AWF is pleased to post Books in Brief, a compendium of titles recently received in the office. Full-length reviews will often be forthcoming, but we hope BIB provides a quick peek at new works in time for your next bookstore or library visit. So many good things to share!

This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets

Bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary poems that is at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring. The book features work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, Nikki Giovanni, and Alabama poet Jacqueline A. Trimble, who likens “Black woman joy” to indigo, tassels, foxes, and peacock plumes.

On Fat and Faith: Ending Weight Stigma in Yourself, Your Sanctuary and Society

Dr. Rev. Daufin, the founding adviser of the National Organization for Women Campus Action Network at Alabama State University, writes about how to end weight stigma. Her book focuses on strengthening “fat positive resolve” to beat back body-bashing in every situation.

Emancipation’s Daughters: Reimagining Black Identity and the National Body

In Emancipation's Daughters, Montgomery native and Cornell University professor Riché Richardson examines Black American women who have contested racial stereotypes and constructed new national narratives of Black womanhood. Richardson shows how women—Mary McLeod Bethune, Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Obama, and Beyoncé—have challenged traditional definitions of American identity.

Nine Days Traveling: Lafayette’s 1825 Alabama Tour, Today’s Historical Road Trip (Bicentennial Edition)

In 1824, President James Monroe invited the French-born Marquis de Lafayette to return to the United States to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution. Lafayette spent nine days in Alabama, traveling through the Creek Indian Nation to Montgomery and Mobile. As the Grand Tour’s bicentennial approaches, Krumenaker takes the reader on a modern-day trip along Lafayette’s route.

Kafka Does Stand-Up: Cartoons on Books and Writers

This collection of cartoons - many previously published in The New Yorker, American Scientist, Punch, Playboy, The Critic, and the Wall Street Journal - will make you think and might make you laugh out loud.

Goyhood

New York Post reporter Reuven Fenton’s debut novel is about a devout Orthodox Jewish man who discovers in middle age, after his mother’s death, that he’s not, in fact, Jewish. He and his twin must convert to Judaism, but first they take a road trip through the Deep South with their mother’s ashes, an Instagram influencer, and a one-eyed dog. “It’s Chaim Potok’s The Chosen meets Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.”