AALBC Search
A Day Late and a Dollar Short
A Day Late and a Dollar Short Terry McMillan Excerpt Way I see it can’t nobody tell me nothing I don’t already know. At least not when it comes to my kids. They all grown, but in a whol...
Chaser: A Novel
Chaser: A Novel Miasha Excerpt Kenny, Stop, Pleeeease! Kennnnyyy!” I cried for my life. It wasn’t even about the baby anymore because I was sure it was dead. There was no ...
Fifteen Years Delayed
Fifteen Years Delayed Angelia Vernon Menchan Excerpt Prologue Damn… there she is after fifteen years, still, even button-upped, a living breathing wet dream in the flesh. Feeling breath o...
Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him)
Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him) Sandra Jackson-Opoku Excerpt He knew just how to feed them You see all our hungry faces in the photo album of his life. And you wonder. Who is ...
Chapters <a href="#1">1</a> & <a href="#12">12</a>: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous
Chapters 1 & 12: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous Kevin P. Chavous Excerpt Chapter 1 𝒥ackson Lowery was in trouble. The man was coming at him again. Jackson was much taller, but the shorter man w...
Chapters <a href="#1">1</a> & <a href="#12">12</a>: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous
Chapters 1 & 12: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous Kevin P. Chavous Excerpt Chapter 1 𝒥ackson Lowery was in trouble. The man was coming at him again. Jackson was much taller, but the shorter man w...
Shoe’s on the Otha’ Foot
Shoe’s on the Otha’ Foot Hunter Hayes Excerpt Chapter 1 "I REMINISCE" Precisely four forty-seven p.m., and the damn beat-beat of my heart is racing to catch up with the tick-...
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle Chris Hedges Excerpt Now the death of God combined with the perfection of the image has brought us to a whole new state of expe...
Coming Forth by Day
Coming Forth by Day Kakwasi Somadhi Excerpt Excerpt from Chapter Seven When Loretha showed up with Solly that hot July evening, the village was already crowded. Men and women with Afros as big as ...
Pieces from Life’s Crazy Quilt
Pieces from Life’s Crazy Quilt Marvin V. Arnett Excerpt When my mother saw the smiles on our faces, she heaved a sigh of relief. When she asked my father what he though of my teacher, he answer...
The End of Race Politics
The End of Race Politics Coleman Hughes Excerpt Chapter 1Race, Anti-racism, and Neoracism For most of my life, I saw my mother as neither black nor white. Her Puerto Rican father was darker-skinned ...
Brothers, Lust, and Love: Thoughts on Manhood, Sex, and Romance
Brothers, Lust, and Love: Thoughts on Manhood, Sex, and Romance William July II Excerpt SBF Seeking Mr. Right. Must be 6’3", 215, have a mustache, degree in law or medicine from Ivy Leagu...
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass Excerpt PREFACE In the month of August 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to beco...
The Messenger Reader
The Messenger Reader Sondra Kathryn Wilson Excerpt In this short story, Fenton Johnson introduces the reader to Elizabeth (Eliza) Jan, an African-American servant. Liza, a Southerner, finds herself w...
The Secret Lives of the Four Wives
The Secret Lives of the Four Wives Lola Shoneyin Excerpt Chapter One – Polygamist I didn’t just happen upon this room; I dreamed of the pale green walls before I arrived. Now the built...
I Stand Accused
I Stand Accused Monica Anderson Excerpt I drove Interstate 20 West at eighty miles per hour. I slowed to seventy at the infamous speed traps. Then, I put the pedal to the metal again.&nbs...
Sister Betty Says I Do
Sister Betty Says I Do Pat G’Orge Walker Excerpt Chapter 1 One year later… Moments earlier the sun had slowly rose on this sure-to-be blazing hot Saturday morning. For much of her adult ...
Life, Love & Loneliness
Life, Love & Loneliness Crystal Lacey Winslow Excerpt CHAPTER 3 - LYRIC DEVANEY At 11:00 am sharp, Richard’s black Mercedes- Benz arrived. His driver got out and opened the door and Richard ...
Nobody Else Is Better Than You
Nobody Else Is Better Than You Katherine Johnson, Joylette Hylick, and Katherine Moore Excerpt Chapter 1: Nobody Else Is Better Than You The serious look in Daddy’s eyes told me his words w...
Shedding Light From My Journeys
Shedding Light From My Journeys DuEwa M. Frazier Excerpt R Ju Iz Spanish Mami, mami, ju look so good, are ju married ? I think in a past life I was Spanish cause the pa...
A Promised Land (Deluxe Signed Edition)
A Promised Land (Deluxe Signed Edition) Barack Obama Excerpt Preface I began writing this book shortly after the end of my presidency—after Michelle and I had boarded Air Force One for the l...
A Promised Land
A Promised Land Barack Obama Excerpt Preface I began writing this book shortly after the end of my presidency—after Michelle and I had boarded Air Force One for the last time and traveled we...
Remembering Margo: A Triumphant Life, A Tragic Death, And Life’s Greatest Deception
Remembering Margo: A Triumphant Life, A Tragic Death, And Life’s Greatest Deception Donzella Michele Malone Excerpt PREFACE It was a cool and ra...
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2 Kalisha Buckhanon Excerpt ONE MARCH 2021 Right around time things started reopening, the late March thaw brought a lifeless girl up to the tail end of the Grays...
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2 Kalisha Buckhanon Excerpt ONE MARCH 2021 Right around time things started reopening, the late March thaw brought a lifeless girl up to the tail end of the Grays...
Chasing Ava
Chasing Ava Siera London Excerpt Ava had been distracted for days, Logan noticed. When he’d questioned her, she denied that there was a problem. But she seemed more fragile and solitary. Even w...
American Wings
American Wings Sherri L. Smith and Elizabeth Wein Excerpt PROLOGUE A Dream Takes Flight Omaha, Nebraska, 1919 It was going to cost three dollars to ride—about $50 in 2023, but the wo...
Overtime
Overtime Connie Barrett Excerpt Chapter One:With one foot lodged in her house shoe, Toi searched in vain for the other, all the while fighting the urge to roll back into the warm covers that invi...
The Unmaking Of The Black Man
The Unmaking Of The Black Man Gibran Tariq and Gregory S. Jones Excerpt THE OTHER END OF THE STICK The social revolution for the control of the black image had a profound impact on the sistas as w...
Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems
Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems Professor Griff Excerpt Breaking Karma #5 i It is like a scene in a play. His bald spot shines upward between dark tufts of hair. We are sitting in a pool of...
The Future Has a Past
The Future Has a Past J. California Cooper Excerpt A Shooting Star Now, you don’t know me. And, I know that you know that nobody knows everything. But a person does have to go by whatever ...
Night Hawks: Stories
Night Hawks: Stories Charles Johnson Excerpt The Weave Three thieves battered through a wall, crawled close to the floor to dodge motion detectors and stole six duffel bags filled with human hair ...
Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ with Mother Nature
Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ with Mother Nature Dick Gregory Excerpt 1Warning: The Author Has Determined That Not Reading the Following Pages Is Dangerous to Your Health ...
The Water Dancer
The Water Dancer Ta-Nehisi Coates Excerpt And I could only have seen her there on the stone bridge, a dancer wreathed in ghostly blue, because that was the way they would have taken her back when I w...
Adultery
Adultery Paulo Coelho Excerpt Every morning, when I open my eyes to the so-Âcalled “new day,” I feel like closing them again, staying in bed, and not getting up. But I can’t do t...
From Presence to Power: How to Take On the Fights That Matter—and Win
From Presence to Power: How to Take On the Fights That Matter—and Win Rashad Robinson Excerpt 1 Presence Is Not Enough Definition: Presence is about visibility, the ability to make something—a ...
My Love Notes to a Black Man
My Love Notes to a Black Man Lana Reid Excerpt Your Utopia in Me This morning when the alarm rang I was a warm mahogany cocoon that enveloped you A slumbering medley of brown arms and legs wrapp...
Not My Will
Not My Will Khara Campbell Excerpt Prologue “Virtue, your man dogged you and you gonna let him get away with that mess? If I was you, I would be busting some holes in his tires and smashing ou...
The Colored Garden
The Colored Garden O.H. Bennett Excerpt From Chapter One: Meeting the Gardener In the middle of Kentucky farmland where a cornfield of withered brown stalks meets the grass of a cow pasture there ...
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way Connie Briscoe, Lolita Files, and Anita Bunkley Excerpt The brass headboard thumped against the wall as he rolled off of her and onto his b...
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way Connie Briscoe, Lolita Files, and Anita Bunkley Excerpt The brass headboard thumped against the wall as he rolled off of her and onto his b...
Black Girl You Are Atlas
Black Girl You Are Atlas Renée Watson Excerpt at•las | \ ’at-les \ from Merriam-Webster Dictionary 1 capitalized: a Titan who for his part in the Titans’ revolt against the gods ...
Woleté The Story of an Enslaved Ethiopian Girl
Woleté The Story of an Enslaved Ethiopian Girl Aklilu Kidanu Woldegiorgis Excerpt Part 5 The Catastrophe In one unsuspecting bright morning, the lives of a happy girl and her childhood friends ch...
Table of Contents <em>Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice</em>
Table of Contents Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice Nkechi Taifa Excerpt Table of Contents Black Power, Black Lawyer: Memoir of Nkechi Taifa Prologue—“Judge Not” Red Ba...
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother James McBride Excerpt CHAPTER ONE Dead I’m dead. You want to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty y...
Chapter 1: The Throne of Thought OPENING PRAYER
Chapter 1: The Throne of Thought OPENING PRAYER Iyanla Vanzant Excerpt Beloved Presence of All That Is, Anchor me now in Your peace and perfect wisdom. Today, I call forth the s...
The Root of All Evil
The Root of All Evil Gibran Tariq and Gregory S. Jones Excerpt Chapter One November 1942 It was one thing to be cold, but quite another to be freezing. Not long ago, Paul Madsen, had been warm ...
A PERFECT WORLD: (A Perry Richards Novel)
A PERFECT WORLD: (A Perry Richards Novel) Bernard Alexander McNealy Excerpt From Chapter 2: On Shaky Ground I moved to the porch baluster…leaning closer to her. ’You aren’t ruling...
The Payback
The Payback Kashana Cauley Excerpt Chapter One In the handful of minutes before our store opened, the sales day was pregnant with potential cash. Soon my boss Richard would open our front door, th...
All I Want For Christmas
All I Want For Christmas Joyce A. Brown, Princess F.L. Gooden, Terri Ann Johnson, Sonia Johnston, Patricia Woodside, Cryssy Dee, Candy Jackson, and others Excerpt An excerpt from Terri Ann Johnson&rs...
Chapter 7: Why Did Rosa Parks Hug Me?
Chapter 7: Why Did Rosa Parks Hug Me? Nita Wiggins Excerpt Chapter 7: Why Did Rosa Parks Hug Me? In my next job, at WTVM-TV in Columbus, Georgia, I landed a position that came with a prestigious t...
Gone Fishin’
Gone Fishin’ Walter Mosley Excerpt Gone Fishin' CHAPTER ONE Mouse had changed. Before he announced his engagement to EttaMae he was a happy man, full of himself. It's true that he...
Zone One: A Novel
Zone One: A Novel Colson Whitehead Excerpt A 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominated Book He always wanted to live in New York. His Uncle Lloyd lived downtown on Lafayette, and in the long s...
Introduction and Chapter 9 – B. C. Franklin
Introduction and Chapter 9 – B. C. Franklin Carlos Moreno Excerpt Introduction and Chapter 9 – B. C. Franklin “Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as yo...
The Immortality Of Influence
The Immortality Of Influence Salome Thomas-El Excerpt Foreword by Will Smith If you finish this book and are not inspired to immediately go out and effect change in your community, then you w...
An Approach to Style: The 21 Reminders
An Approach to Style: The 21 Reminders William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White Excerpt In the final chapter of The Elements of Style, E. B. White provides a list of guidelines to help writers develop a di...
Table of Contents <em>Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice</em>
Table of Contents Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice Patrice Lawrence Excerpt Chapter 1 Al I’m hungry. Really hungry. I want to fill the biggest bowl with cornflakes and ...
I Can’t Wait on God
I Can’t Wait on God Albert French Excerpt Chapter One Pittsburgh, 1950 Summer night air was always sticky kind of air, had that stinkin mill smoke stuck all in it. Them old freight trains ...
To Find You
To Find You Cerece Rennie Murphy Excerpt Part I: In The Beginning I wait for him here, at the place where the night sky and the earth become lovers. In the tall grass of our homeland, between two k...
Dana Dances on Paper
Dana Dances on Paper Darcel Turner Excerpt 10 JAM "Dana," Uncle Jerry commanded, "I don’t know where your mother is, but you betta get upst...
Wake Up Happy: The Dream Big, Win Big Guide to Transforming Your Life
Wake Up Happy: The Dream Big, Win Big Guide to Transforming Your Life Michael Strahan and Veronica Chambers Excerpt WHAT I LEARNED FROM HERSCHEL WALKER Rule #1 Help can—and will—c...
Faith in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the Journey to Peace
Faith in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the Journey to Peace Iyanla Vanzant Excerpt Chapter 1 The Valley of Light Teaches us the lesson of stillness, through the imposition of a state of so...
Prince and Me: His #1 Fan: My Minneapolis Memories
Prince and Me: His #1 Fan: My Minneapolis Memories Andrea Foy Excerpt NEW YEAR’S EVE, PART 1 I spent New Year’s Eve 1992 in Minneapolis with friends I met from the Controversy Fan Clu...
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 1 and 2 Harlow Giles Unger Excerpt Chapters 1 and 2 Chapter 1College Is Not for Everyone So your kid says he or she wants to go to college. “All my friends are going!&rdq...
No Man’s Compass
No Man’s Compass S. D. Hines Excerpt Michael Healy carried a sidearm, a .45 colt revolver. As the two men ran towards the boy, Michael gasped to his brother, "Get the boy…to safety…I...
Food and the City
Food and the City Ina Yalof Excerpt Alexander SmallsThe Cecil Daylight floods his Harlem apartment, an eclectic space crammed with old and new mementos from a well-traveled, well-lived life. The...
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION Khristi Lauren Adams Excerpt INTRODUCTION The turn of the millennium has seen an upsurge in new and young African writers and this has been particularly noticeable in terms of the num...
Ida Mae
Ida Mae Delores Thornton Excerpt Ida Mae stumbled into the kitchen, careful not to wake Papa or Milan, as she climbed the back stairs. If I’m lucky, I can pour a bath and bandage my wounds and ...
Wolf Hustle
Wolf Hustle Cin Fabré Excerpt Introduction The hustle has always been with me. Once I discovered the stock market I became infected with the delirious joy that comes from a successful speculative ...
Diamonds and Pearl
Diamonds and Pearl K’wan Excerpt CHAPTER 1 New Orleans, L.A.: Sept. 2005 “It looks bad out there, man.” Larry said staring out the rain slicked window of the second floor bedroom. I...
Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter
Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X Excerpt INTRODUCTION By Dr. Nathan Hare With the return of “white nationalism” to the international stage and the White House and new th...
Almost by Design: A Novel
Almost by Design: A Novel Jenny Erlingsson Excerpt Chapter 1 These shoes would be the death of her. Or at least cause the demise of a few toes. Kenya Stewart sighed, admiring the way the heels refle...
Peace From Broken Pieces: How To Get Through What You’re Going Through
Peace From Broken Pieces: How To Get Through What You’re Going Through Iyanla Vanzant Excerpt It is often difficult to identify the exact moment that your life falls apart. In most cases, it is not a...
The New Negro: Voices Of The Harlem Renaissance
The New Negro: Voices Of The Harlem Renaissance Jose Andres and Matt Goulding Excerpt “Harlem” by Alain Locke If we were to offer a symbol of what Harlem has come to mean in the short s...
Like Sweet Buttermilk
Like Sweet Buttermilk S.F. Powell Excerpt …Viv entered their sitting room, where she lay down to think, pulling the afghan strewn across the loveseat around her. More thinking, however, didn...
Harmattan Rain
Harmattan Rain Ayesha Harruna Attah Excerpt Ernest sat in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Lizzie packed Akua Afriyie, Naa Tsoo, Kwame and Ernest ...
The Truth About Men: The Secret Side Of The Opposite Sex
The Truth About Men: The Secret Side Of The Opposite Sex Ian Smith Excerpt THE FIRST PRINCIPLETHE SUBTLE ART OF HOOKING US There’s a big misperception that men never want to be in commit...
Mama Rocks the Empty Cradle
Mama Rocks the Empty Cradle Nora Deloach Excerpt Carrie Smalls shrugged. "I reckon you think ’cause your job throw you to be with her that you know her better than anybody else. My questi...
After
After Marita Golden Excerpt The bullets discharge from the muzzle of officer Carson Blake’s sixteen round Beretta with the tinny explosive popping sound of a toy gun. He will not remember exact...
Street Sweeper
Street Sweeper Ronin Ro Excerpt I was trying to get him to look me in the eye. But he wouldn’t. Not even when I got one inch from his nose. Nothing. No reaction. That’s the thing abou...
The Quest of the Silver Fleece
The Quest of the Silver Fleece W.E.B. Du Bois Excerpt The entire novel is available at Project Gutenberg OneDREAMS Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The tall pines...
Chapter One
Chapter One Catherine Joy White Excerpt Silence This thread of gold that ties me to my mother, my grandmother, and the women who came before looks a lot like the color purple. Like the purple hibi...
A Voice from the South
A Voice from the South Excerpt In the clash and clatter of our American Conflict, it has been said that the South remains silent. Like the Sphinx, she inspires vociferous disputation, but hersel...
Obsessive Intimacies
Obsessive Intimacies Yani Excerpt This nigga must’ve either lost his fucking mind or he thinks I’m still the same dumb and naïve Tierra from high-school and college. I know muthafucking ...
The Angry Ones
The Angry Ones John A. Williams Excerpt You remember a lot of things about a trip across America. You remember the sandstone rocks reared above red and brown plains, the twisted, fiercely shaped arro...
Waiting in Vain
Waiting in Vain Colin Channer Excerpt On the day he met Sylvia, Fire woke up in Blanche’s arms with a numbness in his soul. It was his ninetieth day of celibacy, and the night before had almo...
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2 David H. Rothman Excerpt CHAPTER ONE: THE DEATHS OF PAPA AND MAMA BOULE-BOULE People called me “The Fix-It Boy.” I repaired broken radios and TVs around ou...
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2 David H. Rothman Excerpt CHAPTER ONE: THE DEATHS OF PAPA AND MAMA BOULE-BOULE People called me “The Fix-It Boy.” I repaired broken radios and TVs around ou...
A Thug’s Redemption 3: The Wrath of Andre
A Thug’s Redemption 3: The Wrath of Andre Yani Excerpt Tiffany disconnected the phone and paced the living room. Jamal had a second phone with only one number in it that went to a man who seemed to ...
Cowards and Angels
Cowards and Angels Aileen Muhammad Excerpt Mia (From Cowards and Angels) Death before dishonor. An embrace like no other. A fair exchange. An honored declaration that life’s sagging hypocr...
Where to Choose: A Novel
Where to Choose: A Novel Penny Mickelbury Excerpt Chapter Four Late-morning sun shone directly down on the purple and lilac and pink and white bougainvillea; shone easily through the tops of to...
Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love
Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love Zane Excerpt Chapter One: Sexual Addiction Sexual addiction is a topic very near and dear to my heart. When I first decided to write my novel Add...
Wonderful Ethiopians Of The Ancient Cushite Empire, Book 1
Wonderful Ethiopians Of The Ancient Cushite Empire, Book 1 Drusilla Dunjee Houston Excerpt The minds of men today are stirred with eager questionings about the origin of civilization and about ...
Sometimes I Cry
Sometimes I Cry Linda Dominique Grosvenor Excerpt I have never been more anxious in my entire life than I am right now. I’m sitting at my desk with an hour or more to kill and a list of things...
My Love, My Love: or The Peasant Girl
My Love, My Love: or The Peasant Girl Rosa Guy Excerpt Chapter One On that island where rivers run deep, where the sea sparkling in the sun earns it the name Jewel of the Antilles, the tops of t...
In the Still of the Night: Personal Safety for Women
In the Still of the Night: Personal Safety for Women Andrea Foy Excerpt Une Nuit de Paris\ “How did I get myself into this mess?” I thought. There I was, riding on the Metro out of Par...
You Are Free: Stories
You Are Free: Stories Danzy Senna Excerpt What’s the Matter with Helga and Dave? When I married Hewitt, I didn’t realize — among other things — that I would become a member...
Of One Blood
Of One Blood Pauline Hopkins Excerpt Chapter One The recitations were over for the day. It was the first week in November and it had rained about every day the entire week; now freezing temperatur...
God in the Ghetto: A Prophetic Word Revisited
God in the Ghetto: A Prophetic Word Revisited William Augustus Jones Jr. Excerpt Chapter 1: The System “The System” refers implicitly to the American trinity of capitalism, racism,...
Operation Sisterhood
Operation Sisterhood Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich Excerpt 1 So it really was a dark and stormy night, and it figured, thought Bo. Of course it was a dark and stormy night. Of course it was. Ok...