Akashic Books,U.S.

The Spirit of Ani is a captivating journey of intimate reflections with Ani DiFranco, a pathbreaking, highly original artist of our time. In this powerful collaborative work, the legendary folk-rock star and feminist icon is in conversation with author, artist, and cultural anthropologist Lauren Coyle Rosen. In these exchanges, Ani is remarkably open about her creativity, spirituality, personal experiences, and evolving consciousness. She is vulnerable and unapologetic, offering an unprecedented window into her fiercely prolific journeys. Expanding on themes from her best-selling memoir, Ani also offers fascinating reflections on contemporary popular culture - ranging from gender and queer politics, to the music industry in the virtual age, to climate change. The book includes previously unpublished photographs and journal entries, song-birth sheets, paintings, and the lyrics for some of her most treasured songs. The coauthors explore how Ani''s music and art are profoundly tied to her experiences of the interconnectedness of all consciousness and tuning in to receive creative inspiration. Ani''s striking openness produces a book that is both meditative and activating. This is a must-read for anyone intrigued by the dedication, intuition, and vision that drive Ani''s lifelong journey of creating art that not only reflects, but also empowers, transforms, and heals.

In this candid, often hilarious collection of true stories, political trailblazer Andrew Yang examines America''s breakdown through the lens of his unexpected journey from entrepreneur to presidential candidate. Part political memoir, part comedy, and part interior monologue, Hey Yang, Where''s My Thousand Bucks? captures the man''s unique ability to make complex ideas accessible and entertaining. ''In a world of bitter division and endless outrage,'' says Yang, ''this book is my attempt to break through the noise-with humor, honesty and heart... Think of it as an insider''s guide to smiling during crazy times.'' For anyone frustrated with traditional political narratives, curious about the human behind the headlines, or simply looking for a smart, laugh-out-loud exploration of trying to improve life in America, this book promises to enlighten, entertain, and inspire. It''s more than a memoir-it''s a blueprint for generating optimism in an extremely challenging era.

EVERETT AND KINCAID present a fictitious chronicle of the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond''s desire to pen a history of African Americans-his and his aides'' belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, A History of the African-American People (Proposed) follows the letters of loose-cannon congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house, and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic. Strom Thurmond appears charming and open, mad and sure of his place in American history.

THE POEMS IN 82ND DIVISION, written in various poetic forms such as the villanelle, sonnet, blues poem, duplex, ode, and dramatic monologue, among many others, are collectively a love song to the author''s native Nigeria-a former British colony. In the book, whose title poem chronicles the lives of West African soldiers who fought alongside the British in World War II, Aderibigbe examines his homeland''s colonized past with brutal clarity and striking musicality, and considers how this past continues to shape every facet of his life and contemporary Nigerian life-be it the holidays that are celebrated, the preferred language of interaction among peers and friends, how a mother expresses love to her child, or the type of movies and snacks consumed. Beyond its thematic unity, lustrous language, and formal virtuosity, this sparkling collection is tied together by Aderibigbe''s graceful exploration of the humanity of the people, landscape, and histories that populate the book''s pages.

LIBERALS WITH ATTITUDE DOCUMENTS THE SIXTEEN MONTHS IN 1991-92 between the brutal beating of Rodney King by four police officers that was captured on a home video camera and the resignation of LAPD chief Daryl Gates. Gates was reviled by the local Black and civil liberties communities because of the pattern of racism and brutality in the department, and he was uniquely powerful because of the structure of the Los Angeles City Charter and the secret files he kept on local politicians. The effort to get Gates to step down after thirteen years as chief and to amend the City Charter to prevent another unaccountable chief from amassing that much power was led by Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a former LAPD officer and the first Black mayor of the city. To overcome Gates''s entrenched power, Bradley assembled a team that included future US secretary of state Warren Christopher, the local ACLU, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and activists who saw the struggle against Gates as an important chapter in the civil rights movement. Much of the local media, especially the Los Angeles Times, was supportive of Bradley''s agenda, as was the burgeoning ''gangsta rap'' culture of LA, much of which emerged in reaction to the LAPD. Author Danny Goldberg was the chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California during those years and was personally acquainted with the leaders of the fight against Gates. He interviewed several dozen people who are still alive and got access to thousands of pages of documents among the papers of Stanley Sheinbaum, who was married to the heiress of the Warner Bros. film fortune. Sheinbaum was chosen by Mayor Bradley to be the president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, with the specific mission of getting Gates out of office. Goldberg''s insider saga demonstrates that cooperation between the political left and center is required to overcome white grievance and unaccountable power.

Christina falcone is a thirteen-year-old eighth grader at Precious Blood Junior High. She is growing up pazza according to her Italian immigrant mother, Rita, who curses a country that poisons children with chocolate milk and singing mice on television. The nuns at Precious Blood are giving Christina nightmares and facial tics with their daily descriptions of torture and martyrdom. All she wanted as a fourth grader was to become a saint so she could be God''s best friend and go straight to heaven and avoid burning in hell for all eternity. At thirteen, though, Christina''s nightmares about eyeless martyrs have become dreams of escaping this place where she can see the entire trajectory of her life looming before her in a never-ending hamster loop that goes from Precious Blood Elementary School to La Sposa Bridal Shoppe and eventually across the street to Carmello''s Funeral Home without ever leaving her neighborhood only seven miles from Boston. But Harvard Square beckons and Christina''s window to the world cracks open, along with the entire American culture of the 1960s, as she grows from girl to woman. Christina the Astonishing is an endearing look at an irrepressible character that will ring true to all readers regardless of the time or place they happened to take the roller-coaster ride to adulthood.

ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, in the United States, an average of twenty-four people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner, and one in three women have experienced some form of domestic violence. One of those women was Katrina Brownlee, who as a twenty-two-year-old mother of two experienced hell at the hands of her then-fiance. He was a law enforcement officer - a group two to four times more likely than the general population to be abusive, and who are known for protecting their own. During his dangerous outbursts, Brownlee would call the police for help, only to see the cops turn their backs on her when her abuser flashed his badge. On a cold January morning in 1993, her fiance shot her ten times and left her for dead. Brownlee could have been just one more of the eleven women/girls killed per minute worldwide by a loved one. Instead, miraculously, she survived. Through hard work, faith, and perseverance, she recovered from her injuries and found a path through her trauma. She decided to become a police officer to help others in her situation, to be the ''good cop'' who had not been there for her when she had needed saving. In 2021, she retired from a highly decorated twenty-year career with the NYPD. As the founder of a support group for at-risk young women, Young Ladies of Our Future, Brownlee decided that the time had come to tell her story - the whole story - a story of self-empowerment, of healing generational trauma, and of turning pain into hope for herself and her community.

BASKETBALL ON NEW YORK CITY''S 700+ OUTDOOR COURTS was bubbling during the seventies and eighties and coincided with the birth of hip-hop and sneaker culture. Bobbito Garcia came of age during this era and caught an uncontrollable fever to be a ballplayer, witnessing firsthand the gumbo of sports, music, and fashion in the local parks. The game influenced his style, language, movement, creative thought, and, in a personal manner, his well-being. He couldn''t go anywhere without a ball in his hand, practice shorts under his pants, and kicks on his feet, ready for action at any point, any day (including his first job interview). In the 1990s, Bobbito became a world-famous hip-hop radio host as well as the progenitor of sneaker journalism, but his world never stopped revolving around living and breathing at every local court he could find. Simultaneously, the outdoor basketball aesthetic emerged as a force in the sports/entertainment/footwear industry, a catalyst to market authenticity when a brand wanted to garner street credibility. Bobbito stood firmly at this cross section of subcultures, not only as a historian, photographer, writer, filmmaker, and active participant, but as a curator of the shift itself. Advertising legend John Jay, former global creative director at Wieden+Kennedy, called Garcia his ''cultural DJ'' after they collaborated on Nike''s groundbreaking ''NYC City Attack'' ad campaign. The lifestyle of the park pickup player, now exposed, went on to impact the world, and the ripple effect could even be seen on the hardwood floors of the NBA. In 2013, the New York Times referred to Bobbito as ''an ardent ambassador for New York City street basketball.'' This book is an intimate view into his life as a ballplayer, announcer, and performer. It doubles as a profound document for the unspoken folklore and history of the outdoor game, while speaking volumes to the roots of Garcia''s favorite pastime - putting up jumpers and getting busy with the rock in his hands. In his words: Basketball is a religion. The park is my church...

Paradise Once traces the aftermath of the massacre by Spanish forces of the fictional Maima village in Cuba in 1513. Some believe the destruction of Maima is the result of angering the cemies - Taino spiritual entities - when foreign practices, contrary to the sacred laws of the Taino, began to infiltrate the village. Four young people who survive the massacre are unwittingly chosen by the cemies to save a Sacred Bundle and return it to a cave in the Cauta mountain, the mythological place the Taino are believed to have come from: Sekou, an enslaved African born in Spain who has aligned himself with the Taino resistance; Night Orchid, a young girl and the reluctant bearer of the Sacred Bundle; the young Taino noble Heart of Palm; and finally Flint, whose mother is part of the ''Old Ones,'' a remnant group of people on the islands displaced by the Taieno. The four survivors start off on separate paths and only learn of their roles in the sacred mission when they unite at the holy site and encounter the Maima shaman Candlewood. Under the direction of the cemies, Candlewood guides them into the cave, where the ''dark'' shaman Shark Tooth - who has sold his soul to the underworld powers-awaits. As they progress on their journey, Candlewood informs them of the leadership roles they are destined to play in the preservation of the Taino culture. In time, they will together defend the heartland as resistance fighters who will become known in history as Cimarrones or Maroons. But first they must defeat Shark Tooth in a life-or-death battle for the possession of the Bundle in the sacred ball court at Cauta, the fate of the entire Taino people in their hands.

In the early 1970s, Poe - a quick-witted young juggler from rural Massachusetts - abandons the talent shows of his childhood in favor of a nomadic life. He hops trains, hitchhikes, lives on the streets, sleeps rough, and juggles to feed himself. A few years before, he would have been a hobo; a few decades later, he would have been homeless; but in 1973, he is just a street-juggling hippie. After roaming the country for a few years, Poe settles in Philadelphia and masters his street act before ever-growing crowds. In time, he runs all the busking around South Street like the don of a street-performing mafia. But his talent at manipulating crowds attracts the attention of a criminal organization who convince him to provide a diversion during a bank heist for a payday far greater than the coins he collects in his hat. Things go south, an innocent bystander is killed, and this peacelove talking hippie is now a felony murderer. He splits town and goes into hiding, but he can''t resist the lure of the crowd, and resurfaces under a pseudonym in Hibbing, Minnesota, drawing large crowds as a regular performer at a Renaissance Fair(e). Unfortunately, his notoriety outs him to the criminal organization who believes he took something of importance from them during the heist. Using all of the wit and misdirection that has made him the best street performer anyone has ever seen, Poe must outsmart and outmaneuver them in order to return to the peaceful life of juggling. Felony Juggler is an accurate depiction of the streets and street performing in the 1970s, told with the excursive and a-little-too-honest style of Penn Jillette - who was, just coincidently, in his own words, a street juggler and carny trash in the 1970s. Like his previous novel Random, Jillette''s intellectual curiosity, twisting morality, and honed stagecraft fuel a madcap narrative brimming with his renowned humor.

In interficial artelligence: moments that met me, Chuck D presents his encounters with some of his greatest heroes and other public figures. These seminal moments in Chuck D''s life include: an editorial meeting with John F. Kennedy Jr.; presenting an award to Davie Bowie; being recruited by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay to act in a film; eating chips and guac with Quincy Jones; being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Harry Belafonte; lobbying on Capitol Hill with Anita Baker; musical collaborations with Prince, Sheryl Crow, Janet Jackson, Erykah Badu, and John Mellencamp; and visiting Mumia Abu-Jamal in prison. Chuck D says, ''For a Person like myself - an aged distance beyond a half century of life on Earth - I have experienced a vast array of People, Places & Things. The memories are always a looping swirl in my mind. I''m often asked about them and I consider myself a decent storyteller. As an illustrator, I''m able to recreate that point of view as I saw it. So Interficial ARTelligence: Moments That Met Me is a tale with images from my Perspective in a time when so many people listen with their eyes.'' Chuck''s beautiful illustrations and remarkable commentary also include his cross-pollinations with: music industry titans like Berry Gordy and Ahmet Ertegun; musical icons Madonna, the Notorious B.I.G., the Rolling Stones, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, Mavis Staples, Michael Stipe, Ice Cube, Patti LaBelle, Lenny Kravitz, and LL Cool J; athletes Michael Jordan, Shaquille O''Neal, Julius Erving, Barry Bonds, and Barry Sanders; entertainers/actors Oprah Winfrey, Joan Rivers, Jeremy Piven, Dick Gregory, Robin Williams, Warren Beaty, Alec Baldwin, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, and Spike Lee; political figures like Angela Davis and Jesse Jackson; and many more.

Alice Coltrane (1937 2007) was a composer, master of various musical instruments, improviser, spiritual leader, and wife of John Coltrane. Throughout her adult life, she worked within and combined a broad range of musical genres, including gospel, R&B, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. She recorded more than twenty full-length albums for Impulse and Warner Bros. Her music speaks to her experiences as a child playing for church congregations in Detroit; the transcendent and mind-bending avant-garde improvisations she performed with her husband John Coltrane; and her religious pilgrimages to India. When Monument Eternal was originally published in 1977, Alice Coltrane was living in Southern California and had recently become a swami, building and nurturing an alternative spiritual community. In these pages, she says that the book is ''based upon the soul''s realizations in Absolute Consciousness and its spiritual relationships with the Supreme One.'' Monument Eternal offers deep insight into Coltrane''s tremendous musical output, and shines a light on her transformation from Alice McLeod, Detroit church organist and bebopper, to sage thought leader Swami Turiyasangitananda. It also reflects the extraordinary fluidity of American religious customs in the mid and late twentieth century. Akashic''s long-awaited reissue of Monument Eternal will include a new introduction from a notable writer.