Collections

Biographies

Black Americans of Achievement

with introductory essays by Coretta Scott King
Black Americans of Achievement tells the stories of black men and women who have helped shape the course of modern history. Written in a straightforward, colourful style for young adults, the series is richly illustrated with photographs, art, and documents.
The books are not listed alphabetically, but chronologically according to their content and period in history.
1. Krauss, Peter
Sojourner Truth
2. Taylor, M. W.
Harriet Tubman: Antislavery Activist
3. Russel, Sharman Apt
Frederick Douglas: Abolitionist Editor
4. Stafford, Mark
W.E.B. Du Bois: Scholar and Activist
5. Adair, Gene
George Washington Carver: Botanist
6. Hull, Mary
Rosa Parks:Civil Rights Leader
7.Aldred, Lisa
Thurgood Marshall: Supreme Court Justice
8.Gentry, Tony
Dizzy Gillespie: Musician
9. Jakoubek, Robert
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Civil Rights Leader
10. Kliment, Bud
Ella Fitzgerald: Singer
11. Frankl, Ron
Duke Ellington: Bandleader and Composer
12. Scott, Richard
Jackie Robinson: Baseball Great
13. Gentry, Tony
Jessie Owens: Champion Athlete
14. Weissberg, Ted
Arthur Ashe
15.Shapiro, Miles
Maya Angelou: Author
16. Dolan, Sean
Michael Jordan: Basketball Great
17. Brown, Warren
Colin Powell
18. Nicholson, Lois P.
Oprah Winfrey: Entertainer
19. Bill McKibben (Editor), Al Gore (Foreword)
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau

 

The Pulitzer Prize winners

1. Garrow, David J.
Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference

2. Lewis, David L.
W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century
(1919-1963)

 

Biographies of remarkable African Americans - award-winning or national bestsellers

1. Lewis, John
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
John Lewis with Michael D'Orso
2. Powell, Colin
My American Journey: An Autobiography
Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico
3. Remnick, David
King of the World: Muhamed Ali and the Rise of an American
Hero

4. Rogers, Mary Beth
Barbara Jordan: American Hero
5.Souza, Pete
The Rise of Barack Obama
6. Steins, Richard
Colin Powell: A Biography
7. Tufankijan, Scout
Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History Making Presidential Campaign
8. Wilson, John K.
Barack Obama: The Improbable Quest

 

Autobiographies

1. Poitier, Sidney
The Measure of the Man
2. Poitier, Sidney
Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter
3. Obama, Barack
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
4. Obama, Barack
Snovi mojega oca: Priča o rasi i naslijeđu
5. Obama, Barack
Audicity of Hope
6. Obama, Barack
Odvažnost nade

 

African American History

1.The Harvard Guide to African-American History
editor-in-chief Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
* This guide contains: essays on historical research aid, from traditional archival and reference materials to the Internet; chronological bibliographies; listings of resources on the special subjects of women, geographical areas, autobiography and biography.
2. Blight, David W.
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
3.Freedman, Russel
Lincoln
4.Nash, Gary B.
Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelhia’s Black Community, 1720-1920
5. Sears, Stephen W.
Gettysburg
6. Trudeau, Noah Andre
Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage

 

Slavery and Black Life, Race and the Evolution of Black Society in the United States

The books are not listed alphabetically, but chronologically according to their content or period in history.
1. Berlin, Ira
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in
North America

2. Johnson, Walter
Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market
3. Jacobs, Harriet Ann
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
written by herself and with John S. Jacobs's short slave narrative A
True Tale of Slavery, edited and with an introduction by Jean Fagan
Yellin
4. Schwartz, Marie Jenkins
Born in Bondage : Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South
5. Kolchin, Peter
Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom
6. Hunter, Tera W.
To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors
After the Civil War

7. Carney, Judith A.
Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the
Americas

8. Hadden, Sally E.
Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas
9. Carson, Clayborne
In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s
* SNCC - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
10. Williams, Patricia J.
The Alchemy of Race and Rights
(A Diary of a Law Professor)
11. Cole, Johnnetta Betsch
Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African
American Communities

12.Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks
Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920
13. Guinier, Lani
The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power,
Transforming Democracy

14. Massey, Douglad S.
American Apartheid : Segregation and the Making of the
Underclass

15. Stauffer, John
The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the
Transformation of Race

16. Guterl, Matthew Pratt
The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940
17. Epstein, Richard E.
Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment
Discrimination Laws

18. Swain, Carol M.
Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African
Americans in Congress

19. Boyd-Franklin, Nancy
Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American
Experience

20. Race and Resistance: African Americans in the 21st Century
edited by Herb Boyd
21. Holt, Thomas C.
The Problem of Race in the 21st Century

 

African American Literature, Arts and Culture

African American literature, arts and culture (reference)

1. Cooke, Michael G.
Afro-American Literature in the Twentieth Century: The
Achievement of Intimacy

2. The Black Columbiad: Defining Moments in African American
Literature and Culture

edited by Werner Sollors and Maria Diedrich
3. The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
4. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
edited by Cary D. Wintz
5. Davis, Natalie Zemon
Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision 6. Harlem's Glory: Black Women Writing - 1900-1950
edited by Lorraine Elena Roses, Ruth Elizabeth Randolph
7.Patton, Sharon F.
African-American Art 8.Sundquist, Eric J.
To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature

 

African Americans and America's music

1. Collier, James Lincoln
Louis Armstrong: An American Genius
2. Melnick, Jeffrey
A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, ad American
Popular Song

3. Quinn, Eithne
Nothin' but a Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta
Rap

4. Ward, Geoffrey C.
Jazz: A History of America's Music
5. Zolten, Jerry
Great God A'mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the
Dixie Hummingbirds

 

African American authors

1. Alexander, Elizabeth
American Sublime
2. Alexander, Elizabeth
Antebellum Dream Book
3. Alexander, Elizabeth
The Black Interior
4. Alexander, Elizabeth
The Venus Hottentot
5. Allen, Jeffrey Renard
Rails Under My Back
6. Angelou, Maya
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
7. Angelou, Maya
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
8. Angelou, Maya
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now
9.Douglass, Frederick
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,
Written by Himself
10. Ellison, Ralph
Invisible Man
11. Hughes, Langston
The Collected Poems of Langton Hughes
edited by Arnold Rampersad, David Roessel (Associate Editor)
12. Jones, Edward P.
The Known World
13.McPherson, James Alan
Elbow Room
14. Morrison, Toni
Beloved
15. Morrison, Toni
Jazz
16. Morrison, Toni
Paradise
17. Morrison, Toni
Song of Solomon
18. Morrison, Toni
Remember : The Journey to School Integration
19. Mosley, Walter
Fear itself
20. Mosley, Walter
Little Scarlet
21. Nelson, Marilyn
Carver: A Life in Poems
22. Tademy, Lalita
Cane River
23. Walker, Alice
The Color Purple
24.Wright, Richard
Black Boy
25. Wright, Richard
Native Boy
26.Wright, Richard
A Father's Law

 

African American authors for young readers

1. Curtis, Christopher Paul
Bud, Not Buddy
2. Curtis, Christopher Paul
The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
3.Curtis L. Crisler
Tough Boy Sonatas
4. Greene, Bette
Philip Hall Likes Me. I Reckon Maybe.
5.Felin, M. Sindy
Touching Snow
6. Fenner, Carol
Yolonda's Genius
7. Freedman, Russell
Lincoln: A Photobiography
8. Helfer, Andrew
Malcom X: A Graphic Biography
9.Keats, Ezra Jack
Goggles!
10. Lester, Julius
John Henry
11. McBride, James
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
12. McBride, James
Song Yet Sung
13. Myers, Walter Dean
Harlem
14. Myers, Walter Dean
Somewhere in the Darkness
15. Mathis, Sharon Bell
The Hundred Penny Box
16. Pinkney, Andrea Davis
Duke Ellington
17. Pinkney, Andrea Davis
Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa
18. Ringgold, Faith
Tar Beach
19. Walter Pitts, Mildred
Two and Too Much

Find more books in our Online Catalog and visit the American Corner.

General Dictionaries: English Language and American Culture

  • The AMERICAN heritage college dictionary . - 4th ed . - Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002 . - xxviii, 1636 p. : illus. ; 26 cm.
  • AMMER, Christine
    The American heritage dictionary of idioms / Christine Ammer . - Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company , 2003 . - 473 p. ; 24 cm.
  • BRYSON, Bill
    Troublesome words / Bill Bryson . - 3rd ed. - London : Penguin Books, 2002 . - 242 p . ; 20 cm.
  • DICKSON, Paul
    Slang : the topical dictionary of Americanisms / Paul Dickson . - New York : Walker and Company , 2006 . - 418 p. ; 24 cm.
  • MACCUTCHEON, Marc
    Roget’s superthesaurus / Marc McCutcheon . - Cincinnati : Writer’s Digest Books , 1998. - 662 p. ; 24 cm.
  • THE OXFORD dictionary of phrase, saying, and quotation edited by Susan Ratcliffe . - 2nd ed . - Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2002 . - 696 p. ; 24 cm.
  • THE OXFORD dictionary of American quotations selected and annotated by Hugh Rawson and Margaret Miner
    - 2nd ed. - Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006. - xii, 898 p. ; 25 cm.
  • SPEARS, Richard A.
    McGraw-Hill’s dictionary of American idioms and phrasal verbs / Richard A. Spears . - New York : McGraw-Hill, 2005. - 1080 p. ; 25 cm.
  • SPEARS, Richard A.
    McGraw-Hill’s dictionary of American slang and colloquial expressions / Richard A. Spears . - 4th ed. - New York : McGraw-Hill, 2005. - 546 p. ; 24 cm.

Special Dictionaries:

  • THE AMERICAN heritage Stedman's medical dictionary . - Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002 . - 923 p. : illus. ; 24 cm.
  • THE BLACKWELL encyclopedic dictionary of marketing : edited by Barbara R. Lewis, Dale Littler
    - Malden : Blackwell Publishers, 2004 . - 274 p. ; 25 cm.
  • BURDEN, Ernest
    Illustrated dictionary of architecture / Ernest Burden . - 2nd ed . - New York : McGraw-Hill, 2002 . - 389 p. : illus. ; 23 cm.
  • DICTIONARY of the social sciences : edited by Craig Calhoun
    - Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2002 . - 563 p. ; 26 cm
  • FITCH, Thomas
    Dictionary of banking terms / Thomas P. Fitch . - 4th ed . - Hauppauge : Barron's, 2000 . - 525 p. ; 18 cm . - Barron's Business Guides
  • MAYER, Ralph
    The Harper Collins dictionary of art terms and techniques / Ralph Mayer ; revised and edited by Steven Sheehan ; series editor Eugene Ehrlich . - 2nd ed . - New York : Harper Collins Publishers, 1991 . - 474 p. ; 20 cm.
  • MERRIAM-Webster's biographical dictionary : your guide to the world's history makers . - Springfield : Merriam-Webster, 1995. - 1 170 p. ; 26 cm.
  • MERRIAM-Webster's geographical dictionary . - 3rd ed . - Springfield : Merriam-Webster, 2001 . - 1361 p. : illus. ; 25 cm.
  • MORGENSON, Gretchen
    The New York Times dictionary of money and investing: the essential A to Z guide to the language of the new market . Gretchen Morgenson, Campbell R. Harvey . - New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2002 . - 282 p. ; 23 cm.
  • THE NEW hacker's dictionary / compiled by Eric S. Raymond ; with illustrations by Guy L. Steele . - 3rd ed . - Cambridge : The MIT Press, 1996 . - 547 p. : illus. ; 23 cm.
  • PLANO, Jack C.
    The American political dictionary / Jack C. PLano, Milton Greenberg . - Belmont : Wadsworth / Thomson Learning, 2002 . - 758 p. ; 24 cm.
  • RANDEL, Don Michael
    The new Harvard dictionary of music / Don Michael Randel . - Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 2001 . - 942 p. : illus. ; 25 cm.
  • THOMSON, David
    The new biographical dictionary of film / David Thomson . - New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2004 . - 989 p. ; 23 cm.

Find more books in our Online Catalog and visit the American Corner.