Sexy is as sexy does. And in Plum Orchard, sugar, it does! Emmeline Amos is sick of her ex saying she's boring and prissy. After all, she works for a phone-sex company! (As general manager, but still.) On a rare girls' night out, fueled by blender drinks and bravado, Em accepts a shocking dare—to handle a call herself. But it's tipsy Em who gets an earful from an irate single father on the other end of the line. Awkward. But not as awkward as discovering that same mad dad is Call Girls' gorgeous new programmer. Jax Hawthorne is still upset that his daughter called the "girlfriend store" on his behalf, but he can't deny he'd choose a hot-librarian type like Em if he were looking for love. Which he's not. Em wants to do more than just talk the talk. So she makes a bawdy bargain with Jax. They've both been burned before—this time, they'll keep it strictly physical. Except as soon as they settle on no strings attached, things start to get tangled….
In this “urgently relevant”* collection featuring the landmark essay “The Case for Reparations,” the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me “reflects on race, Barack Obama’s presidency and its jarring aftermath”*—including the election of Donald Trump. New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times • USA Today • Time • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Essence • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Week • Kirkus Reviews *Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.” But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period—and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president. We Were Eight Years in Power features Coates’s iconic essays first published in The Atlantic, including “Fear of a Black President,” “The Case for Reparations,” and “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” along with eight fresh essays that revisit each year of the Obama administration through Coates’s own experiences, observations, and intellectual development, capped by a bracingly original assessment of the election that fully illuminated the tragedy of the Obama era. We Were Eight Years in Power is a vital account of modern America, from one of the definitive voices of this historic moment.
A fireman in charge of burning books meets a revolutionary school teacher who dares to read. Depicts a future world in which all printed reading material is burned.
