Kirjahaku

Jazz June: A Self-Portrait in Essays traces a life, not by recounting its major events but by going deep into its representative moments: the moments of wonder, hope, fear, uncertainty, humor, love, and epiphany that make up human experience. Along the way, as a son of a widowed mother, as a young man in the big city, as a husband and father, as an aging empty nester, and as an artist, the author discovers, with each new role, more of who he is. A lover of the arts, he offers creative reflections on literature, music, and film; a Black American whose life is informed but not defined by race, he embraces Black culture while remaining defiantly himself.

An African-American writer's concise, heartfelt take on the state of his nation, exploring the war between the values he has always held and the reality with which he is confronted in twenty-first-century America. In the tradition of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me comes Clifford Thompson's What It Is. Thompson was raised to believe in treating every person of every color as an individual, and he decided as a young man that America, despite its history of racial oppression, was his home as much as anyone else's. As a middle-aged, happily married father of biracial children, Thompson finds himself questioning his most deeply held convictions when the race-baiting Donald Trump ascends to the presidency--elected by whites, whom Thompson had refused to judge as a group, and who make up the majority in this country Thompson had called his own. In the grip of contradictory emotions, Thompson turns for guidance to the wisdom of writers he admires while knowing that the answers to his questions about America ultimately lie in America itself. Through interviews with a small but varied group of Americans he hears sharply divergent opinions about what is happening in the country while trying to find his own answers--conclusions based not on conventional wisdom or on what he would like to believe, but on what he sees.

A writer navigates shady--and potentially deadly--political campaigns in this vibrant graphic novel about unconscious bias and how the cynical exploit it. April Wells, a celebrated African-American memoirist and essayist, lands a writing assignment unlike any she has had before: covering the presidential campaign of the presumptive Democratic nominee, William Waters, for a high-profile magazine. Waters, a well-spoken progressive with lofty ideals of unity in diversity, faces the polar opposite in his Republican challenger, the anti-intellectual, narcissistic Lee Newsome, who seeks to gain power by sowing division. Ahead of the Democratic National Convention, to be held in April's hometown, Waters must also contend with a potential Achilles' heel: persistent rumors that he has cheated on his wife with young male staffers. At first excited about the assignment, April sometimes feels out of her depth and wonders why she was chosen instead of a veteran journalist. When a woman contacts her accusing Waters of sexual assault, April is torn: should she do her job and report this? Or should she sit on it, in case the damage to Waters's reputation would help Newsome win the presidency? Events soon spiral out of control, and April, feeling that her life may be in danger but mistrusting the police and the FBI, thinks of one person she can count on: the Big Man, a longtime friend from her hometown, now its mayor. Along with his stalwart crew of Little Men, they set out to unravel a gripping mystery that goes all the way to the top.

In his first nonfiction collection, Thompson muses on different art forms and their relation to his own experiences as an African-American in the post-Civil Rights era.

Thompson reflects on his life as a balancing act between what is expected of him as a black man and attempting to stay true to himself.

'Terrific, sharp, punchy, drenched in experience and action. It feels like a war story - and that is absolutely right.' Tony Parsons Relentlessly frank and honest, this is the true story of a London firefighter's gruelling 25-year career. Clifford Thompson recounts his scintillating first-hand experiences of the 1988 Clapham train crash, the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Centre, and the aftermath of the Kings Cross fire. He describes the trauma that firefighters deal with every day. Despite facing many horrific situations and experiencing major disasters, it is one memory that haunts him to this day: a three-year-old boy dying caught up in a house fire just days before Christmas.

At the funeral of Charles Maddox, Theo Brown hears testimonies about his dead best friend's full, rich, glamor-filled life-- stories that make Theo wonder if he really knew Charles, and if Theo himself has really lived. Trying to make up for his thirty-seven humdrum years, eager to help Charles's grieving sister, and wanting to find out what happened to his friend, Theo leaves his native Washington, DC on a journey of discovery, and self-discovery, among Charles's circle in New York. Part psychological realism, part detective story, Let Us Go Then, You and I explores the question behind the question: What is the best way to live in this world?