away feeling empowered and motivated...�’mister Mann Frisby

Mister Mann Frisby did an awesome job with writing "Holla Back"!! He, as well as the 29 others who contributed to the book should be very proud of themselves. This book has staying power and will be around for years to come considering the men left no stone unturned in the topics that were discussed. Especially the most sensitive and uncomfortable, like male molestation and homosexuality. Frisby's inclusion of the topics was a brave and responsible thing to do, and it also showed his sincerity in truly wanting to reach out to ALL young black men. �Amazon Customer Reviewer: Humanity (Los Angeles, CA.)

Included are the thoughts of Grammy winners John Legend and Kirk Franklin, Common, film producer Lee Daniels, Olympic Gold Medalist Jon Drummond, former boxer Bernard Hopkins and actor Boris Kodjoe.

J. California Cooper’s insights into the hearts and souls of ordinary people and her irresistible storytelling voice have endeared her to fans and critics. As Ms. magazine wrote, �Cooper’s stories beckon. It is as if she is patting the seat next to us, enticing us to come sit and listen.�

Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent
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Richard Bruce Nugent edited by Thomas Wirth

ISBN: 0822329131
Format: Paperback, 304pp
Pub. Date: January 1980
Publisher: Duke University Press

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Richard Bruce Nugent is the best well-kept secret of the Harlem Renaissance. Nugent isn't unheard of in the annals of the Renaissance; he’s unseen. Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance solidifies the phantom of Richard Bruce Nugent by collecting a number of his short stories, articles, interviews, drawings and paintings. The anthology establishes Nugent's rightful place amongst Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and other Harlem Renaissance luminaries.

The anthology begins with an extraordinary introduction, a brief biography of Nugent, written by Thomas Wirth, the editor. The biography unveils Nugent's works and opens a window to his character: a proud gay man who would not hide his homosexuality in the closet. While he may not have been the most renowned of the Renaissance artists, Nugent was, perhaps, the most romantic, because he did not compromise his art by censoring his homosexual identity. This personal stand resulted in the majority of his works going unpublished.

Just as the Pandora’s box of unwelcome surprises seems empty, it turns out that even Bishop Wilson has some skeletons in his closet�the kind that could cost him everything. Now all the Wilsons will have to face their demons�and discover what family values are really about.

Immortality of Influence
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by Salome Thomas-El, with Cecil Murphey

Salome Thomas-EL, award-winning educator and the highly-praised author of I Choose to Stay, has helped hundreds of troubled children get into magnet high schools, major colleges, and universities. Yet he still finds himself devastated by the long-ago death of a promising student named Willow Briggs. Salome worked with and consistently encouraged this troubled boy, who ultimately became one of the school’s top chess players and students. But when Willow moved on to high school, he found no real positive influences. He struggled academically and was murdered on a street corner at the age of sixteen. More than any other factor, Willow’s death launched Salome Thomas-EL on his mission to be a positive influence, and to encourage all of us to set the best example possible for the young people in our lives.

For parents, guardians, educators�anyone who wants the best for kids, this book is an essential, inspirational reference. It’s all about making a difference�not just for today, but forever. Sometimes, it only takes one special person to set a child on the right path, but more often, it does indeed take a village. The Immortality of Influence will inspire you to band together with other caring adults and start making a difference�now.

Some People, Some Other Place is Cooper's biggest, most far-reaching novel to date. A multigenerational tale, it is set in a town called "Place," on a street named "Dream Street." In the words of the novel's narrator, "the block surely had about it a feeling of long accumulation of history, of life, of many lives intertwined." As she chronicles the interlocking lives of the residents of Dream Street, Cooper places the stories of the individuals and their families within the wider context of America's social and economic history. We meet the narrator's great grandparents, who left the poverty of the Deep South in 1895 and made their way to a farm in Oklahoma; her grandparents, who continued the northward journey with their eyes on the promised jobs of the industrial Midwest but were forced to settle without reaching their goal; and her mother, who finishes the journey and discovers that life at 903 Dream Street carries new burdens as well as rewards. The neighbors on the block are people of all colors, all striving to overcome personal troubles and disappointments, and all holding fast to their dreams of a better life.

Step into a World: A Global Anthology of the New Black Literature
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Kevin Powell (Editor)

Read about all of the contributors to this impressive volume

From across the globe, here is a historic gathering of some hundred of the greatest black writers of this era. Bringing together emerging literary talent along with established and award-winning writers like Booker Prize�winner Ben Okri, Junot D�az, Edwidge Danticat, Paul Beatty, Joan Morgan, Sarah Jones, and Hilton Als, Step into a World is a provocative anthology that offers a window into crucial issues of post�Civil Rights and post colonial black life.
Compiled by Kevin Powell (whom famed scholar Michael Eric Dyson called "one of America's most brilliant young cultural critics"), this extraordinary collection contains a range of fiction, poetry, essays, and criticism-some never before published-along with e-mails, letters, manifestos, and the new genre of hip-hop journalism, here in book form for the first time. Indeed, hip-hop music, culture, and politics permeate Step into a World, as many of the writers have been affected in some way by the biggest pop cultural phenomenon of the past twenty-five years.

Hailing from the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, and Africa, these luminary writers present poignant and powerful thoughts on racial identity, gender oppression, homophobia, classism, Tiger Woods, the black intelligentsia, Oprah's Book Club, and the Beat Generation, as well as blunt assessments on the crack epidemic, police brutality, postintegration America, and the future state of Africa.

The first major collection of contemporary black writing in nearly a decade, Step into a World includes writers born as early as 1957 and as recently as 1977. The result is an anthology full of energy and stylistic variations, and it is an incredible journey into the richly textured world of the new black literature

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.

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Sixteen years ago on Father's Day in Chicago, K. Kofi Moyo and his wife, Yvette, gathered together a group of men for a food festival. Each man prepared his signature dish. The goal was to raise money for local charitable organizations and shine a light on the "real men" -- the unsung heroes of the black community -- who care for their families throughout the year.

In Real Men Cook, the men share more than one hundred mouthwatering, finger-lickin'-good recipes -- the kind of recipes that make the Father's Day event a must-attend for all who appreciate a good plate of food. Equally important, they open their hearts, offering memories of growing up, tales of Real Men Cook events, and wisdom for the next generation.

Read by the poet at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the White House on December 1, 2005, Maya Angelou’s celebration of the �Glad Season� is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of life and a beautiful holiday gift for people of all faiths.

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

After one too many bad dates, Chauncey finds himself in church where the minister's message inspires him to follow his dream of a singing career once again. Although he's lost touch with D, as he starts writing songs his thoughts inevitably turn to his former lover. Chauncey's powerful performance at the church earns him a standing ovation and an invitation to participate in an upcoming revival. But Chauncey soon discovers that an ambitious fundamentalist preacher plans to use the revival to speak out against gays and gay marriage. Feeling angry and betrayed, Chauncey and other gay members of the church decide to take a stand against the church's homophobia by staging a 'Day of Absence' when all of the gay members and their friends and family stay home. Everything is going as planned ...until D appears on the scene and Chauncey has to confront his past and make some hard decisions about his future. I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER is filled with the delicious plot twists, humor, compassion, andup-to-the-minute controversy fans expect from their beloved 'E. Lynn.' Harris has returned with another gem of a novel that will rocket to the top of bestseller lists nationwide.

Diary of a Lost Girl
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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.