From the author of the Oprah's Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is a beautifully evocative novel that proves why Tayari Jones is "one of the most important voices of her generation" (Essence). It was the end of summer, a summer during the two-year nightmare in which Atlanta's African-American children were vanishing and twenty-nine would be found murdered by 1982. Here fifth-grade classmates Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison will discover back-to-school means facing everyday challenges in a new world of safety lessons, terrified parents, and constant fear. The moving story of their struggle to grow up-and survive- shimmers with the piercing, ineffable quality of childhood, as it captures all the hurts and little wins, the all-too-sudden changes, and the merciless, outside forces that can sweep the young into adulthood and forever shape their lives. PRAISE FOR TAYARI JONES "Tayari Jones is blessed with vision to see through to the surprising and devastating truths at the heart of ordinary lives, strength to wrest those truths free, and a gift of language to lay it all out, compelling and clear." -- Michael Chabon "Tayari Jones has emerged as one of the most important voices of her generation." -- Essence "One of America's finest writers." -- Nylon.com "Tayari Jones is a wonderful storyteller." -- Ploughsharesspan

Georgia Center for the Book has chosen Atlanta Noir as one of 2018's Books All Georgians Should Read! Kenji Jasper's "A Moment of Clarity at the Waffle House" nominated for a 2018 Edgar Award for Best Short Story! "Atlanta has its share, maybe more than its share, of prosperity. But wealth is no safeguard against peril...Creepy as well as dark, grim in outlook...Hints of the supernatural may make these tales...appealing to lovers of ghost stories." --Kirkus Reviews "These stories, most of them by relative unknowns, offer plenty of human interest...All the tales have a Southern feel." --Publishers Weekly "Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta, returns to the South via Akashic's ever-growing city anthology series. The collection features stories from an impressive roster of talent including Jim Grimsley, Sheri Joseph, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms and David James Poissant. The 14 selections each take place in different Atlanta neighborhood." --Atlanta-Journal Constitution "Now comes Atlanta Noir, an anthology that masterfully blends a chorus of voices, both familiar and new, from every corner of Atlanta...The magic of Atlanta Noir is readily apparent, starting with the introduction Jones pens. It doesn’t rest solely upon the breadth of writers but on how their words, stories and references are so Atlanta--so very particular, so very familiar and so very readily, for those who know the city, nostalgic. And for those who don’t? The sense of place it captures inspires a desire to get to know Atlanta and its stories." --ArtsATL Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. This much-anticipated and long-overdue installment in Akashic's Noir Series reveals many sides of Atlanta known only to its residents. Brand-new stories by: Tananarive Due, Kenji Jasper, Tayari Jones, Dallas Hudgens, Jim Grimsley, Brandon Massey, Jennifer Harlow, Sheri Joseph, Alesia Parker, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms, John Holman, Daniel Black, and David James Poissant. From the introduction by Tayari Jones: Atlanta itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past... These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir...However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell, but are hell itself...Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda, or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up. Enjoy these stories, and watch your back.

From the memories of everyday experience, Living Atlanta vividly recreates life in the city during the three decades from World War I through World War II--a period in which a small, regional capital became a center of industry, education, finance, commerce, and travel. This profusely illustrated volume draws on nearly two hundred interviews with Atlanta residents who recall, in their own words, "the way it was"--from segregated streetcars to college fraternity parties, from moonshine peddling to visiting performances by the Metropolitan Opera, from the growth of neighborhoods to religious revivals. The book is based on a celebrated public radio series that was broadcast in 1979-80 and hailed by Studs Terkel as "an important, exciting project--a truly human portrait of a city of people." Living Atlanta presents a diverse array of voices--domestics and businessmen, teachers and factory workers, doctors and ballplayers. There are memories of the city when it wasn't quite a city: "Back in those young days it was country in Atlanta," musician Rosa Lee Carson reflects. "It sure was. Why, you could even raise a cow out there in your yard." There are eyewitness accounts of such major events as the Great Fire of 1917: "The wind blowing that way, it was awful," recalls fire fighter Hugh McDonald. "There'd be a big board on fire, and the wind would carry that board, and it'd hit another house and start right up on that one. And it just kept spreading." There are glimpses of the workday: "It's a real job firing an engine, a darn hard job," says railroad man J. R. Spratlin. "I was using a scoop and there wasn't no eight hour haul then, there was twelve hours, sometimes sixteen." And there are scenes of the city at play: "Baseball was the popular sport," remembers Arthur Leroy Idlett, who grew up in the Pittsburgh neighborhood. "Everybody had teams. And people--you could put some kids out there playing baseball, and before you knew a thing, you got a crowd out there, watching kids play." Organizing the book around such topics as transportation, health and religion, education, leisure, and politics, the authors provide a narrative commentary that places the diverse remembrances in social and historical context. Resurfacing throughout the book as a central theme are the memories of Jim Crow and the peculiarities of black-white relations. Accounts of Klan rallies, job and housing discrimination, and poll taxes are here, along with stories about the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, early black forays into local politics, and the role of the city's black colleges. Martin Luther King, Sr., historian Clarence Bacote, former police chief Herbert Jenkins, educator Benjamin Mays, and sociologist Arthur Raper are among those whose recollections are gathered here, but the majority of the voices are those of ordinary Atlantans, men and women who in these pages relive day-to-day experiences of a half-century ago.

From the author of the Oprah Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is an emotionally powerful novel that "succeeds mightily...truly a wonderful story" (Boston Globe). Aria is no stranger to tragedy -- as a young girl, she and her older sister and mother survived a car crash that took the lives of their father and beloved baby sister. And although relations with her remaining family are strained, she's done her best to establish a solid, normal life for herself, living in Atlanta and teaching literacy to girls who have fallen on hard times. But now she has a secret that she's not yet ready to share with Dwayne, her devoted boyfriend, or Rochelle, her roommate and best friend: Aria is pregnant. Or so she thinks. The truth is about to make her question her every assumption and reevaluate the life she has worked so hard to build for herself...as it sends her reeling in a direction she had no idea she was destined to go. Praise for Tayari Jones "Tayari Jones is blessed with vision to see through to the surprising and devastating truths at the heart of ordinary lives, strength to wrest those truths free, and a gift of language to lay it all out, compelling and clear." -- Michael Chabon "Tayari Jones has emerged as one of the most important voices of her generation." -- Essence "One of America's finest writers." -- Nylon.com "Tayari Jones is a wonderful storyteller." -- Ploughshares

The world is full of bad books written by amateurs. But why settle for the merely regrettable? Atlanta Nights is a bad book written by experts. -- T. Nielsen Hayden Atlanta Nights is a book that could only have been produced by an author well-versed in believable storylines, set in conditions that exist today, with believable every-day characters. Accepted by a Traditional Publisher, it is certain to resonate with an audience. It fits their specialty like a glove. All proceeds from this book go to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Emergency Medical Fund. Get the Tee-shirt http: //www.cafepress.com/atlanta_night

Porsha Williams, entrepreneur and one of today’s most recognizable media personalities, opens up about family, faith, fame, and becoming an agent for change. Porsha Williams is a remarkable voice in the television and podcast communities. In The Pursuit of Porsha, she takes readers on a deeply personal journey as she searches for happiness and self-acceptance, giving fans a first-hand look into the defining moments of her life that have not been captured on-screen or in the press. Charged with candor, vulnerability, and the sharp wit Porsha is known and loved for, The Pursuit of Porsha brings readers back to the beginning and along her path of self-reflection and discovery. She details her upbringing as the granddaughter of civil rights activist Hosea Williams and her painful recollections of childhood bullying and gives readers a look at her search for love and her journey into the spotlight. Porsha shares every moment that has tried–and restored –her faith, over and over again. Through it all, Porsha proves that she is more than a soundbite, headline, or rumor. She is an empowering role model to black women and an icon for women everywhere. In The Pursuit of Porsha, readers will see Porsha as they have never seen her before.

In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, was the site of cataclysmic racial violence: Police commissioner "Bull" Connor attacked black demonstrators with dogs and water cannons, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote his famous letter from the Birmingham jail, and four black children were killed in a church bombing. This incendiary period in Birmingham's history is the centerpiece of an intense and affecting memoir. A disaffected Birmingham native, Paul Hemphill decides to live in his hometown once again, to capture the events and essence of that summer and explore the depth of social change in Birmingham in the years since -- even as he tries to come to terms with his family, and with himself. -- back cover.