A popular comedian shares his acerbic and opinionated observations on his family, marriage, sports, music, comedy and film careers, Hollywood, and other aspects of modern life.

"My granddaddy would get mad at all of us. He couldn't just get mad at one of us. 'Ain't nobody got... You know what? Go to bed! All y'all, go to bed!' It'd be like two o'clock in the afternoon. 'Go to bed!'" Bernie Mac, the royal king of the Original Kings of Comedy, is salty and pissed off. The Chicago-bred performer has issues to get off his chest, and he doesn't mince words when he lets loose. No surprise, his live appearances have earned him a reputation as perhaps the truest voice of modern humor. Now, Mac has captured his comedic genius in print with his hilarious debut book. Tearing through a wide range of topics with equal parts insight and irreverence, Bernie Mac shares views that may not sit well with everyone -- especially if you're caught in the crosshairs of his rants ("Kids today don't get the kind of injuries we used to get as children -- cut, bruised. Now, these lil' muh'fuckas just continuously get shot"). Still, his way of looking at the world will probably make you think and it's all but guaranteed to make you laugh. Taking on superstar athletes, the movie business, his fellow comedians, his marriage, and his friends and family ("You always knew when your grandmother was at home because her wig was on that little Styrofoam stand"), Mac unleashes side-splitting riffs on sex, religion, hygiene, money, and more. Nobody is safe; nothing is sacred. Not even Bernie himself. Throughout I Ain't Scared Of You, Mac turns his humor inward, firing off self-deprecating salvos about his golf game, his own personal hypocrisies, even his sexual prowess -- "Women got toys...You can't compete with no dildo." Mac's insights have earned him critical acclaim and international popularity. Now, I Ain't Scared Of You captures Bernie Mac's humor whole -- unadorned, unpretentious, and unafraid.

"Bernie recounts his slow rise to stardom, from doing stand-up at a church dinner at age eight to performing in amateur open-mike nights to earning a regular gig at Chicago's Cotton Club, and eventually to entertaining huge audiences on stage and in film and on television" (dust jacket).

Listen up y’all. Bernie Mac is back, and this here is his page-a-day prescription for a better life and career. You wanna be successful, don’t ya? All you gotta do is read one page a day. So come on, let’s start your edumacation right now. Are y’all ready to get yourself together? It’s time for you to start livin’ your best life, and all you gotta do is read one got-d*mn page a day. You think you can handle that? Sure you can. You can do anything you wanna do, but you never gonna hit a home run if you ain’t steppin’ up to the plate. You got yourself a dream? You got a vision? There ain’t no sugarcoatin’ it. The only one who’s gonna make it happen is you, but this book is gonna help. It’s alright—we all need a little help once in a while. I Don’t Care if You Like Me, I Like Me is 365 days of Bernie Mac tellin’ it like it T-I-Iz. You gonna be gettin’ some of his best advice, his personal stories showin’ y’all that what he’s tellin’ you works, and some commentary from Rhonda ’cuz that woman knows what's up. We’re talkin’ about bein’ your best self, gettin’ better in your relationships, findin’ your place in the world, and openin’ up that door to plentitude. So, the choice is yours. Are you ready to be the best sumb*tch you can be? You wanna be happy and successful? You got somethin’ more important goings on right now? Quit procrasternatin’ and do it. “Bernie Mac had a way of telling it straight that made you listen and made you think. He was genuine, always positive, and truly cared if you were okay. I Don’t Care if You Like Me, I Like Me is an undeniably funny and poignant strategy for reaching your fullest potential one day at a time.” —Courtney B. Vance, Multi-Award-Winning Actor of Stage and Screen “I’ve never seen anything like I Don’t Care if You Like Me, I Like Me. This book is self-help, Chicago-style. It’s the perfect combination of comedy and truth, just like you’d expect from Bernie Mac.” —Sherri Shepherd, Award-Winning Actress, Comedian, and Talk Show Host “I Don’t Care if You Like Me, I Like Me is some straight-talking truth from the no-holds-barred Bernie Mac. His self-help approach makes you want to do exactly that—help yourself! His raw honesty will make you laugh, cry and possibly rethink your entire life.” —Kym Whitley, American comedian and actress

0nce upon a time, there was a little old lady who was not afraid of anything! But one autumn night, while walking in the woods, the little old lady heard . . . CLOMP, CLOMP, SHAKE, SHAKE, CLAP, CLAP. And the little old lady who was not afraid of anything had the scare of her life!

Imprisonment became a badge of honor for many protestors during the civil rights movement. With the popularization of expressions such as "jail-no-bail" and "jail-in," civil rights activists sought to transform arrest and imprisonment from something to be feared to a platform for the cause. Beyond Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letters from the Birmingham Jail," there has been little discussion on the incarceration experiences of civil rights activists. In her debut book, Zoe Colley does what no historian has done before by following civil rights activists inside the southern jails and prisons to explore their treatment and the different responses that civil rights organizations had to mass arrest and imprisonment. Colley focuses on the shift in philosophical and strategic responses of civil rights protestors from seeing jail as something to be avoided to seeing it as a way to further the cause. Imprisonment became a way to expose the evils of segregation, and highlighted to the rest of American society the injustice of southern racism. By drawing together the narratives of many individuals and organizations, Colley paints a clearer picture how the incarceration of civil rights activists helped shape the course of the movement. She places imprisonment at the forefront of civil rights history and shows how these new attitudes toward arrest continue to impact contemporary society and shape strategies for civil disobedience.

Charlamagne Tha God, New York Times bestselling author of Black Privilege and always provocative cohost of Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, reveals his blueprint for breaking free from your fears and anxieties. Being “shook” is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne, it’s his mission to overcome. While it may seem like he’s ahead of the game, he is actually plagued by anxieties, such as the fear of losing his roots, the fear of being a bad dad, and the fear of being a terrible husband. In the national bestseller Shook One, Charlamagne chronicles his journey to beat those fears and shows a path that you too can take to overcome the anxieties that may be holding you back. Ironically, Charlamagne’s fear of failure—of falling into the life of stagnation or crime that caught up so many of his friends and family in his hometown of Moncks Corner—has been the fuel that has propelled him to success. However, even after achieving national prominence as a radio personality, Charlamagne still found himself paralyzed by anxiety and distrust. Here, in Shook One, he is working through these problems—many of which he traces back to cultural PTSD—with help from mentors, friends, and therapy. Being anxious doesn’t serve the same purpose anymore. Through therapy, he’s figuring out how to get over the irrational fears that won’t take him anywhere positive. Charlamange hopes Shook One can be a call to action: Getting help is your right. His second book “cements the radio personality’s stance in making sure he’s on the right side of history when it comes to society’s growing focus on mental health, while helping remove the negative stigma” (Billboard).