Food for the Soul: Recipes and Stories from the Congregation of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church

(One World/Ballantine, c2005)
Shelf Number: 641.59296/F6861f

If Harlem is the heart of black America , then the Abyssinian Baptist Church is surely its soul. Now, with their appealing first book, congregants of one of America 's oldest black churches share the recipes that have long nurtured and nourished it.

Fruits of the Harvest: Recipes to Celebrate Kwanzaa and Other Holidays

Copage, Eric (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2005, c1991)
Shelf Number: 641.568/C781f

A guide to celebrating black culture through food and holiday traditions.

Hokum: an Anthology of African-American Humor

Beatty, Paul Editor (Bloomsbury/Holtzbrinck Pub.,c2006)
Shelf Number: 817/H721h

This collection of humorous African-American writings is comprised of poetry, prose, political speeches, hip-hop and the blues by such authors as Langston Hughes, Darius James, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois and others.

Kaiso! Writings by and About Katherine Dunham

Dunham, Katherine. ( Univ. of Wisconsin Press , c2005)
Shelf Number: 792.8092/D917k/BIOGRAPHY

BookList calls it one of the top 10 art books of the year. Katherine Dunham, in spite of a difficult childhood, earned her PhD in anthropology, then earned fellowships to study Caribbean dance. Kaiso!, a Calypsonian expression of admiration, perfectly captures this dazzling anthology devoted to a trailblazing dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, educator, activist, and founder of one of the first African American ballet companies, which toured all over the world and collaborated with George Balanchine.

Ladies' Pages: African American Women's Magazines and the Culture that Made Them

Rooks, Noliwe (Rutgers Univ. Press, c2004)
Shelf Number: 051.082/R7774l

Rooks (African American studies, Princeton) examines shifting and conflicting images of African American femininity as portrayed in African American women's magazines and their historical contexts.

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans

Brothers, Thomas David. (Norton, c2006)
Shelf Number: 781.65092/AR736br/BIOGRAPHY

Another of BookList 's top 10 art books of the year, they said, "Place this book at the core of jazz and American culture collections, and don't expect it to be displaced--ever." Mixing Armstrong's biography with the social history of New Orleans results in a fascinating read full of riverboats and street parades and greatness that rose from oppressive poverty and racial segregation.