"A dazzling, unforgettable novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system-a debut that announces a blazingly original voice. Kiara Johnson and her brother Marcus are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex that calls itself, optimistically, the Royal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus...

Urban and rural collide in this wry, inspiring memoir of a woman who turned a vacant lot in downtown Oakland into a thriving farm
Novella Carpenter loves cities-the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard...

"In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the U.S., the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the U.S. government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism. In the face of intense...

Brown Sugar Kitchen is more than a restaurant. This soul-food outpost is a community gathering spot, a place to fill the belly, and the beating heart of West Oakland, a storied postindustrial neighborhood across the bay from San Francisco. The restaurant is a friendly beacon on a tree-lined parkway, nestled low and snug next to a scrap-metal yard in this Bay Area rust belt. Out front, customers congregate on long benches and sprawl in the grass, soaking...

When Genie Lo learns of a cosmos-threatening force while the Jade Emperor is absent, she leads a party of quarrelsome Chinese gods through multiple planes of reality on a quest that will require sacrifice, not strength.

Genie Lo is one among droves of Ivy-hopeful overachievers in her sleepy Bay Area suburb. You know, the type who wins. When she's not crushing it at volleyball or hitting the books, Genie is typically working on how to crack the elusive Harvard entry code. But when her hometown comes under siege from hellspawn straight out of Chinese folklore, her priorities are dramatically rearranged. Enter Quentin Sun, a mysterious new kid in class who becomes Genie's...

"This debut memoir by Melissa Valentine recounts how the author lost her older brother Junior-first to a system that criminalizes black boys and men, and then to an act of gun violence in 1990s Oakland"--

"Over the last 60 years, more has been done in Oakland to reform policing than any other American city-and yet, Oakland has failed to reign in the tendencies of its police to prey upon, rather than protect, its communities. Why is this, and what does it mean both for Oakland, and for America? THE RIDERS COME OUT AT NIGHT will be the first authoritative account of the Oakland Police Department's troubling history of violence, secrecy, and mismanagement,...

"A powerful symbol of self-reliance, strength, and determination, the Black cowboy is a figure commonly overlooked in the histories of the American West. Held annually in cities across the United States, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo (BPIR) honors the historic accomplishments of Black cowboys and fosters a vibrant community dedicated to continuing that legacy. Bay Area photographer Gabriela Hasbun has spent more than a decade photographing this...

When a 19-year-old member of a Black Muslim cult assassinated Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey in 2007, the question was, Why? "I just wanted to be a good soldier, a strong soldier, " the killer told police. This book explores one of the most blatant attacks on the First Amendment in American history and the small Black Muslim cult that carried it out. Investigative reporter Thomas Peele examines the Nation of Islam movement from its founding...