A New York Public Library and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X’s influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he ...

From the bestselling author of The Afterlife of Malcolm X comes a brilliant, lively account of the Black Renaissance that burst forth in Pittsburgh from the 1920s through the 1950s—“Smoketown will appeal to anybody interested in black history and anybody who loves a good story…terrific, eminently readable…fascinating” (The Washington Post).Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble, but doom...

In a dramatic, moving work of historical reporting and personal discovery, Mark Whitaker, award-winning journalist, sets out to trace the story of what happened to his parents, a fascinating but star-crossed interracial couple, and arrives at a new understanding of the family dramas that shaped their lives—and his own.His father, “Syl” Whitaker, was the charismatic grandson of slaves who grew up the child of black undertakers from Pittsburgh and went on to become a...

Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenom...

The first major biography of an American icon, comedian Bill Cosby. Based on extensive research and in-depth interviews with Cosby and more than sixty of his closest friends and associates, it is a frank, fun and fascinating account of his life and historic legacy.Far from the gentle worlds of his routines or TV shows, Cosby grew up in a Philadelphia housing project, the son of an alcoholic, largely absent father and a loving but overworked mother. With novelistic ...

The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place—Pittsburgh, PA—from the 1920s through the 1950s.Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country,...

Mark Whitaker's father, "Syl" Whitaker, was the charismatic grandson of slaves who grew up the child of black undertakers from Pittsburgh and went on to become a groundbreaking scholar of Africa. His mother, Jeanne Theis, was a shy World War II refugee from France whose father, a Huguenotpastor, helped hide thousands of Jews from the Nazis and Vichy police.They met in the mid-1950s, when he was a college student and she was his professor, and they carried on a secret romance...

A New York Public Library and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X’s influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he ...

Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenom...

A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea—a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation—this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway.Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal s...

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir by Clint Hill that Kirkus Reviews called “clear and honest prose free from salaciousness and gossip,” Jackie Kennedy’s personal Secret Service agent details his very close relationship with the First Lady during the four years leading up to and following President John F. Kennedy’s tragic assassination.In those four years, Hill was by Mrs. Kennedy’s side for some of the happiest moments as well as the darke...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Sarah's Key and A Secret Kept comes an absorbing new novel about one woman's resistance during an époque that shook Paris to its very core.Paris, France: 1860's. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moul...