Malague Buds has all the knowledge you want. My league has how the knowledge you need.
Leg Yet they have all the books that the whole wild world.
Wunner read my League books.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshelf, bringing a world together with books, culture and community. Hi, my name is Malik, your host of Malik's Bookshelf.
June is hot.
Then we repeat that again, June is hot and Malik Books has.
Some hot authors all month long.
Whoo.
That's why on this episode, I'm gonna let the authors who we have lined up all month long talk about their books leading into events.
Listen.
We got Cary Sellers on June eleven at seven pm. They're gonna be talking about his new book The Moment.
Now he's gonna be in conversation with attorney, author and CNN commentator Ariva Martin.
Also on June.
Fourteenth, at seven pm, Now Cole Hannah Jones in conversation with Angela Rye at the Miracle Theater in Inglewood. That's right, June fourteen, seven pm is going down that Friday night when Nicole is gonna be talking about the sixteen to nineteen project. It's a paper back after five years, it's one of the most bad books in the country. And Nicole Hannah Jones in conversation with Alian Rye. It's gonna
be electric. I even got a Grammy Award performer named Deep is gonna perform at this event on June fourteenth.
You gotta come on out.
Rswepm League Books coming up coming up Ay Mileague Boxx, Seeing Rogers, the founder of Bay. She's gonna be here Monday, June seventeen seven pm. Now for new book, We're gonna have a book talk, book sign the outside advantage because you don't need to fit in to weak.
But then we have the June tenth celebration at Malik Books on June eighteen seven pm.
That night we got Victor Lukison wrote the book Built from the Fire, and he's coming along and gonna be in conversation with descendants from the Dreamland Theater that was burnt down in the nineteen twenty one Oklahoma massacre. These descendants of the Dreamland Theater are gonna be in conversation with Victor Lukerson on June eighteen, seven pm at Malik Books, Westfield, coach Claw. Then we have Taragi b Hension celebrating with us for June team celebration.
At the Westfield Covi Cino.
Now Taraji p Henson on June twenty second, at three pm, it's gonna be doing a story time in the center court of the field maull In Cuova City.
She's gonna do story time.
Bring all your family and friends and bring the kids out for an eventful celebration. This headline by Toaji p Henson doing storytime for her new book You Can Be a Good Friend No Matter what to Roggi p Also is gonna be doing a book signing. Now that part you got an artist for me because that's excrucilly inside malik book. But story time it's downstairs center court, free to the public.
Bring your kids.
Then June twenty and ninth, we got the comedian Tiffany Hattish and her new book I Cursed You with Joy. This is gonna be epic at Melite Books June twenty ninth, two pm.
You gotta come on out.
Support our authors. June is hot at Malik's and we're ending.
This wonderful month with the explosive comedian Emmy Award, Grammy Award Tiffany had So I'm going to feature some of their comments about their own book, so I don't have to talk about it, but they gonna talk about because no one can tell you about that book more than the author.
So stay tuned for this upcoming episode.
But I also going to feature my three things that I'm grateful for. I was interviewed at this location in La Mirk Park and they asked me this three questions, and so I want to feature those three answers.
Three things I'm grateful for, So stay tuned on this episode.
Hi, it's Sierra, author of The Outside Advantage. Because you don't need to fit into when it's Future Friday here at Penguins. So I wanted to talk a little bit about my inspiration behind writing a business book. Why a business book because I love them. I love tips on how to make money. I love tips on how to become successful. Give me a cheat code to life and I will take it, Thank you very much. But before my business book, I felt like there wasn't really one
that catered to people like me, outsiders. Maybe you didn't have a normal upbringing, maybe you didn't have any money, connections resources at all. Maybe you didn't grow up in a family where the job was just handed directly to you. So I wrote a book for people like us. I wrote a book for you to use your disadvantages as skills to become successful. Growing up, Goodwill was more than just a store for me. It was a destination with my mom and my sister. I spent hours thrifting, reading books,
creating outfits, and defining my style. But I never knew about all the other ways Goodwill could help. People don't really talk about their struggles, like if they're sleeping in their cars at the moment when they got evicted, or if they're struggling to pay their bills. We just kind of show up where we need to, and if you're like me, you just keep on going even when things are tough. When I first came to LA with only two hundred dollars in my account, things didn't go the.
Way I thought they would.
It's hard.
I had the.
Resume, yet I didn't have the experience. I looked for any job I could get, freelancing on photo shoots, dialing where I could, hauling closure across the city. I applied everywhere you can think of, from pr agencies to burger shops, but I still wasn't getting hired. That's when I started my brand. That's when Babes was born. My roommate wanted me off her couch, so I had to make something happen. I started upcycling in reworking the clothes I found in
good will. Some of my first customers were my friends, and from their Babes just kind of took off. And that's when I learned you don't have to fit in to win. I was taking in hymns of blazers, cropping te's and hoodies, and making space where there wasn't any, putting all of my skills to use while learning new ones faster than I could use them. My sewing machine and my phone became tools that changed my life, and with each cell, my business grew into a global brand.
That's my style, and that's the story it tells.
Hi friends.
My new children's book, You Can be a Good Friend no matter matter what, shows kids the great things that can happen when we approach others and ourselves with empathy, patience, and love. In the book, you'll meet quirky, stylish, and a bit off the cup little TJ. She is ready for her first day of school, but when she gets there, TJ finds that everything she does is a little different than everyone else, and she is filled with anxiety and doubt.
You can be a good friend no matter what. Shows kids the importance of standing in their own uniqueness and promoting friendship over bullying. My debut picture book is the perfect read for promoting mental wellness to your kids. All the while you'll also be sharing with them new socialization skills, how to embrace the importance of standing in their own uniqueness, how to lean into their friendships, and how to end bullying.
This book will help.
Your kiddos with various struggles, such as managing any back to school jitters or even bigger things that are making them nerve us in the evening or when getting ready in the mornings. Children ages four to eight will love the book, and I think you parents will too. I hope that people get that I love people. I hope that my legacy will be one of a person who really cared about humanity and used her celebrity and her blessings to bless others. And that's what That's what my
book is about. That's what my hair care products is about. It's about taking care of yourself and investing time into you. My foundation was something that I founded because I was in dire need of repairing my mental health right and
my sons. And then I realized that there's an entire community of people who, especially in the black and brown community, where we don't even talk about mental illness or mental illness, and I just felt inclined to do something about that, and that's why started Divorced lawnce Hints and Voundation.
So hopefully my.
Legacy will be one of someone who cared about humanity and wanted to do something about it to help others that may be in need.
Ooh, y'all, I got my new book, Tiffany Haddish, I Curse You with Joy New York Times.
That's I like.
Y'all speak it. It got that mm hmm. It's brand new. This one's brand brand new. I just put the book marking here.
It got that.
It got that fresh book smell. You know what I'm saying, That new book smell.
Mmmm mmm.
It's got that like papyrus with like fresh linen scent.
Mmm, with a hint of coconuting.
Is that grateful? Oh? I'm putting this song.
Please welcome back to the Late Show Tiffany has.
The most fabulous Tiffany has.
Jiffy had it to everybody.
She is just looking a new collection of essays called.
I Curse You with Joy.
New book I Curse You with Joy.
This book, by the way, is equal parts funny and equal parts poignant. Why did you initially say to yourself? I want to put this on page I.
Wish somebody would have made a manual on how to be famous. And I can't make that manual on how to be famous because I'm still figuring it out. But I can make a manual on how to be yourself and not be afraid to be who you are, which is the most powerful thing you need to do.
Yeah, selection everyone, hold on.
Let me split this.
Her mother told her, which you'll read about in this book, that if she kissed a boy at all exchanged any saliva, that her face would basically eat her from the inside out.
Amber was at school and this boy that we both had, like a little personal She started kissing him and I was like, oh my god. And I was quiet so hard because I was like, Amber, you about to die. God, No, wait, that boy, you're about to die. You don't have your vaccination yet. You're not vaccinated.
Can you talk about gaining confidence in this book? Tell the people how you gained that big tip energy.
When I had the penis in my panties.
Yes, you're about to throw first fish underhanded?
It I underhand?
About what if I did it? Like how Fred France on balls, like.
On your tiptoes like that.
He liked and then he throws it something I could do a t up to the plate and then goes, I Curse you with the Joy is out today.
The only book you need to think about and focus on is right here. Tiffany Hadis, I Curse you with Joy and she gonna be here at Melik Books June twenty nine, two pm doing a straight meat Greek book signing and photop Come through Melik Books, Westfield, Coach City, Mo.
The new book The Moment, Yes okay? Is your thoughts on the race reckoning that wasn't?
Why is it? We wought a title? Why the title?
So?
Back in twenty twenty twenty one, when we were all kind of locked in our homes and then we saw George Floyd be murdered on camera, I thought about why we saw what we saw and we were in a pandemic, and so people were locked in their homes. We had the audacity of a seventeen year old black woman to take her phone out in videotape.
What happened.
We had nine minutes of a black man calling out for his mom with the knee on the back of his neck, and the world could not turn away. And then everybody came out in the streets around the world. And it took all of that just for us to have accountability, not justice, but accountability. Justice is George Floyd
still being here? And at that point, maybe it's my youthful naivete, but at that point I thought that maybe the world was changing, maybe we were starting to understand the plight and pain of being black in this country, and maybe we were actually having that racial reckoning. You know, those were the conversations we were having. And then shit
changed and we went backwards. I mean we have literally since that point when I thought we were making that change, we have been going back with sober sixteen hundred books band you see what's happening with the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion. You see the abortion bill in Arizona from the eighteen hundreds, and so, you know, I wrote this book about that moment. I was on TV with Felonious Floyd,
who spoke before me, and Charlomagne knows us. I'm a real emotion I cry all the time, but he was on the segment before me, and I was on with Dante Stalworth and I was in my home, my beard and everything, pajama pants on. That's when we were still doing TV from laptops, and I began to think about my kids and what was I going to tell my black kids listening to Colonius Floyd just speak.
What made you That's a great point you brought up about how everybody thought things were going to change? What made you have a more audacity of hope? Did George Floyd situation or Barack Obama being elected?
Barack Obama being elected, I thought was a moment in time because we had gone so far. I remember saying, and I had these conversations. I remember being on call with people like Dick Carl Poutley, and Michelle Obama. When it went many of us who supported the President of the United States, Anton Gunn in South Carolina, then Senator Barack Obama, and there were fears about Barack Obama. One We didn't think white vote would vote for him. That's
why Iowa was so important. When he went to Iowa, were like, oh, white people will vote for this black man. And number two, my father would bring it up all the time. We were afraid that they were going to kill him. I mean, older black folk had a legit concern that Barack Obama was going to be assassinated. And the reason being is because it came from a valid place. They had seen all their heroes become martyrs, and so that was a legitimate concern. And so Barack Obama gave
me a lot of hope when he got elected. The death of George Floyd was something that we just it was a moment that we missed it. It was a surreal moment. And being able to meet the family and see how the world kind of embraced his daughter. And you know, God works some mysterious ways because he always uses somebody that you would not imagine to bring people together. And nobody would imagine that the person or the vessel he would use would be George Floyd.
And he did.
I write about that, but I was excited, but I was I was more let down, not by George Floyd of course, or his family, but by the way people reacted to it, or the white lash to still a word from Van Jones. I wanted to come here and drop a personal invitation to Tuesday night, June eleventh.
We're going to be at Elik Books in LA. You're gonna swipe over and you're gonna see all the details. But I want everybody on the West Coast, everybody in LA, everybody in the surrounding areas, who's a supporter, who got the moment, who wants to pick up the moment, to come check it out. I'm looking forward to this long flight going out there tomorrow, being in LA on Tuesday night, and I can't wait to see all of you guys. So I'll see you guys in Elite Books Tuesday night, seven pm. See all there.
Joining me out is the singular Nicole had A Jones, creator of the sixteen nineteen Project, reporter for the New York Times magazine, and founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard University. Shoot that was a lot. I remember when you first published this, before the book came out, you and I talked in this building and it was really remarkable and interesting. But I don't think any of us were thinking this is how it was going to unfold.
God.
No, you know, it's been five years, which seems at once a long period of time in a short period of time. But when you think of everything that's happened since we had our first conversation, it really is remarkable the way that government is using state power to try to mandate our ignorance, even as we see the effects of this history playing out in our society every day.
And I left a lot of stuff out of that story, including stuff that happened to you, But I think it's important to point out that you don't play nor do you think you're a victim of this whole thing. In fact, when we spoke a few months ago, I want to just read, I want to play back actually what you said to me about this. Let's listen to this.
No one is more surprised at what both sixteen nineteen has become symbolically and what I've become symbolically. This was just the work of journalism, too, and I hope people would read it, but I certainly didn't think it would kind of spawn this backlash that we've seen. You know, all of these anti critical race theory laws. They began at Anti sixteen nineteen project laws, and it's really become
this cultural phenomenon. But I guess that speaks to why we became journalists, understanding the type of impact and power that we can have around the idea of narrative and how we see our society.
And that's the point of the exercise. Right, you did actually provoke a discussion. So now what happens? You poked the bear, there was some dry tender there and you lit it. Now what happens?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's clear that you don't see a project facing this type of backlash if that project is not having impact. And every day I speak all over the country and I see thousands of Americans, white Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, Black Americans who are saying, I understand my country better, who are starting to really critique so much of the inequality that we accept. But now what happens next, though, I think is largely dependent
upon us. Which version of America are we going to allow to move forward. We are in, as you know, an extremely polarized time, a time where people who view seem antithetical to democracy are really pulling the levers of power to make it harder for us to vote, to make it harder for us have a shared sense of civic obligation to each other. So I don't know what's going to happen next, but I fear, as I know
you do, that we're ahead. We have some very dark times ahead unless we have the Americans decide that we want a different country.
I don't wish to draw you into a debate with Donald Trump, but what do you say to people who say that you're trying to frame all of our history and society through race in some way that's damaging. I didn't hear that when I first read what you wrote and subsequently the book. That's not how I saw it. I saw you adding more information to our corpus of history and knowledge about ourselves.
Well to hear that argument from people who themselves are obsessed with race, right, These attacks on affirmative action, these attacks on DEI, the tax on immigrants, these are all race obsessions. But they're pretending that it's in fact, people like myself and the work that we produced that is divisive.
We have to be honest about our history, and parts of our history are very ugly, but how can we possibly try to become the country of our highest ideals if we're not honest about what we were built upon. And if you actually read the project, it's actually the most patriotic thing I've ever say.
It's not angry.
It's simply a here's a piece of the story that is left out of our own narrative about ourselves. Why don't we have a more complete look at this thing? It doesn't come a way as angry, It doesn't come away as mad at anyone. It doesn't come away as vengeful or divisive.
No.
I mean, what it argues is that we have failed to live up to our ideals, but that black Americans joined with other Americans to fight to try to make those ideals manifest. It actually is empowering. It says we don't have to accept the society that we have, and that I actually think the highest calling of patriotism is not to say we can't ever critique our country, but to say that if our country is great, we have
to work to make it so. That's true patriotism. Most of the people, though, who critique this project, who are trying to ban this history, it's clear they haven't read it or they haven't grappled seriously and sincerely with its ideal in argument.
You were, you know, you were the impetus frustrating the van book club. And that's the point. Most of the people create most of these things. You haven't read them, absolutely, They've just got ideas about what they are. So you know what, this is your invitation read the sixteen nineteen project. It's published, it's you can read it for yourself and then you can be mad about it or you can like it or whatever, but at least you can be informed.
Built from the fire bodictor Lukison, You know, Greenway really was like the eating of the West, that's what folks would call it. It was really this place where black folks who are living in the Deep South, coming from places like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas. It was basically for they could travel and building their life for themselves. It's really tragic, ultimately that a place that could have been anything became the place of the horrific racial violence.
Understanding the past is absolutely essential. It gives us a language, a way of thinking, a way of connecting the dots to understand that these are not just isolated incidents, that these things have a trajectory in a context that we are still grappling with.
In the tradition of the great reporting of Isabel Lukersun's The Want of other Suns, Victor Lucersun describes in great detail the events surrounding the Tulsa massacre in a way never before seen.
Take careful the chronicles a town or tragedy and resilience of lives destroyed and the miraculous will to rebuild built from the fire. Is the story of black hope and the belief and the possibilities of a brighter tomorrow.
By burying deep into the star Ward Goodwin Family survivals of the nineteen twenty one Tussle Race semester, it took Lucas and that produced a dynamic and propulsive chronicle of that episode in American history. Given the ten of our present time, this is truly necessary, but and one that marketed exciting arrival of a new literary talents.
Y'all, mo Leak is in the building. Mo League of Books is in the building. Here live at soul folks, here in Lamert Park. Oh my goodness, do you want to say anything to us? Before I ask you these wonderful questions?
Hey, I'm just grateful. Give it up for soul folks.
You know it's all about community, right, and at this location you can find your soul. And that's what we have as black people. We have soul. And no matter what we've been through came through, one thing is for certain.
We kept our soul. Hey.
They write books about how our soul has never been conquered and how we been able to find laughter, enjoy, and happiness to spite.
Whatever we've been through. We are resilient people.
Hey, we are resilient, and we never need to forget that. Our secret weapon is our soul and we should never lose that because when we lose that, we lose our life.
So I love the name soul.
Folk because that's what defines our essence and our core fighters.
So we are soulful people. Let us never forget that. Like that of.
These questions because you blessed us with a sermon. Okay, getting our souls together. So me and actually curious, are actually curious and dying because I do read books and we understand grammar.
Because get it together.
I want you to give us three things that you are grateful for.
And why wo.
She packed a lot in that question. The first thing to come to mind, it's life. I'm very grateful for my life. Let me tell you, you know, without life, there's no opportunity. Once you're gone, you're gone in this world. You got to be alive to make a difference. You got to be alive to make a change. You gotta be alive to enjoy this wonderful world that we live in. Despite whatever thrown at us, whatever obstacles we gotta overcome.
Your life matters. Let me hear you say, your life matters. I'm very grateful.
Sometimes I forget how blessed I am. Sometimes I forget because I got a storm in my life, like all of y'all, we got storms.
But you're alive, and if you are alive, you got a chance to change.
I thank God for me having this opportunity and being alive.
So that's first and foremost.
Because life is the greatest gift. Don't you ever forget that. There's no nothing more important than life. It's the greatest gift given to all of us, you know, So protect it, cherish it, and nourish it, all right. So the second, the second is family. Family, because it drives me, it gives me passion.
It gives me direction.
It allows me to think about what I need to do every day to provide food, shelter, and clothing. My family is my second thing that I'm grateful for. Some of us don't have that, but we all search for it. No matter where you at in this world. We desire connection, companionship. We decie to be loved. My family loved me, and I need to be grateful for that.
Even when sometimes I don't even deserve it.
I'm thankful for my family because it's my motivation, it's my passion, and it's why I get up every day to do what I do. And that braced me to my third one, which is Malague books. I got all the books.
You need.
That. It's my third grateful on this heaven, Malik books. And I didn't always think that that was what.
My destiny was.
I second guess I was like Jonah in the belly of a world, didn't want to do the work. But God persecuted me for so many years and he said, believe, go back to the books. That's what I groomed you for, that's what I made you for. And I walked away did some other things with the family, only to find out that.
This is my passion, this is my drive.
I've been doing this shit for thirty years, and since nineteen ninety I've been serving the community with books. I'm a book activist. I use books to make a difference in our community. I use books because it's the gift that keeps on giving, and books can change your life like it did Nipsey Hustle's life. You don't have to graduate from college, you don't even have to have a pump. But if you want to change your life, pick a
book up because it can make a difference. It can make a change, it can give you what.
You don't have.
That's one thing that we passed on from one generation to the next. It's information is knowledge is data, and you can find it.
In a book.
So I'm grateful for Malague Books. That's the three. Okay, you can find League Books and the Bold Hills Crunch on Mall.
That's the O g our Marque.
Location is Westfield, Cooche City aka Fox Hills Mall.
That's where you can find our instagram.
This is Elite Books. We do a lot of events. I mean, God, just open up the gateway. They throwing that, they throwing that I don't even have to call no more. I don't even have to write proposals.
No more.
They giving me all e they giving me all that. We got to Roger p coming up June twenty second, We got Nicole Hannah Jones June fourteenth. All right, we got for cards sellers coming up June eleventh. And if the list just keeps growing, so hey, I'm gonna have some descendants from the Oklahoma massacre green Wood gonna be at Elite Books June eighteenth.
She used to own a prominent theater.
She's gonna grace us on June eighteenth. We celebrate June timp and we got to set somebody from green Wood from the massacre gonna be at Malik Books.
Gonna be that June eighteenth. Come on through seven pm.
Let's give it up man Belief Books.
Thanks for listening to Malak's Bookshelf, where topics on the shelf are books, culture, and community. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. Check out my instagram at Malak Books. See you next time.