What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day

What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2009-03-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061807176

This New York Times–bestselling novel is “lively, topical, and fantasy filled. Watch out, Terry McMillian. Cleage is on your tail” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living with the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild—her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines to be the end is, instead, a beginning. Because, in the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love. Acclaimed playwright, essayist, New York Times–bestselling author, and columnist Pearl Cleage has created a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding, in a remarkable novel that sizzles with sensuality, hums with gritty truth, and sings and crackles with life-affirming energy. “Very funny and charming . . . Following Cleage’s twists and turns of the human spirit, readers may find themselves on a very inspired and uplifted plane well before the last page.” —Washington Post Book World “Cleage . . . delivers a work of intelligence and integrity. . . . [A] memorable tale.” —-Publishers Weekly, starred review

Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do

Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2006-02-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345456084

Taking a job in Atlanta to save the family home, Regina Burns finds herself unable to forgive her new employer for ruining her wedding plans years earlier and finds herself falling for a handsome blue-eyed stranger whom her aunt predicted she would meet. Reprint.

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451664699

"An inspiring and revelatory memoir of juggling marriage, motherhood and politics as she worked to become a successful writer and self-fulfilled woman"--Provided by publisher.

Coffee Will Make You Black

Coffee Will Make You Black
Author: April Sinclair
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2015-08-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504018656

“A funny, fresh novel about growing up African-American in 1960s Chicago” by an author who “writes like Terry McMillan’s kid sister” (Entertainment Weekly). In this hilarious and insightful coming-of-age novel, author April Sinclair introduces the charming Jean “Stevie” Stevenson, a young woman raised on Chicago’s South Side during an era of irrevocable social upheaval. Curious and witty, bold but naïve, Stevie grows up debating the qualities of good hair and dark skin. As the years pass, her family and neighborhood are changed by the times, from the War on Poverty to race riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., from “Black Is Beautiful” to Black Power. Against this remarkable backdrop, Stevie makes the sometimes harrowing, often comic, always enthralling transformation into a young adult—socially aware, discovering her sexuality, and proud of her identity. “Whether she’s dealing with a subject as monumental as the civil rights movement or as intimate as Stevie’s first sexual encounters,” writes the Los Angeles Times, “Sinclair never fails to make you laugh and never sacrifices the narrative to make a point.” Winner of the Carl Sandburg Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library and named a best book of the year in young adult fiction by the American Library Association, Coffee Will Make You Black is an exquisite portrait of adolescence that will resonate with readers of all ages.

Just Wanna Testify

Just Wanna Testify
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2011
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345506367

Blue Hamilton, "godfather" of his Atlanta neighborhood where crime is unknown, becomes pitted against the "Too Fine Five," Amazonian African-American supermodels whose arrival in town spells trouble. Seems that when the vamps are done with their men, themen will be done ... for good.

We Speak Your Names

We Speak Your Names
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2009-03-25
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0307498646

For centuries, African American women have been remaking the world, giving testament to the power of hope, courage, and resilience. But it took the inspired generosity of Oprah Winfrey to honor fully the many gifts of sisterhood. For three amazing days–from May 13 to 15, 2005–a distinguished group of women was invited to celebrate the enduring achievements of twenty-five of their mentors and role models–and in the process pay tribute to the long, glorious tradition of African American accomplishment. The brilliant centerpiece of the weekend was the reading aloud of Pearl Cleage’s poem “We Speak Your Names,” written especially for the occasion and appearing here for the first time in this beautiful keepsake book. As deeply moving in print as it was during that weekend of love and praise, the poem names each of the women honored: Dr. Maya Angelou, Coretta Scott King, Diahann Carroll, Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, Rosa Parks, Katherine Dunham, and other legends of the brightest magnitude. With heartfelt eloquence, Pearl Cleage (herself a luminary of the younger generation) celebrates her distinguished elders’ strength, their magic, their sensuality, their loving kindness, their faith in themselves, and the priceless example of their lives. In her introduction, the poet shares: “My sisters, here, there, and everywhere, this poem is for you. Use it, adapt it, pass it on. . . .” Destined to become a classic, We Speak Your Names is a treasure to keep forever and a precious, inspiring gift for the ones you love.

Till You Hear from Me

Till You Hear from Me
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2010-04-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 034551971X

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Pearl Cleage's Just Wanna Testify and a Till You Hear from Me discussion guide. From the acclaimed Pearl Cleage, author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day . . . and Seen It All and Done the Rest, comes an Obama-era romance featuring a cast of unforgettable characters. Just when it appears that all her hard work on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is about to pay off with a White House job, thirty-five-year-old Ida B. Wells Dunbar finds herself on Washington, D.C.’s post-election sidelines even as her twentysomething counterparts overrun the West Wing. Adding to her woes, her father, the Reverend Horace A. Dunbar, Atlanta civil rights icon and self-described “foot soldier for freedom,” is notoriously featured on an endlessly replayed YouTube clip in which his pronouncements don’t exactly jibe with the new era in American politics. The Rev’s stinging words and myopic views don’t sound anything like the man who raised Ida to make her mark in the world. When friends call to express their concern, Ida realizes it’s time to head home and see for herself what’s going on. Besides, with her job prospects growing dimmer, getting out of D.C. for a while might be the smartest move she could make. Back in her old West End neighborhood, Ida runs into childhood friend and smooth political operator Wes Harper, also in town to pay a visit to the Reverend Dunbar, his mentor. Ida doesn’t trust Wes or his mysterious connections for one second, but she can’t deny her growing attraction to him. While Ida and the Rev try to find the balance between personal loyalties and political realities, they must do some serious soul searching in order to get things back on track before Wes permanently derails their best laid plans.

32 Candles

32 Candles
Author: Ernessa T. Carter
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2011-06-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061957852

Davie Jones—an ugly duckling growing up in small-town Mississippi with a mother who couldn't get any meaner—is positive her life couldn't be any worse. Just when she's resigned herself to her fate, she sees a movie that will change her life—Sixteen Candles. But in her case, life doesn't imitate art. Tormented in school and hopelessly in unrequited love with a handsome football player, Davie finds it bittersweet to dream of Molly Ringwald endings. When a cruel school prank goes too far, Davie leaves the life she knows and reinvents herself in the glittery world of Hollywood—as a beautiful and successful lounge singer. Just as she's about to ride off into the L.A. sunset, the past comes back with a vengeance, threatening to crush Davie's dreams—and break her heart again. With wholly original characters and a cinematic storyline, 32 Candles introduces Ernessa T. Carter, a new voice in fiction with smarts, attitude, and sassiness to spare.

Any Ordinary Day

Any Ordinary Day
Author: Leigh Sales
Publisher: Random House Australia
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2019-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143789961

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories--and a terrifying brush with her own mortality--sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next? In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who've faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humor. Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she's learned about coping with life's unexpected blows. Warm, candid, and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don't know we have.

Mad at Miles

Mad at Miles
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher:
Total Pages: 80
Release: 1990
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

"With directness and humor, Pearl Cleage takes an unblinking look at the current state of affairs between African American women and men and comes up with some insights and some solutions that may surprise you, but can change your life!"--Back cover.