Showing results by narrator "Adenrele Ojo" in All Categories

Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.

A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler offers a blueprint for a creative life from the perspective of award-winning science-fiction writer and “MacArthur Genius” Octavia E. Butler. It is a collection of ideas about how to look, listen, breathe - how to be in the world. 

An inspiring exploration of the goddesses of the West African spiritual traditions and their role in shaping Yoruba (Ifa), Santeria, Haitian vodoun, and New Orleans voodoo.

Jessica Anderson has been my best friend since college. A single mom who found herself mixed up with a dangerous man years ago, she’s been living a safe, quiet life in Miami after helping police put him behind bars. We both knew her safety, and that of her daughter, was reliant on him staying locked up. So when I see an alert that he’s escaped from his maximum security prison, I know where he’s heading to exact his revenge. Now it’s a race against time to get to Jessica before he does.

In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock - the "Widow of the South" - has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. But when her ambitious, politically minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah - no stranger to loss - finds her world once more breaking apart. How could this happen? Who wanted him dead?

In Revolutionary Power, Shalanda Baker arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. She argues that people of color, poor people, and indigenous people must engage in the creation of the new energy system in order to upend the unequal power dynamics of the current system.

For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.

This scorching collection from award-winning author Thom Jones features his best new short fiction alongside a selection of outstanding stories from three previous books. Jones's stories are full of high-octane, prose-drunk entertainment. His characters are grifters and drifters, rogues and ne'er-do-wells, would-be do-gooders whose human frailties usually get the better of them. Some are lovable, others are not, but each has an indelible and irresistible voice. They include Vietnam soldiers, amateur boxers, and veterans of the psych ward, and more.

Things were going a little too well for Dylan Delacroix. After upstaging her boss on a big account, she gets dispatched to the last place she wants to be: her hometown, Seattle. There, she must use her superstar corporate-consulting skills to curb the worst impulses of an impossibly eccentric tech CEO - if she doesn’t, she’s fired. The fun doesn’t stop there: Dylan must also negotiate a ceasefire in the endless war between her bohemian parents and the straitlaced neighbors.

Professional distance runners Elvin Kibet and Shadrack Kipchirchir grew up in rural Kenyan villages. Though their lives began in poverty, both were driven to reach their full potential, to gain an education, and make a difference. And they would find their way to do just that through the high-pressure world of distance running.

Tiffanie has lived a sheltered life in a very strict household with her pastor grandfather and her grandmother in Washington, DC. But when she meets Damon, she falls for the successful entertainment businessman despite his history as a drug dealer. Everyone sees a bright future for the couple - yet when Tiffanie meets Trey, her lustful feelings leave her confused just days before her wedding....

In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones spans Josephine Baker's early years in servitude and poverty in America to her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt to her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century comes to stunning life on the page. With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings Josephine Baker into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor.

Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War II. Her family inhabits the upper echelon of black society, and when she falls for no-name Renard, she is forced to choose between her life of privilege and the man she loves. In 1982, Evelyn's daughter Jackie is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent husband's drug addiction. Just as she comes to terms with his abandoning the family, he returns, ready to resume their old life.

I fake laugh every time I think about how ironic it is to be a commitment-phobe relationship therapist who is also the daughter of two world-renowned marriage and family counselors. Seriously, it's comical! Want to know how I messed up my life? Getting arrested for stealing a priceless artifact for a tearful client. Want to know what my biggest problem is? Spending my life teaching women how to break relationships when all I want to do is make a relationship—with him.

A wide range of women—actors, athletes, academics, CEOs, writers, small-business owners, birth workers, physicians, and activists—share their experiences of becoming mothers in this multifaceted, moving, and revealing collection.

Bootlegging was Milton and Yvonne Hamilton's ticket out of poverty, prison time, and plain bad luck. Now they've moved on - to a bigger, richer pool of clientele - right in their own respectable new middle-class backyard. And their growing friendship with seemingly-perfect couple Joyce and Odell Watson is proving golden in more ways than one. As Milton soon learns, Odell is hiding an outside family and dubious business dealings. It's the perfect recipe for a blackmail scheme that will help Milton hide his own dirty secrets - even from Yvonne....

Think the most critical factor for becoming a great entrepreneur is grit, risk taking, or technical skills? Think again. Despite what every other business book might say, historical data show the real secret ingredients to getting ahead in business are being rich, white, and male. Until now. Leapfrog is the decades-overdue start-up bible for the rest of us. It's filled with uncompromising guidance for winning at business your way. Leapfrog is for entrepreneurs of all stripes who are fed up with status quo advice.

Stable, safe, predictable—all words that aptly describe Professor Nadia Day’s life. An existence she’s carefully crafted for herself despite her unconventional upbringing and what, to her, is an unseemly past. The last thing she would ever do is rock the boat when it comes to her life and livelihood. When retired football player and single dad, Nathan Moore, walks into her psychology classroom, all fine and dreadlocked, he does more than rock her boat—he rocks her world and causes her to question her buttoned-up existence.

A call to action from Jane Fonda, one of the most inspiring activists of our time, urging us to wake up to the looming disaster of climate change and equipping us with the tools we need to join her in protest.

Take off on a new adventure and find out more about what really happened on Hilo's world with HILO--the hilarious, action-packed New York Times bestselling graphic novel series that kids love!