The End of Fashion: The Mass Marketing of the Clothing Business  
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Agins, Teri
Morrow. 352p.
ISBN: 0-688-15160-4. $25

Agins is a Wall Street Journal reporter who covers the fashion business. Her book shares insider details that cover haute couture from the early part of the century in France through World War II up to the changes that have taken place as the century ends. What Agins has is the knowledge of the industry, but she really doesn’t "dish the dirt" as one would expect. She writes rather respectfully about such designers as Emmanuel Ungaro, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Donna Karan. Agins also demonstrates how such changes in our culture as casual dress, have changed the fashion industry. People have largely abandoned fancy dress and fashion is valued less than before. Now "Bridge" goods or less pricey apparel is more popular and boutiques have replaced the top designers. The licensing of T-shirts and fragrances and the sale of signature garments has given rise to street vendor forgeries. Agins also examines the growth of retailers like Marshall Fields, Dillard’s, Nordstrom, and the Gap. One conclusion is that fickle consumers now set the fashion rules and designers follow.

Code of the Street
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Anderson, Elijah
W.W. Norton & Company. August. 352p.
ISBN: 0-393-04023-2. $25.95

Code of the Street is not only a troubling portrait of an underclass in serious crisis, it’s also a call for pragmatic, rational public policies to repair a socioeconomic structure torn apart by the loss of good industrial jobs in the inner city. Anderson, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, believes that building human capital in these communities is fundamental and must involve offering effective education and job training for the needy to satisfactorily compete in today’s global marketplace.

Cookie Cutter
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Anthony, Sterling
One World Ballantine. 352p.
ISBN: 0-345-42604-5. $24

This psychological suspense story from first time novelist, Anthony, is about the Shaw family living in a small Alabama town. The story is charged with violence, deception, politics, and family secrets. Eugene Shaw is a light-skinned black man who looks white and somehow doesn't fit into the black community—experiencing "the intraracial backlash against fair-skinned blacks" In an attempt to prove his blackness, Shaw becomes an artist specializing in African American images. However, he also becomes delusional and begins a rampage of killing against any African American in Detroit he thinks isn’t "black enough." No one knows Eugene is the killer and black homicide lieutenant Mary Cunningham is assigned to lead the hunt to snare him. Because Eugene leaves an Oreo cookie with each corpse as his signature, Mary coins the name "cookie cutter killer" and almost gets killed pursuing him. Mary has her own problems as she tries desperately to reconcile having survived the 1967 Detroit race riots while her brother didn’t. She also has a troubled marriage and faces sexism on the job. The story won’t necessarily keep the reader on the edge, but it is an interesting discussion of race and black culture.

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
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Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Editors)
Perseus, 2144p.
ISBN: 0-465-00071-1. $89.95

This work is definitely the only comparable one-volume encyclopedia in the world that speaks of the black experience. The editors are both Harvard scholars, and they have teamed up to present text that shares the legacy of blacks across the world. Subjects cover the scope from the history of slavery, the civil rights movement, African American literature, music, and art, to African civilizations and the black experience in countries such as France and Russia. Entries are wide-ranging from "affirmative action" to "zydeco" to cover prominent ethnic groups in Africa as well as entries on each member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Longer, more interpretive essays from noted writers such as Cornel West and William Julius Wilson add another remarkable dimension to the work, which is illustrated with hundreds of images, maps tables, charts, and photographs in full color.

Louis Armstrong, in His Own Words: Selected Writings
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Armstrong, Louis
Oxford University Press. 288p.
ISBN: 0-19-511958-4. $25

This collection of previously unpublished writings from jazz trumpeter Armstrong (1900-71), edited by Thomas Brothers, offers a glimpse of Armstrong's childhood, musical influences, rise to fame, his life traveling as a musician, his role during the Civil Rights Movement, and his final years. Included also are three letters that sheds light on race relations in New Orleans at the turn of the century, as well as letters he wrote to Jazz writer Robert Goffin. "The Armstrong Story" included here was deleted from his autobiography. Armstrong was an avid writer during his life and these collected works reveal the essence of the man.

Equal Justice Under Law: An Autobiography
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Baker Motley, Constance
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. September. 288p.
ISBN: 0-374-52618-4. $14

She was the key attorney assisting Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and argued many cases before the Supreme Court. She was made famous when she represented James Meredith in his bid to attend University of Mississippi. Baker Motley became Manhattan Borough president (NY) and a U.S. District Court judge. Her memoirs give a detailed account of the civil rights struggle as she experienced it.

Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness
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Banks, Ingrid
New York University Press. December. 192p.
ISBN: 0814713378. $17.50

From interviews with over 50 women, from teens to seniors, Banks reveals the different ideas Black women have about race, gender, sexuality, beauty, and power through their discussions of hair. Banks follows the trends from long hair of the 60s, Afros of the early 70s, to bobs of the 80s, and fuchsia hair color of the 90s.

A Renaissance in Harlem: Lost Voices of an American Community
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Bascom, Lionel
Avon Books. 320p.
ISBN: 0380976641. $24.00

Bascom, a journalist and English professor at Western Connecticut State University, presents over 45 pieces written by WPA Writers’ Project artists from Harlem. Bascom makes the case that elite intellectuals deliberately misrepresented the Harlem Renaissance. He has chosen to publish stories that represent the regular folks of the 1930s ghetto life: maids, prostitutes, railway porters, fish vendors, and hairdressers. He doesn’t forget the pimps and other cheats, either. Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater is also depicted in a story by Dorothy West, as an institution that drew the "swaggering blacks", "holidaying hardworking Negroes," "sightseeing whites" and "jitterbug whites." Other rituals well known in Harlem also get mentioned in Frank Byrd’s story of the famous rent parties. To raise rent money, residents of Harlem held Saturday-night parties, where guests got a chance to partake "freely of fried chicken, pork chops, pigs feet, and potato salad, not to mention homemade ‘cawn’ liquor that was for sale in the kitchen or at a makeshift bar in the hallway." The stories are mostly entertaining, but are most valuable because of how they bring the Harlem Renaissance alive. In addition, the "lost stories of Ralph Ellison, Dorothy West, and the lesser known Frank Byrd and Vivian adds to the era’s literature.

Concurrent Sentences: A True Story of Murder, Love and Redemption
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Beck-Clark, Denise
New Horizon Press. 320p.
ISBN: 0-88282-188-1. $24.95

Society had given up on Victor Clark, who was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a shooting. A decorated Vietnam veteran, Victor became wrapped up with the wrong crowd on the streets of New York. His experiences in jail are "a living hell." However, when he responds to the personal ad in the newspaper, he begins to correspond with Denise Beck. Denise comes to believe in Victor's goodness and he is infused with new hope and faith. They embark on a mission to turn Victor's life around and to prevent other people from making the mistakes he did; together they fight for Victor's parole. Denise and Beck now live with their son in Yonkers, NY. She is a social worker and he runs an agency devoted to providing shelter for homeless people and former psychiatric patients.

Fine Beauty: Beauty Basics and Beyond for African-American Women
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Fine, Sam
Berkley Publishing Group. 160p.
ISBN: 1-573-22779-X. $19.95

Fine Beauty is filled with tips, techniques, and makeovers of celebrities from Vanessa Williams to Veronica Webb. A makeup artist to star clients, Sam Fine presents a photo-packed celebration of African-American allure. He also offers plenty of inside information on the beauty business. Lavish photographs of top celebrity women including Mary J. Blige, Naomi Campbell, Patti Labelle, Brandy, and Tyra Banks.

At the Full and Change of the Moon
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Brand, Dionne
Grove. 304p.
ISBN: 0-8021-1649-3. $24

Brand, a poet and novelist, writes about six generations of Africans living on the island of Trinidad in the early 1800s. Marie-Ursule is queen of a secret society of militant slaves called the Sans Peur Regiment. She plots a mass suicide on the plantation, which constitutes a very audacious act of revolt. The only person that Marie-Ursule couldn’t sacrifice to this fate was her daughter Bola, who escapes to live relatively free. Bola hides in an abandoned monastery on the tip of the island, but emerges when other islanders move nearby. She becomes the mother of nine children for nine different men. Wanting to be free, she stays with neither of these men. She doesn’t intend for her children to remain in one place either, and they are eventually scattered across the Americas, living in the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. Brand tells the stories of the children in the rest of the novel. There is Cordelia, who has a thirst for life; Priest, who almost became an evangelist but became a gangster instead; his younger brother, Adrian, who is an addict; and Bola, a schoolgirl named after her great-grandmother, living alone in the ruins of the family home in Trinidad. They live through two world wars and into the present day. The story ends with Bola mourning her mother's death. This saga is wide in its expanse and Brand does well to draw in the individual stories while telling the larger story that helps readers experience the story of Africans in the Diaspora.

Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law
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Broun, Kenneth S.
Ohio University Press. November. 304p.
ISBN: 0-81214-1286-8. $19.95

Broun has traveled to South Africa since 1986 to conduct programs in trial advocacy training through the Black Lawyers Association of South Africa. He has included narratives of oral interviews of 27 of the lawyers who fought the system in their struggle against apartheid. They speak of their lives and family backgrounds, education, careers, and especially, their vision of the future.

African-American Holiday Traditions: Celebrating with Passion, Style, and Grace
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Broussard, Antoinette
ISBN: 1-55972-532-X. $17.95
Carol Publishing. 224p.

For her book, Broussard interviewed over fifty women and asked them about their family traditions, holiday memories, and favorite recipes. Here she celebrates these distinguished women who are politicians, entertainers, actresses, writers, and artists, including restaurant owner Myrna Williams; former president of Links, Inc., Patricia Russell McCloud; and psychologist Gwendolyn Goldsby-Grant, who share their perspectives on the holiday season. Mrs. Denzel Washington provides her favorite recipes and Kwanzaa stamp designer Synthia Saint James shares her favorite holiday memories, as do others including Joyce Dinkins, Tisha Campbell, and Myrlie Evers-Williams. Generally, holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving bring people together despite their differences and African-American families have rich traditions of food, song, and spirituality. These traditions have influenced other cultures. Here Broussard shares her personal style with these famous women to offer tips in presenting food, decorating, and entertaining.

A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Carson, Clayborne and Peter Holloran (Editors)
Warner Books. 256p.
ISBN: 0-44667-554-7. $14

This collection of eleven of Dr. King’s most powerful and spiritual sermons was compiled by Dr. Carson, a Stanford historian and director of the King Papers Project, as well as by contributing editor Holloran. The sermons cover Dr. King's preaching career, from what is probably the first audio recording of King preaching up to his last sermon, before his assassination. Seven of the sermons have never been seen in print. Included are eleven introductions by renowned ministers and theologians including Reverend Billy Graham, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Bishop T. D. Jakes. Here they share their personal reflections on the sermons and firsthand accounts of the events surrounding their delivery.

River, Cross My Heart: A Novel
Clarke, Beena
Little, Brown. July. 288p.
ISBN: 0-316-144231-1. $23
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A first-time novelist, Clarke writes about tragedy and triumph in the life of an African American family, the Bynums, who live in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC, in 1925. The book opens with the drowning of the five-year old daughter Clara, in the Potomac River. Clarke’s poetic description of the river almost distracts the reader from the drowning. But Clara’s older sister Johnnie Mae is hit hard by the tragedy, having seen her fall in the river. Johnnie Mae goes through life grieving and feeling guilty even as she tries to decide what kind of woman she will become. She does find the strength to face her guilt to become a talented swimmer, but her parents Alice and Willie struggle with paralyzing grief. Yet the drama and action one might expect in the story does not happen. However, it is obvious Clarke did a lot of research and presents a very detailed history of the time—one that has somehow been lost. A thriving black community once lived in Georgetown—doctors, dentists, educators, and businesspeople. With the passage of the Old Georgetown Act of 1950, which sought to preserve the community's historic architecture, many of the residents moved away. Clarke does well capturing those memories.