Books like No ashes in the fire by Darnell L. Moore

James Baldwin’s 1963 essay collection, written as two letters for the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, confronts America’s racial injustices and urges both black and white citizens to confront the legacy of racism.

A powerful anthology of essays by Audre Lorde that traces her intellectual evolution, highlights her advocacy for minority women writers, and examines the intersections of sex, race, and class.

A coming‑of‑age memoir where George M. Johnson shares his childhood, teen, and college experiences as a Black queer man, addressing identity, family, and social challenges.

Hilton Als assembles sharp literary and cultural criticism to portray the complex figure he calls "white girls," spanning writers, artists, and public icons.

Saeed Jones’ memoir, winner of the Kirkus Prize and Stonewall Book Award, traces the journey of a young black gay man from the South as he navigates family, love, and identity across America.

A powerful biography recounts Albert Woodfox’s 41 years of solitary confinement at Louisiana State Penitentiary—Alcatraz of the South—for a crime he never committed.

Jesmyn Ward reflects on the loss of five young men—friends and family—who died to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the compounded hardships of poverty, racism and economic struggle in Mississippi.

Benny Imura and friends discover a false sanctuary and a scientist who may hold a cure for a zombie plague, while hostile reapers pursue the same secret to weaponize the undead.

A powerful memoir of survival, resilience, and activism, chronicling Darnell L. Moore's journey from deadly harassment as a gay teenager in Camden, NJ, to his emergence as a celebrated writer and Black Lives Matter advocate.

Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967) was one of the most accomplished composers in the history of American music, the creator of a body of work that includes such standards as "Take the 'A' Train," "Lush Life," and "Something to Live For." Yet all his life Strayhorn was overshadowed by another great composer: his employer, friend, and collaborator, Duke Ellington, with whom he worked as the Ellington Orchestra's ace songwriter and arranger. Lush Life, David Hajdu's sensitive and moving biography of Strayhorn, is a corrective to decades of patchwork scholarship and journalism about this giant of jazz. It is also a vibrant, absorbing account of the "lush life" led by Strayhorn and other jazz musicians in Harlem and Paris. A musical prodigy who began a career as a composer while still a teenager in Pittsburgh, Strayhorn came to New York City at Duke Ellington's invitation in 1939; soon afterward he wrote "'A' Train," which became the signature song of the Ellington Orchestra, one of the most popular jazz bands in the country. For the next three decades, Strayhorn labored under a complex agreement whereby Ellington thrived in the role of public artist to Strayhorn's private one, often taking the bows for Strayhorn's work. Strayhorn was alternately relieved to be kept out of the limelight and frustrated about it. In Harlem and in the cafe society downtown, the small, shy black composer carried himself with singular style and grace as one of the few jazzmen to be openly homosexual. His compositions and elegant arrangements made him a hero to other musicians, but when he died at age fifty-two, his life cut short by alcohol abuse and cancer, few people fully understood the vital role he played in the Ellington Orchestra's development into a vehicle for some of the greatest, most ambitious American music of this century.

A biography of Bayard Rustin, focusing on his work as a civil rights organizer and strategist, including his role in the Montgomery bus boycott and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Casey Gerald’s memoir traces his journey from a black evangelical church in Dallas to Yale, Wall Street, and Washington, revealing how privilege and discrimination shape an African-American man’s rise and his awareness of systemic injustice.

Michael Arceneaux’s witty and candid essay collection chronicles his journey as a Black gay man—from growing up in Houston and coming out to his mother, to confronting societal prejudice—offering sharp social commentary and humor on minority life in America.