A personal remembrance from the preeminent chronicler of Black life in Appalachia.

Bernice L. McFadden has been named the Go On Girl! Book Club's 2018 Author of the Year WINNER of the 2017 American Book Award WINNER of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction) 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee (Fiction)! A Washington Post Notable Book of 2016 "McFadden uses the experiences of her own ancestors as loose inspiration for the life of Harlan, whom she portrays from his childhood in Harlem through imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp and his struggles afterward to put his life back together." --Library Journal "Simply miraculous...As her saga becomes ever more spellbinding, so does the reader's astonishment at the magic she creates. This is a story about the triumph of the human spirit over bigotry, intolerance and cruelty, and at the center of The Book of Harlan is the restorative force that is music." --Washington Post "Bernice L. McFadden took me on a melodious literary journey through time and place in her masterpiece, The Book of Harlan. It's complex, real, and raw...McFadden intricately and purposefully weaves history as a backdrop in her fiction. The Book of Harlan brilliantly explores questions about agency, purpose, freedom, and survival." --Literary Hub, one of Nicole Dennis-Benn's 26 Books From the Last Decade that More People Should Read "McFadden's writing breaks the heart--and then heals it again. The perspective of a black man in a concentration camp is unique and harrowing and this is a riveting, worthwhile read." --Toronto Star "The Book of Harlan is an incredible read. Bernice McFadden...has created an amazing novel that speaks to lesser known aspects of the African-American experience and illuminates the human heart and spirit. Her spare prose is rich in details that convey deep emotions and draw the reader in. This fictional narrative of Harlan Elliot's life is firmly grounded amidst real people and places--prime historical fiction, and the best book I have read this year." --Historical Novels Review, Editors' Choice "McFadden packs a powerful punch with tight prose and short chapters that bear witness to key events in early twentieth-century history: both World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Great Migration. Partly set in the Jim Crow South, the novel succeeds in showing the prevalence of racism all across the country--whether implemented through institutionalized mechanisms or otherwise. Playing with themes of divine justice and the suffering of the righteous, McFadden presents a remarkably crisp portrait of one average man's extraordinary bravery in the face of pure evil." --Booklist, Starred review The Book of Harlan opens with the courtship of Harlan's parents and his 1917 birth in Macon, Georgia. After his prominent minister grandfather dies, Harlan and his parents move to Harlem, where he eventually becomes a professional musician. When Harlan and his best friend, trumpeter Lizard Robbins, are invited to perform at a popular cabaret in the Parisian enclave of Montmartre--affectionately referred to as "The Harlem of Paris" by black American musicians--Harlan jumps at the opportunity, convincing Lizard to join him. But after the City of Light falls under Nazi occupation, Harlan and Lizard are thrown into Buchenwald--the notorious concentration camp in Weimar, Germany--irreparably changing the course of Harlan's life. Based on exhaustive research and told in McFadden's mesmeric prose, The Book of Harlan skillfully blends the stories of McFadden's familial ancestors with those of real and imagined characters.

Based on years of research and thousands of notes left by John Bennett, Mr. Skylark is an unusually intimate biography of a pivotal figure in the Charleston Renaissance, the brief period between the two World Wars that first witnessed many of the cultural and artistic changes soon to sweep the South. The book not only examines Bennett's life but also reveals the rich tapestry of the literary and social history of Charleston. An outsider who became an insider by marrying into the local aristocracy, Bennett was perfectly placed to observe social and artistic change and to prompt it. He published the first scholarly treatise on Gullah, the language of the coastal Southern blacks, and collected African American spirituals and tales. But after breaking several racial taboos of the time, he was publicly condemned, and it was only through mentoring such writers as Hervey Allen and DuBose Heyward that he was eventually welcomed back into the heart of the city. Today, the Charleston aesthetic, which mourned the loss of beauty in a modernizing South, is often overlooked in the study of Southern literature, but Bennett, through his extensive private correspondence and notes, offers insight into the forces that shaped this cultural movement. Restored to us in all his complexity and humor, Bennett is important for his own accomplishments, but also for providing a lens through which to view southern literary history and the complexities of a changing South.

William Turner's memoir focusing on Black life in the coal company towns in and around Harlan County, Kentucky, during coal's postwar boom years

NOW A NETFLIX SERIES! The bestselling author and creator of the hit Netflix dramas Fool Me Once and The Stranger proves that the past never truly fades away in this shocking thriller. Megan is a suburban soccer mom who once upon a time walked on the wild side. Ray used to be a talented documentary photographer but now finds himself in a dead-end job posing as a paparazzo. Broome is a detective who can’t let go of a cold case. Each is hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect. When the terrible consequences of long-ago events threaten to ruin their quiet suburban lives, they will come to the startling realization that they may not want to forget the past at all. As Megan, Ray, and Broome are faced with the excitement of temptation and the desperation and hunger that can lurk behind even the prettiest facades—they will discover a hard truth: the line between one kind of life and another can be as whisper-thin as a heartbeat.

A festschrift prepared for the occasion of musicologist Lewis Lockwood's 65th birthday. The volume's 27 contributions, written by Lockwood's students and American colleagues, cover topics including tonal color in Dufay; notes on a Josquin motet and its sources; the Florentine madrigal, 1540-60; and a model for a changing aesthetic in the chansons of Loyset Compere. An appendix lists Lockwood's publications on Renaissance music.

Even people who don't know football know who 'Gazza' is. The man born as Paul John Gascoigne to a working-class family in the North-East has found headlines on the front pages almost as often as the back pages throughout his life, thanks in great part to his more than colourful lifestyle. But it is for his time as a footballer of the very highest order that Gazza's name will forever live in sporting history. During a career that spanned more than ten different clubs, among them Newcastle United, Tottenham, Lazio and Rangers, and which included countless unforgettable England performances, Gazza established himself as one of the sport's all-time greats: a master of skill, flair and invention like none that his country had produced before nor perhaps ever will again. Told in Gazza's own unique voice and fully illustrated with hundreds of photos from the moments that he feels defined his career,Glorious: My World, Football and Meis a celebration, offering an unrivalled insight into the mind of this greatest of footballers.