ICYMI Fiction & Nonfiction: February 2023 | Eisenhower Public Library District

1) Africa risen: a new era of speculative fiction

Notes

Look at this cover! If you love Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, and/or Janelle Monáe, you're going to want to read this.

Description

"From award-winning editorial team Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight comes an anthology of thirty-two original stories showcasing the breadth of fantasy and science fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora. A group of cabinet ministers query a supercomputer containing the minds of the country's ancestors. A child robot on a dying planet uncovers signs of fragile new life. A descendent of a rain goddess inherits...

2) Light skin gone to waste

Author

Johnson, Toni Ann

Series

Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction

Notes

If short stories are too disconnected for you but you love historical fiction, this collection of connected, chronological stories about the Arrington family in the 60s is perfect for you.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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"In 1962 Philip Arrington, a psychologist with a PhD from Yeshiva, arrives in the small, mostly blue-collar town of Monroe, New York, to rent a house for himself and his new wife. They're Black, something the man about to show him the house doesn't know. With that, we're introduced to the Arringtons: Phil, Velma, his daughter Livia (from a previous marriage), and his youngest, Madeline, soon to be born. They're cosmopolitan. Sophisticated. They're...

3) What Napoleon could not do

Author

Nnuro, DK

Notes

A "multifacted drama", this novel explores sibling rivalry and the failed promise of the American Dream.

Description

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"America is seen through the eyes and ambitions of three characters with ties to Africa in this gripping novel"--

4) Gone like yesterday: a novel

Author

Williams, Janelle M

Notes

Blending music, family, coming of age, and mental health, this novel is for those who are wondering if, and when, it is their turn to fly.

Description

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"A lyrical debut novel that asks what we owe to our families, what we owe to our ancestors, and what we owe to ourselves. Janelle M. Williams's Gone Like Yesterday employs magical realism to explore the majestic and haunting experience of being a Black woman in today's America"--

5) Why you'll never find the one: and why it doesn't matter

Author

Akinterinwa, Sarah

Notes

If February is both for lovers and Black History, then of course, this dating guide by a Black woman is an essential read.

Formats:

eBook, Graphic Novel

Description

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"An illustrated dating guide rooted in cartoonist Sarah Akinterinwa's experiences as a millennial Black woman, that encourages readers to be introspective, honest, and practical in their love lives"--

6) Lover man

Author

Anderson, Alston

Notes

This collection features Black men and boys, which is already a good enough reason to read it. But it is also a rediscovered 1950s classic of Black literature.

Description

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"Raw, fearless, ironic, the stories in Lover Man (1958) promised the birth of a new sensibility in American fiction. Inspired by the bebop he loved, and the philosophy he studied at the Sorbonne, Alston Anderson looked back at the North Carolina of his youth to capture the hidden lives of Black boys and men in the early 1940s. Fascinated by loners and outsiders--tricksters, addicts, jazzmen, drifters, "queers"--and by the spiritual cost exacted by...

7) Chi boy: native sons and Chicago reckonings

Author

Norris, Keenan

Series

Machete

Notes

A unique and personal perspective on the cultural history of Chicago.

Description

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"Personal essays about the author's family woven together with cultural history and critique about the Great Migration to Chicago, Northern segregation, the life and work of Richard Wright and other Black Chicago intellectuals, Black masculinity, and the specter of violence in Chicago"--

8) Remember me now: a journey back to myself and a love letter to Black women

Author

Brooks, Faitth

Notes

A primer on coping with personal trauma and political dismissal that is also an inspiring ode to Black women.

Description

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"An unforgettable invitation to treat our lives as the sacred things they are-and a call to embrace the love, dreams, and healing that only we can choose for ourselves"--

9) Black on Black: on our resilience and brilliance in America

Author

Black, Daniel

Notes

Calling all essay readers! This highly anticipated book is smart and provocative in all the best ways.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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Now, in his debut essay collection, Daniel Black gives voice to the experiences of those who often find themselves on the margins. Tackling topics ranging from police brutality to the AIDS crisis to the role of HBCUs to queer representation in the Black church, Black celebrates the resilience, fortitude and survival of Black people in a land where their body is always on display.

10) Weightless: making space for my resilient body and soul

Author

Dionne, Evette

Notes

For a feminist take on our fatphobic cultural.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook

Description

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"In this insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne explores the minefields fat Black women are forced to navigate in the course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to a diagnosis of heart failure at age twenty- nine, Dionne tracks her relationship with friends, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image. Along the way, she...

11) I saw death coming: a history of terror and survival in the war against Reconstruction

Author

Williams, Kidada E

Notes

A piercing look at the failures of Reconstruction and the lasting impacts on race relations in the United States.

Description

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"The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very different to African Americans in the South transitioning from bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been...

12) AphroChic: celebrating the legacy of the Black family home

Author

Mason, Bryan

Notes

Let the history, culture, and of course, design inspire you to make your space reflect you!

Description

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"An interior design book featuring the stunning homes of those who have made significant contributions to Black American culture-from chef Alexander Smalls to Don Cheadle and Bridgid Coulter to Danielle Brooks. From the creators of the lifestyle brand AphroChic comes an interior design book that steps into the intimate spaces of actors and musicians, creative rooms of artists and curators, generational homes with history, and "boss" offices of entrepreneurs...