Satisfy My Soul


Colin Channer - 2002
    But the more he tries to forget, the more uprooted he feels. Then, while in Jamaica, he crosses paths with a radiant woman who attracts him like a flame. Their undeniable attraction is much more than chemistry. As Carey soon discovers from a “reader” of the spirit world, he and Frances share a history that has linked their souls for more than four hundred years. Though Carey views past lives with skepticism, he cannot explain knowing the language of an ancient African people—in particular the phrase: “Mulewe anekoso kuduwe bana” (“I will search until I find you”).Yet Frances conceals secrets of her own, with devastating consequences. And while Carey visits his best friend, a bond that was once thought to be unbreakable will be put to the ultimate test as startling truths at last emerge. . . .

Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet


Simon Lister - 2015
    Cricket had never meant so much. The West Indies had always had brilliant cricketers; it hadn’t always had brilliant cricket teams. But in 1974, a man called Clive Lloyd began to lead a side which would at last throw off the shackles that had hindered the region for centuries. Nowhere else had a game been so closely connected to a people’s past and their future hopes; nowhere else did cricket liberate a people like it did in the Caribbean.For almost two decades, Clive Lloyd and then Vivian Richards led the batsmen and bowlers who changed the way cricket was played and changed the way a whole nation – which existed only on a cricket pitch - saw itself. With their pace like fire and their scorching batting, these sons of cane-cutters and fishermen brought pride to a people which had been stifled by 300 years of slavery, empire and colonialism. Their cricket roused the Caribbean and antagonised the game’s traditionalists. Told by the men who made it happen and the people who watched it unfold, Fire in Babylon is the definitive story of the greatest team that sport has known.

People Funny Boy


David Katz - 2001
    Using interviews with friends, family and fellow artists, this book provides an examination of his life.

The American Gods Quartet


Neil Gaiman - 2019
    

Escape to Last Man Peak


Jean D'Costa - 1975
    Afraid they will be made to work in the labour camp, they decide to escape to the other side of the island. The perilous journey to Last Man Peak, with only their wits and courage to help them, was to change their lives forever. This tale traces their difficult and dangerous journey to reach Last Man Peak.

Mi Revalueshanary Fren


Linton Kwesi Johnson - 2002
    During his teenage years in Brixton, Johnson witnessed serial episodes of racial abuse and joined the Black Panthers movement in protest. There, he learned his history and culture, but found his own outlet.”—Caroline Frost, BBC FourLinton Kwesi Johnson is the most influential black poet in Britain. The author of five previous collections of poetry and numerous record albums, he is known worldwide for his fusion of lyrical verse and reggae. Much of his work is written in the street Creole of the Caribbean communities in which he grew up in England. Mi Revalueshanary Fren includes all of his best-known poems, which concern racism and politics, personal experience, philosophy, and the art of music, among other things.Contains a full-length CD of Johnson reading.

A Hot Country: (Love and Death In a Hot Country)


Shiva Naipaul - 1983
    Shiva Naipaul's passionate and evocative novel focuses on two casualties of Cuyama's post-Independence malaise, Aubrey St Pierre, dedicated to redeeming the sins of his slave-owning ancestors, and his wife, Dina. While Aubrey sits in his highbrow bookshop composing protest letters to The Times in London and New York, Dina stands aloof and passive in the face of an impending tragedy that seems to her more personal than political. The fate of their marriage comes obliquely to reflect the fate of a nation, portrayed by Naipaul with intense sympathy, vision and eloquence.

On That Day, Everybody Ate: One Woman's Story of Hope and Possibility in Haiti -- With Post-Earthquake Update


Margaret Trost - 2008
    Struggling to make sense of the extreme poverty, and touched by the warmth and resilience of those she meets, she partners with a local community to develop a food program that now serves thousands of meals each week to children and others in need. On That Day, Everybody Ate, which now includes a post-earthquake update, tells the story of her remarkable journey.

Captain of the Sleepers


Mayra Montero - 2002
    T. Bunker. Now eighty-three-years-old and dying, Bunker wants to tell his side of the story, the story of his affair with Estela, Andrés's mother. As a child Andrés knew Bunker as the "Captain of the Sleepers"--so called because he transported back to Vieques those who had died on the mainland but wished to be buried at home. But what really happened between Bunker and Estela, and between Estela and her one true love, a leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Movement? What did Andrés witness, and what were the real circumstances of his mother's mysterious death?Beautifully translated by Edith Grossman, Captain of the Sleepers is a startling tale of remembrance and reality, and Mayra Montero's finest book yet.

The Long Way Home


Judah Knight - 2014
    She needed a ride. A simple lift turned into the adventure of a lifetime. When Meg was stranded in the Bahamas, her life was dramatically changed through an encounter with an old friend that turned into adventure, danger, and discovery. Meg Freeman and Jon Davenport began a surprising adventure, connected to a 17th century, shipwrecked Spanish galleon. Both Freeman and Davenport had experienced the sorrow of losing a spouse, but they found a renewed friendship as they had an amazing undersea discovery and encountered challenges along the way. Join this couple’s adventure of romance and suspense where the long way home became a ride that would change their lives forever. The Long Way Home is book one in The Davenport Series.

Surrender in Paradise


Havana Scott - 2016
    Or own island. I kind of like it. But then I meet Paris Jones, the winner of an essay contest for a free vacation at my resort. The girl knows what it’s like to be at rock bottom. And she definitely doesn't need to be lied to anymore. Still, I love the fact she likes me for me. Should I tell her I own this place? Add Tatiane trying to get her claws back into me, and I’m caught between two worlds and two women—the one who wants to own me and the one I’m going to lose if I don’t step up my game. Will money or love seal this deal?

The Passion According to Carmela


Marcos Aguinis - 2008
    Their erotic and ideological vicissitudes are driven by a reality they cannot control, like that of Homer’s characters. Invisible gods intervene in their lives to intertwine their physical attraction and intellectual admiration, courage and fear, secrets and unexpected complicity. They build their difficult and beautiful love in one of the most turbulent and romantic scenarios of Latin American history. They swim with the current; they enjoy it and enlarge it. But they are also dragged along by eddies that leave them breathless and turn their world upside down. Aguinis’ titles tend to be paradoxical. However, for this novel, he has preferred to place emphasis on the multiple meanings of the word passion. Passion refers to love, and also to the strength of ideals, to suffering, pleasure, salvation and the yearning for freedom. The emotional combat of the protagonists runs in parallel with the dizzying brilliance of concrete situations. This is what allows the suspense to grab the reader from the first page to the very end. A free-flowing, sweeping, and thrilling rhythm dominates the text, like that of musical passions. It should come as no surprise that this novel—where the voices of the female protagonist, her lover, and the omniscient writer alternate—has been written following Bach’s counterpoint model. From a distance, ineffable, we still hear the resounding epic of another war where the liberators sang to a different Carmela—also a torch, also a passion. Aguinis portrays his creations skillfully and renders them indelible. His skill in handling emotions does leaves no line void of poetry or consequences. And his extremely accurate style is a grounding that turns this work—situated in exceptional times—into one of the best love stories to mark out the course of literature.

The Migration of Ghosts


Pauline Melville - 1998
    A South American president revisits the scenes of his ruthless rise to power-shortly after his own funeral. A transformed and sparkling city of London sets the scene for a company chairman's nemesis at the hands of his wife. In Andalucia, the spirit of the "duende" inspires an elderly widow to dance a death-defying flamenco. We meet splendacious Mrs. da Silva, sixty-five year old matriarch of Rebel War Band, as she boogies at a carnival. The ghost of Dante's Virgil, leading his pilgrim along perilous paths, is brought to mind as one friend guides another on her final journey.

The Price of Paradise


Susana López Rubio - 2017
    Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto—one of the most luxurious department stores in the world.Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players, including the notorious mobster César Valdés.Falling in love with the mobster’s young wife, Gloria, is suicide. But Patricio is irresistibly drawn to the beautiful girl with sad eyes, a razor-sharp intellect, and a penchant for both Christian Dior’s clothes and Einstein’s theories. Within the walls of El Encanto, anything seems possible, even a love that promises to heal them and a desire that thrums with the mambo beat of the city itself.In a reckless love affair that spans half a century, Patricio’s and Gloria’s lives entwine time and again, challenged by every twist of fate—for in a world of murder, betrayal, and revolution, those who dare to reach for paradise seldom survive unscathed.

The Rough Guide to Reggae (Rough Guide Music Guides)


Steve Barrow - 1997
    The first two editions of the Rough Guide to Reggae were the top-selling books on the subject, and widely acclaimed by the music press and fans alike. Illustrated throughout with over 400 pictures, many of them exclusive photos, the book also features exclusive interviews with reggaeas top stars, and reviews over 500 albums. 2003 and 2004 have been the most successful years for reggae music on a global scale since the heyday of Bob Marley, with singers such as Sean Paul and Wayne Wonder regularly topping the UK and US pop charts. The new third edition of Rough Guide to Reggae is fully updated to cover this latest wave of Jamaican musicians, while not stinting on newly discovered recordings and reissues of classic albums of the past.