Before the Chop: LA Weekly Articles 2011-2012


Henry Rollins - 2013
    For reasons of space, the Weekly must often slightly truncate the pieces and also sees fit to change the name of the piece. So, what you read there isn’t always what I sent them. This is one of the reasons I wanted to put this book out. Also, knowing there are a lot of people out there without the time to go to some website and read something every week, I thought it would be a good idea to have the articles all in one place. I hope you enjoy the book and thank you. - Henry

Diamond Life


Sheila Copeland - 2003
    Comprised of three beautiful ladies, the sexy all-girl group So Fine has got it all — voice, magnetism, great songs — and drive. There's just one thing missing — and Nina can supply it.Jamil is not only Nina's ex-boyfriend — he's a mega-hit producer with a hot new label: Suicide Records. Nina is sure she can get Jamil to sign So Fine. She's always been able to count on him — though lately, he's been acting a little strange. Maybe it's because he's still got a thing for Nina, even though she's married now. Or maybe it's the influence of his new partner-in-crime, Xtreme, baseball's first bad boy and Suicide's first artist. Whatever it is, Nina has laid a big chunk of her own personal funds on the line, and there's no turning back now.But soon, everything seems to spiral out of control. Egos clash, hearts — and promises — are broken.

A Passionate Kiss


Sharon C. Cooper - 2016
    His focus is on his role as part-owner, along with his siblings, of Atlanta’s hottest nightclub. However, his attention shifts when the woman he has loved like a sister reenters his life and thoughts of a passionate kiss they shared hijacks his mind. Their connection is explosive. Feelings he’s tried to deny come to the forefront, and he’s tempted to do something he thought he would never do—cross that line from friends to lovers. TV news anchor, London Alexander, is back home in Atlanta and ready to start a new chapter in her life. This time she hopes her future includes Mason, the man she has loved forever. She’s ready to step over the forbidden line that he’s drawn in their relationship. Will taking a chance on love lead to a happily-ever-after? Or will risking their friendship leave them both with broken hearts? Check out the other two books in the series! A PASSIONATE LOVE – Delaney Diamond A PASSIONATE NIGHT – Candace Shaw NOTE: Stories in this series can be read in any order.

Lipstick Dom


T. Styles - 2014
    But when her younger sister discovers her in an uncompromising position, she uses the information as blackmail, making her world a living hell. Her burden grows when she falls in love with her best friend who is all about money, which Echo doesn’t have. After being rejected from her mother and first love, Echo goes away to find herself, resurfacing years later as a powerful drug boss with an insatiable sexual drive. Before long her BFF returns, married to a dangerous man with ulterior motives. Soon old feelings from the past bubble to the surface and Echo finds herself caught between two loves. One who is passive aggressive and the other who would do anything to maintain Echo’s heart, including kill. Lipstick Dom is for ladies who love ladies and T. Styles’ fans who appreciate a drama filled love story.

Summer Fling


Té Russ - 2020
    When Jade Sheppard rents a guesthouse near the beach for a week, her only plan is to study for the bar exam and avoid any and all distractions.But when she runs into Keenan Barker, her incredibly sexy host, she quickly realizes that he just might be a distraction that’s impossible to resist.

Girl Gurl Grrrl: On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic


Kenya Hunt - 2020
    But for every new milestone, every magazine cover, every box office record smashed, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living and working in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.Girl Gurl Grrrl both illuminates our current cultural moment and transcends it. Hunt captures the zeitgeist while also creating a timeless celebration of womanhood, of blackness, and the possibilities they both contain. She blends the popular and the personal, the frivolous and the momentous in a collection that truly reflects what it is to be living and thriving as a black woman today.

All the Things I Should Have Known


Tiffany L. Warren - 2020
    . . and done with trying to find "perfect" husbands. So why can't Hahna, Twila, and Kimberly have men strictly for friendship, companionship—and especially mind-blowing sex? Their solution: be sugar mamas to gorgeous young studs who promise the best of having it all. But the ladies soon find that real lust and no strings is way more complicated than they thought . . .All-business and all about the money, Hahna is drawn to Jovan, an aspiring writer. He's content with his work and Hahna, but her determination to make him appreciate the finest things in life could easily tear them apart. Cautious Kimberly is swept off her feet by handsome adrenaline-junkie Shawn—but an old flame from her past sparks an even more dangerous passion. And for Twila, a smokin'-hot Instagram model is fulfilling all her scandalous, insatiable dreams . . . until his high-maintenance demands and jealousy throw her life into chaos. Now Hahna, Kimberly, and Twila need to trust their instincts and their hearts to reclaim their joy—and the love they truly deserve.

The Delta Sisters


Kayla Perrin - 2004
    But Sylvia Grayson, the matriarch, has deep secrets that she represses under a veneer of keeping up appearances. She keeps a tight rein on her daughter, Olivia, and has the perfect life mapped out for her: go to college, join the Delta sorority, marry the proper boy. So when the town's bad girl is found murdered one summer day in 1975, Sylvia pulls Olivia even closer. But when Olivia's one last attempt at rebellion is subverted by her mother, Sylvia's relentlessly tight control shatters the ties between them. Years later, Olivia's own daughter, Rachelle, is trying to make her way in the world. Olivia does not want to make the same mistakes as her mother, nor does she want her daughter to make the same errors Olivia made out of rebellion. Meanwhile, a killer is watching from the shadows, determined to keep the secrets of the past from coming to light. The Delta Sisters is a spellbinding, intimate portrait of what happens when these passionate women have to join together at last in the face of danger.

In This Moment (The Things Unseen Book 1)


K. Lashaun - 2021
    

The Hunger Games Discussion Guide


Scholastic Inc. - 2012
    The Official Hunger Games Reading Group Guide from Scholastic includes a wide variety of questions that are sure to spark conversation in book clubs and among friends!

In Too Deep


Dwayne S. Joseph - 2007
    'In Too Deep' is a gripping novel about three brothers who choose very different life paths.

Higher Love


Alexandria House - 2016
     Tall, handsome, and successful in his own right, Derek Hill is dealing with some serious relationship problems as well. When their paths cross, they mutually, but unofficially, decide to share a night—or three or four—of anonymous pleasure. Will they end up experiencing much more than either of them bargained for?

Happily Ever Afters


Mila Nicks - 2020
    But there's a problem. A family secret is revealed that threatens to ruin everything. With the help of a good friend, Juliette is determined to make the wedding happen, slowly arriving at an ending she's never expected: a happily ever after of her own.

81st & Clarke: The Clarke Brothers Collection


Christina C. Jones - 2020
    

Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority


Tom Burrell - 2010
    In fact, they are much more. They are survivors of the Middle Passage and centuries of humiliation and deprivation, who have excelled against the odds, constantly making a way out of “No way!” At this pivotal point in history, the idea of black inferiority should have had a “Going-Out-of-Business Sale.” After all, Barack Obama has reached America’s Promised Land.Yet, as Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority testifies, too many in black America are still wandering in the wilderness. In this powerful examination of “the greatest propaganda campaign of all time”—the masterful marketing of black inferiority, aka the BI Complex—Burrell poses ten disturbing questions that will make black people look in the mirror and ask why, nearly 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, so many blacks still think and act like slaves. Burrell’s acute awareness of the power of words and images to shift, shape, and change the collective consciousness has led him to connect the contemporary and historical dots that have brought us to this crossroads. Brainwashed is not a reprimand—it is a call to action. It demands that we question our self-defeating attitudes and behaviors. Racism is not the issue; how we respond to media distortions and programmed self-hatred is the issue. It’s time to reverse the BI campaign with a globally based initiative that harnesses the power of new media and the wisdom of intergenerational coalitions. Provocative and powerful, Brainwashed dares to expose the wounds so that we, at last, can heal.