Washoe County Library System

Fifty-seven short stories drawn from past collections celebrate the lifelong significance of this major American writer’s essential contribution to a form—illuminating the ways that he has made it his own.

An award–winning writer traces the life of the father of iconic Civil Rights martyr Emmett Till—a man who was executed by the Army ten years before Emmett’s murder. An evocative and personal exploration of individual and collective memory in America by one of the most formidable Black intellectuals of our time.

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

'Stories, both my own and those I've taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I've become,' Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is 'a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.' Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston,...

In this book Zora Neale Hurston records the voices of ordinary people and pays tribute to the richness of Black vernacular--its crisp self-awareness, singular wit, and improvisational wordplay. These folk-tales reflect the joys and sorrows of the African-American experience, celebrate the redemptive power of storytelling, and showcase the continuous presence in America of the Africanized language that flourishes to this day.

This documentary follows two inner-city basketball phenoms' lives through high school as they chase their dreams of playing in the NBA.