Akron Public Library

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be. As he journeys from the Deep South to the...

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina the tobacco capital of the South where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt's glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful...

Nominated for Best Documentary by the Director's Guild, Producer's Guild, Independent Spirit Awards, and Gotham Awards, and winner of Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, this film explores the paradoxical pursuit of wealth and progress in China. Loosely structured around the distinct social and economic classes that divide the nation, this extraordinary documentary follows factory workers, middle class consumers and elites as they chase...

The Dowager Countess reveals she has a villa in the south of France, and many of the family follow her there for a rest while some of the family stay behind to keep an eye on the cast and crew of a film which is shooting at the grand estate.

"I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too." Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. "A Little Devil in America is an urgent project that unravels all modes and methods of Black performance, in this moment when Black performers are coming...

"In this memoir, Tung Pok Chin casts light on the largely hidden experience of those Chinese who immigrated to this country with false documents during the Exclusion era. Although scholars have pieced together their history, first-person accounts are rare and fragmented; many of the so-called "Paper Sons" lived out their lives in silent fear of discovery. Chin's story speaks for the many Chinese who worked in urban laundries and restaurants, but it...