California Cooper  has proven that hers is a wholly original talent  --one that embraces readers in an ever-widening  circle from one book to the next. With In  Search Of Satisfaction, Cooper  gracefully portrays men and women, some good and others  wickedly twisted, caught in their individual  thickets of want and need. On a once-grand plantation  in Yoville, "a legal town-ship founded by the  very rich for their own personal use," a  freed slave named Josephus fathers two daughters,  Ruth and Yinyang, by two different women. His  desire, to give Yinyang and himself money and  opportunities, oozes through the family like an elixir,  melding with the equally strong yearnings of  Yoville's other residents, whose tastes don't  complement their neighbors'. What Josephus buries in his  life affects generations to come. J. California  Cooper's unfettered view of sin, forgiveness, and  redemption gives In Search Of  Satisfaction a singular richness that belies its  universal themes.

    And that is just for starters. She also writes about W.E.B. Du Bois, gardening, Toni Morrison, Star Trek, affirmative action, space exploration, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the role of griots, and the rape and neglect of urban schools. But to reduce Nikki Giovanni's essays to their subjects is to miss altogether their significance. As Virginia C. Fowler writes in her Foreword, These pieces are artistic expressions of a particular way of looking at the world, featuring a performing voice capable of dizzying displays of virtuosity. Profoundly personal and blisteringly political, angry and funny, lyrical and blunt, Racism 101 will add an important chapter to the debate on American national values.

    A young girl proudly watches her little brother--only to discover that caring neighbors have been watching them both all along. Full-color illustrations by the author.

    A unique and moving collection of prayers by African-Americans spanning two centuries that has sold more than 30,000 copies and been unanimously embraced as "a powerful testament of faith and hope" (Corettta Scott King).

    It was within this project that we came to realize that the notion of human psychology was and remains an African invention...In this book, Na'im Akbar provides the reader with a clear and concise understanding of the African (Kemetic) origins of psychology, and provides the insightful guidelines to modern-day implications and applications of the field. From foreword by Wade W. Nobles