https://gateway.bibliocommons.com/v2/libraries/mymcpl/rss/search?query=McBride%2C%20James&searchType=author&origin=core-catalog-explore&view=groupedRSS for NodeWed, 07 Oct 2026 21:38:35 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C4438402https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C4438402Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/4438402110BKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593422946/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=o1355609649https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C4439378https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C4439378Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/4439378110LPRINTenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593743775/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=o1396186242THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION

FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023
“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review
“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C9476452https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C9476452Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/9476452980EBOOKA Novelenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593422960/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C322241https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C322241Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/322241110BKA Black Man's Tribute to His White Motherenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781594481925/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=63191862From the bestselling author of Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird: The modern classic that spent more than two years on The New York Times bestseller list and that Oprah.com calls one of the best memoirs of a generation. 

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion—and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.
In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.
At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all- black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college—and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.
Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self- realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C613063https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C613063Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/613063980EBOOKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781440636103/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3544757https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3544757Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3544757110BKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780735216693/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3545831https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3545831Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3545831110LPRINTenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780525498858/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=One of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2017
“A pinball machine zinging with sharp dialogue, breathtaking plot twists and naughty humor... McBride at his brave and joyous best.” —New York Times Book Review
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography.
 
The stories in Five-Carat Soul—none of them ever published before—spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic—all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens. Five strangers find themselves thrown together and face unexpected judgment. An American president draws inspiration from a conversation he overhears in a stable. And members of The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band recount stories from their own messy and hilarious lives. 
 
As McBride did in his National Book award-winning The Good Lord Bird and his bestselling The Color of Water, he writes with humor and insight about how we struggle to understand who we are in a world we don’t fully comprehend. The result is a surprising, perceptive, and evocative collection of stories that is also a moving exploration of our human condition.]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C3205677https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C3205677Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3205677980EBOOKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780735216716/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C4434273https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C4434273Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/4434273110BOOK_CDenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593684146/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=o1389834341https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3898990https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3898990Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3898990110BOOK_CDenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593166970/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=1138131375https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3890732https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3890732Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3890732110LPRINTenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593171837/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=1129213689https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3888203https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3888203Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3888203110BKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780735216723/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=1122690620https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3545347https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3545347Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3545347110BOOK_CDenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780525497967/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3344337https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3344337Sun, 31 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3344337110BKSearching for James Brown and the American Soulenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780812993509/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3221613https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C3221613Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3221613110BOOK_CDenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781624067105/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C2995988https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C2995988Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/2995988110LPRINTenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781410464859/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=856076282https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C2882733https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C2882733Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/2882733110BKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781594486340/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=820123671https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C1329889https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C1329889Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/1329889110BKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781594489723/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C302112https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C302112Wed, 31 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/302112110BOOK_CDenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780736685153/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C541001https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C541001Invalid Datehttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/541001110MFSketches of the Lives of Some of the Early Settlers of Butler County, Ohioenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=25375812&upc=https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C2701996https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S110C2701996Invalid Datehttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/2701996110EBOOKSketches of the Lives of the Early Settlers of Butler County, Ohioenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=CTRG97-B32THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES READERS PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY
WINNER OF THE 2024 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRIZE FOR AMERICAN FICTION

FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023
“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review
“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.
Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C9475693https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C9475693Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/9475693980EAUDIOBOOKA Novelenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593684139/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction
 
Winner of the Gotham Book Prize
One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year"
Oprah's Book Club Pick
New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine
A Washington Post Notable Novel
From the author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year.

In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range.
The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride’s funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself.
As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion.
Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.
]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C4814837https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C4814837Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/4814837980EAUDIOBOOKA Novelenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780593166994/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction
 
Winner of the Gotham Book Prize
One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year"
Oprah's Book Club Pick
New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
Named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and TIME Magazine
A Washington Post Notable Novel
From the author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, and the bestselling modern classic The Color of Water, comes one of the most celebrated novels of the year.

In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range.
The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride’s funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. In Deacon King Kong, McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself.
As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion.
Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.
]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C4815724https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C4815724Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/4815724980EBOOKA Novelenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780735216747/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=One of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2017
“A pinball machine zinging with sharp dialogue, breathtaking plot twists and naughty humor... McBride at his brave and joyous best.” —New York Times Book Review
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, and Kill 'Em and Leave, a James Brown biography.
 
The stories in Five-Carat Soul—none of them ever published before—spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic—all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens. Five strangers find themselves thrown together and face unexpected judgment. An American president draws inspiration from a conversation he overhears in a stable. And members of The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band recount stories from their own messy and hilarious lives. 
 
As McBride did in his National Book award-winning The Good Lord Bird and his bestselling The Color of Water, he writes with humor and insight about how we struggle to understand who we are in a world we don’t fully comprehend. The result is a surprising, perceptive, and evocative collection of stories that is also a moving exploration of our human condition.]]>https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C3205595https://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S980C3205595Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMThttps://mymcpl.bibliocommons.com/item/comment/3205595980EAUDIOBOOKenghttps://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9780525497998/MC.GIF&client=mconpublib&type=xw12&oclc=