Colson Whitehead

"Oprah's Book Club 2016 selection"--Sticker on jacket.

The Underground Railroad

Tallahassee, Florida, 1960s: Brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood Curtis is about to enroll at the local black college. But one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives instead at the Nickel Academy, which claims to provide training for its inmates to become "honorable and honest men". In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where abuse is rife. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood attempts to live by Dr. Martin Luther King's assertion, "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." But his new friend Turner believes the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty of their oppressors. The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision that will have decades-long repercussions...

The Nickel Boys

From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s. "Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where itcomes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa -- the "Waldorf of Harlem" -- and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? Harlem Shuffle's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

A Novel

Harlem Shuffle

In a post-apocalyptic world decimated by zombies, survivor efforts to rebuild are focused on Manhattan, where civilian team member Mark Spitz works to eliminate remaining infected stragglers and remembers his horrifying experiences at the height of the zombie plague. By the Whiting Writers' Award-winning author of Sag Harbor.

Zone One

Verticality, architectural and social, is at the heart of Colson Whitehead's first novel that takes place in an unnamed high-rise city that combines twenty-first-century engineering feats with nineteenth-century pork-barrel politics. Elevators are the technological expression of the vertical ideal, and Lila Mae Watson, the city's first black female elevator inspector, is its embattled token of upward mobility.When Number Eleven of the newly completed Fanny Briggs Memorial Building goes into deadly free-fall just hours after Lila Mae has signed off on it, using the controversial 'Intuitionist' method of ascertaining elevator safety, both Intuitionists and Empiricists recognize the set-up, but may be willing to let Lila Mae take the fall in an election year. As Lila Mae strives to exonerate herself in this urgent adventure full of government spies, underworld hit men, and seductive double agents, behind the action, always, is the Idea. Lila Mae's quest is mysteriously entwined with existence of heretofore lost writings by James Fulton, father of Intuitionism, a giant of vertical thought. If she is able to find and reveal his plan for the perfect, next-generation elevator, the city as it now exists may instantly become obsolescent.

The Intuitionist

Benji, one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan, tries desperately to fit in, but every summer, he and his brother, Reggie, escape to the East End of Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals has built aw

Sag Harbor

Crook Manifesto

In a dazzlingly original work of non-fiction, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad recreates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York. Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in - or spent time - in the greatest of American cities. A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city's inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against its cruelties. Whitehead's style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting. The plaintive notes of the lonely and dispossessed resound in one passage, while another captures those magical moments when the city seems to be talking directly to you, inviting you to become one with its rhythms. The Colossus of New York is a remarkable portrait of life in the big city. Ambitious in scope, gemlike in its details, it is at once an unparalleled tribute to New York and the ideal introduction to one of the most exciting writers working today.

The Colossus of New York

The best-selling author of Zone One describes his uproarious participation in the World Series of Poker after only six weeks of training, recounting how he interacted with a gritty subculture of high-stakes players while endeavoring to maintain his parenting responsibilities. 50,000 first printing.

Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

The Noble Hustle

Yeralti Demiryolu

Nickel Cocuklari

Follows the experiences of two African-American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

Miedziaki

Il movimento per i diritti civili sta prendendo piede anche nell'enclave nera di Frenchtown (Tallahassee) ed Elwood Curtis, un ragazzino abbandonato dai genitori e cresciuto dalla nonna, assimila tutte le massime e gli insegnamenti di Martin Luther King. Pieno di talento e molto coscienzioso, sta per iniziare a frequentare il college del posto, quando incautamente accetta un passaggio in auto. Ma per un ragazzo nero dei primi anni Sessanta, anche l'errore più innocente può rivelarsi fatale. Elwood viene spedito in un riformatorio chiamato Nickel Academy, la cui missione è provvedere a un'educazione fisica, intellettuale e morale così che il piccolo delinquente possa diventare un uomo onesto e rispettabile. Questo sulla carta. Perché nei fatti la Nickel Academy è un vero e proprio labirinto degli orrori.

I ragazzi della Nickel

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead’s triumphant novel is on one level a multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steel-driver who died outracing a machine designed to replace him. On another level it’s the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a high-velocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture, replete with p. r. flacks, stamp collectors, blues men , and turn-of-the-century song pluggers. John Henry Days is an acrobatic, intellectually dazzling, and laugh-out-loud funny book that will be read and talked about for years to come.

John Henry Days

In search of a new name for their town, the Winthrop town council decides to hire a nomenclature consultant best known for his crowning achievement, Apex, a multicultural bandage that has revolutionized the adhesive bandage industry, in a tour de force exploring the mysteries of identity, history, and marketing. 40,000 first printing.

Apex Hides the Hurt

La ferrovia sotterranea

El ferrocarril subterráneo

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys: a hilarious and supremely original novel set in the Hamptons in the 1980s, "a tenderhearted coming-of-age story fused with a sharp look at the intersections of race and class” (The New York Times). Benji Cooper is one of the few Black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. But every summer, Benji escapes to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor, where a small community of Black professionals have built a world of their own. The summer of ’85 won’t be without its usual trials and tribulations, of course. There will be complicated new handshakes to fumble through and state-of-the-art profanity to master. Benji will be tested by contests big and small, by his misshapen haircut (which seems to have a will of its own), by the New Coke Tragedy, and by his secret Lite FM addiction. But maybe, just maybe, this summer might be one for the ages. Look for Colson Whitehead’s bestselling new novel, Harlem Shuffle!

Colson Whitehead

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