From Edward P. Jones comes one of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline....

Roots, adapted from the Alex Haley novel that traces his family's history from the mid-18th century when one of his ancestors was captured and sold into slavery. Follows the struggle for freedom that began with the boy's abduction in Africa to America and continued throughout the generations that followed. Roots, the next generations follows the Haley family from the post-Civil War era until the more contemporary but still turbulent time of the 1960s...

"'How the Word is Passed' is Clint Smith's revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation. Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not - that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nations collective history, and ourselves."--