Bøger af Alice Randall

From Vanderbilt Professor, award-winning songwriter, novelist, and author Alice Randall comes a lyrical account of the unrecognized group of Black musicians known as First Family of Black Country alongside an unflinching and deeply personal self-examination.

Windsor Armstrong has a problem: her brilliant boy, Pushkin X, has become a football superstar and is planning to marry a Russian lap dancer. In Windsor's opinion, Pushkin is throwing away every good thing she has given him. When she was an unwed teen mother, Windsor attended Harvard, leaving her shady Detroit roots behind. She raised her son to be fiercely intelligent, well-spoken, and proud. Now he lives for pro football and a white woman of no account. Outraged by her son's decisions but devoted to loving him right, Windsor prepares to give up her last secret: the identity of Pushkin's father.

An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit''s legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow''s classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James'' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings.From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph ΓÇ£ZiggyΓÇ¥ Johnson, has been the pulse of DetroitΓÇÖs famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the cityΓÇÖs African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where heΓÇÖs rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats.  As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it.Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black BottomΓÇÖs venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe  Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York CityΓÇÖs Harlem.Accompanying these ΓÇ£tributesΓÇ¥ are thoughtfully paired cocktailsΓÇöspecial drinks that capture the essence of each of ZiggyΓÇÖs saintsΓÇölibations as strong and satisfying as Alice RandallΓÇÖs wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.

A lively tale of one young woman's adventure to pass her Official Princess Test, discover a means of escape from her island, and reveal her true destiny.Thirteen-year-old orphan Black Bee Bright (B. B. for short) is funny, quirky, precocious, and adventurous. But B. B. has a secret. She's captive on an island in "the middle of very tropical nowhere" because she's forced to hide her true identity as a royally born princess from her parents' enemies in Raven World. B. B. must find a way to escape to "the Other World" where there are best friends and cool clothes, but she can't escape the island until she passes her Official Princess Test and undertakes a dangerous journey alone to the East side of the island, where eight princesses must help her discover what it truly means to be a princess.

An irresistible story of losing weight without losing your sense of self