African-American Literature Web Sites Launch “Power List” of Best-Selling Books

 

Three leading African-American literature web sites announced the launch of the Power List, a quarterly compilation of best-selling books written or read by African Americans.  The Power List is a joint project of AALBC.com, Cushcity.com and Mosaicbooks.com, three Web sites which have promoted African-American literature for more than a decade.

The founders of these companies believe there is a need for a comprehensive list of best-selling African-American books.  “Currently, the data is dispersed over a wide variety of sources,” said Gwen Richardson, co-founder of Cushcity.com.  “We wanted to compile and analyze the data across the board and present those findings to the public.”

Besides collecting data from online book sellers and random samples on relevant Facebook pages, the Power List has a unique feature:  Its findings include a quarterly survey of 1,200 African-American book clubs.  “African-American book clubs are well-established in urban communities across America,” said Troy Johnson, founder of AALBC.com. “The survey results tell us not only which Black authors are gaining traction among Black readers, but they also let us know which non-Black authors have garnered their attention.”

The Spring 2013 list is divided into separate categories:  Hardcover fiction, hardcover non-fiction, paperback fiction and paperback nonfiction.  Best-selling ebooks and classics will be added in future editions.  The list will be released on the fourth Monday in the month following each calendar quarter.

Notable information about the Spring 2013 list:

• Urban fiction author duo Ashley & Jaquavis have a total of four books among the top ten paperback fiction best sellers
• Author Sister Souljah has titles on both the paperback and hardcover fiction lists
• Best-selling author E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Gray was a top seller among African-American readers
• Two titles by politically-conservative African Americans were among the best-selling titles in paperback non-fiction books

“Our ultimate mission is three-fold,” said Ron Kavanaugh, founder of Mosaicbooks.com.  “To promote African-American literature; to assess the reading habits of African Americans; and to report those findings to the public.”

The Spring 2013 lists may be viewed at the Power List web site:  www.powerlist.info.  Updates will be included on the Power List Facebook and Twitter pages.  For more information, contact one of the individuals listed above.

And here are the titles for our first list, Spring 2013. The list is also available online: http://aalbc.it/plbooks

Again we request that any publication printing the list attribute the list as shown below.  Attached is a high resolution image for the Spring 2013 list.

Spring 2013 – Paperback – Fiction

#1 – Friends & Foes by ReShonda Tate Billingsley, Victoria Christopher Murray

#2 – The Cartel 4 by Ashley & Jaquavis

#3 – The Cartel 3 by Ashley & Jaquavis

#4 – The Cartel 2 by Ashley & Jaquavis

#5 – Animal by K’Wan

#6 – Murderville 2 by Ashley & Jaquavis

#7 – Midnight: A Gangster Love Story  by Sister Souljah

#8 – The Hot Box by Zane

#9 – Fifty Shades of Gray by E. L. James

#10 – Payback Ain’t Enough by Wahida Clark

 

Spring 2013 – Paperback – Non-Fiction

#1 – Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey

#2 – America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great by Ben Carson

#3 – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

#4 – The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness  by Michelle Alexander

#5 – The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration  by Isabel Wilkerson

#6 – Better Than Good Hair: The Curly Girl Guide to Healthy, Gorgeous Natural Hair!  by Nikki Walton

#7 – The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

#8 – Blacklash: How Obama and the Liberal Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation by Deneen Borelli

#9 – Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine by Bryant Terry

#10 – Where Did Our Love Go: Love and Relationships in the African-American Community by Gil L. Robertson IV

 

Spring 2013 – Hardcover – Fiction

#1 – The Man In 3B by Carl Weber

#2 – The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

#3 – If I Can’t Have You by Mary B. Morrison

#4 – The Perfect Marriage by Kimberla Lawson Roby

#5 – A Deeper Love Inside: The Porsche Santiaga Story  by Sister Souljah

#6 – The Reverend’s Wife by Kimberla Lawson Roby

#7 – God Don’t Make No Mistakes by Mary Monroe

#8 – An Accidental Affair by Eric Jerome Dickey

#9 – The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat  by Edward Kelsey Moore

#10 – Maintenance Man II: Money, Politics & Sex: Everyone Has A Price  by Michael Baisden

 

Spring 2013 – Hardcover – Non-Fiction

#1 – Manology: Secrets of Your Man’s Mind Revealed by Tyrese Gibson

#2 – Remembering Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped  by Cissy Houston

#3 – Mom & Me and Mom by Maya Angelou

#4 – The Wealth Choice: Success Secrets of Black Millionaires  by Dennis Kimbro

#5 – The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis

#6 – Living and Dying in Brick City: An E.R. Doctor Returns Home  by Sampson Davis

#7 – It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership by Colin Powell

#8 – Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom

#9 – One Day It’ll All Make Sense by Common

#10 – Shred: The Revolutionary Diet: 6 Weeks 4 Inches 2 Sizes by Ian K. Smith

 

Gurrrl, You Just Have to Read This! The 2013 Clutch Reading Challenge

 BY TAMI WINFREY HARRIS

This is what happens when bookish black women start talking about good literature on a lazy holiday weekday. I asked folks on Twitter and Facebook to help me craft a list of 10 books by black women that everyone should read. Instead of 10, I got 100.

Not surprising, really. Despite the absence of names like Paule Marshall, Gayl Jones and J. California Cooper on many mainstream lists of “bests,” the well of sistah girl literary talent is deep like the Lakers’ starting lineup, but unlike Kobe ‘n’ ‘em, greatly underappreciated.

I was once earnestly told, in an online discussion about the screensaver on the original Kindle, with its pencil-sketch parade of mostly white, mostly male and mostly dead authors, that writers of color and women writers were excluded from the literary canon, because, “for whatever reason,” none had written anything to approach the brilliance of men like Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe. Feasting on privilege, and your high school English class reading list from two decades past, can make a body mighty myopic. One wonders what else this reader thinks people of color and women cannot do as well as white men — “for whatever reason.”

I sought out several of the books below to read about black women’s experiences—some like my own, to learn from other black women and to support black women making art, which is not to say that reading books by black women is some act of largesse on the readers’ parts. The books below and the women who created them are, quite simply, damned good and deserve a space on bookshelves for that reason above all others.

I asked 2,500 people: “What book by a black woman author should everyone read?” Below is the result — a list of 100 books by black women, crowd-sourced mostly by black women. This is not canon. There are plenty of great books by sisters that aren’t here. In fact, to get the list down to 100, I had to make some tough choices about which books by Edwidge Danticat, Toni Morrison, Pearl Cleage and Octavia Butler would be here. Nearly all of their work was mentioned at least once. I haven’t read all of these books (Though maybe we can fix that—more in a bit.) and certainly cannot promise that every one will meet your tastes. But be assured that nearly every book on this list was highly praised by multiple respondents. I did not tinker with these suggestions but to try to confirm titles, author names and genres, and to trim the list slightly to the 100 you see here.

And now, for a challenge: This year, I want to read as many of the books on this list as possible and I hope you will join me in the 2013 Clutch Reading Challenge. In the coming months, we’ll host some special panel discussions right here on Clutch magazine. But, in the meantime, join the 2013 Clutch Reading Challenge Group on Goodreads and let’s keep the literary conversation (and support of black women authors) going.

1. Krik! Krak! by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction)
2. Caucasia by Danzy Senna (Fiction)
3. Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris Perry (Nonfiction)
4. Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
5. The Upper Room by Mary Monroe (Fiction)
6. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (Children’s Books)
7. Ugly Ways by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
8. Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America by Lori Tharps and Ayana Byrd (Nonfiction)
9. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Fiction)
10. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Fiction)
11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)
12. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Fiction)
13. Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story by Elaine Brown (Nonfiction)
14. A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry)
15. Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (Fiction)
16. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)
17. Breath, Eye, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Fiction)
18. Daughters by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
19. Sula by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
20. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Fiction)
21. Naughts and Crosses trilogy by Malorie Blackman (Fiction)
22. Coming to England by Floella Benjamin (Autobiography)
23. But Some of Us Are Brave by Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith (Nonfiction)
24. Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry)
25. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Fiction)
26. 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter (Fiction)
27. The Fisher King by Paule Marshall (Fiction)
28. Before You Suffocate your own Fool Self by Danielle Evans (Fiction)
29. Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in a Racially Divided Economy by Maggie Anderson (Nonfiction)
30. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (Nonfiction)
31. Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (Nonfiction)
32. Abeng by Michelle Cliff (Fiction)
33. Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor (Fiction)
34. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
35. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Autobiography)
36. Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker (Nonfiction)
37. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Various (Nonfiction)
38. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Fiction)
39. The Skin I’m In by Sharon G. Flake (Children’s Books)
40. The Shimmershine Queens by Camille Yarbrough (Children’s Books)
41. Darkest Child by Dolores Philips (Fiction)
42. The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey by Toi Derricotte (Nonfiction)
43. Gathering of Waters by Bernice McFadden (Fiction)
44. Corregidora by Gayl Jones (Fiction)
45. The Cutting Season by Attica Locke (Fiction)
46. The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin (Autobiography)
47. Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis (Nonfiction)
48. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (Nonfiction)
49. Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair (Fiction)
50. Zami—A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (“Biomythography”)
51. Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood (Fiction)
52. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
53. To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry (Autobiography)
54. Her Stories: African American Folktlaes, Fairy Tales and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton (Fiction)
55. The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia McKissak (Fiction)
56. Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd (Biography)
57. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (Children’s Books)
58. Betsy Brown by Ntozake Shange (Fiction)
59. Kindred by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)
60. Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
61. Cane River by Lalita Tademy (Nonfiction)
62. Daughter by asha bandele (Fiction)
63. Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do by Pearl Cleage (Fiction)
64. The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (Fiction)
65. Homegirls and Handgrenades by Sonia Sanchez (Poetry)
66. Efrain’s Secret by Sofia Quintero (YA)
67. When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost by Joan Morgan (Nonfiction)
68. The Collector of Treasures and Other Botswana Village Tales by Bessie Head (Fiction)
69. The Collected Poetry by Nikki Giovanni (Poetry)
70. Jubilee by Margaret Walker (Nonfiction)
71. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology by Barbara Smith (Nonfiction)
72. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Fiction)
73. For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (Fiction)
74. Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and Values Wars by Sikivu Hutchinson (Nonfiction)
75. The Hand I Fan With by Tina McElroy Ansa (Fiction)
76. Deals with the Devil and other Reasons to Riot by Pearl Cleage (Nonfiction)
77. Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta (Fiction)
78. NW by Zadie Smith (Fiction)
79. The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker (Fiction)
80. Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks (Nonfiction)
81. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid (Fiction)
82. Ain’t I A Woman by bell hooks (Nonfiction)
83. The Street by Ann Petry (Fiction)
84. Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriweather
85. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriett Jacobs
86. Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis (Nonfiction)
87. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
88. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman by Michelle Wallace(Nonfiction)
89. Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J.California Cooper (Fiction)
90. Meridian by Alice Walker (Nonfiction)
91. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
92. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (Fiction)
93. Homemade Love by J. California Cooper (Fiction)
94. Bitch is the New Black: A Memoir by Helena Andrews (Autobiography)
95. Color Blind: A Memoir by Precious Williams (Autobiography)
96. On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe (Fiction)
97. Oh Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam CJ Walker by A’lelia Bundles (Biography)
98. Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behaviorby Dr. Marimba Ani (Nonfiction)
99. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (Fiction)
100. Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction)

 

100 Notable Books of 2012

The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.

 

Julia Rothman

Illustration by Julia Rothman

FICTION & POETRY

ALIF THE UNSEEN. By G. Willow Wilson. (Grove, $25.) A young hacker on the run in the Mideast is the protagonist of this imaginative first novel.

ALMOST NEVER. By Daniel Sada. Translated by Katherine Silver. (Graywolf, paper, $16.) In this glorious satire of machismo, a Mexican agronomist simultaneously pursues a prostitute and an upright woman.

AN AMERICAN SPY. By Olen Steinhauer. (Minotaur, $25.99.) In a novel vividly evoking the multilayered world of espionage, Steinhauer’s hero fights back when his C.I.A. unit is nearly destroyed.

ARCADIA. By Lauren Groff. (Voice/Hyperion, $25.99.)Groff’s lush and visual second novel begins at a rural commune, and links that utopian past to a dystopian, post-global-warming future.

AT LAST. By Edward St. Aubyn. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) The final and most meditative of St. Aubyn’s brilliant Patrick Melrose novels is full of precise observations and glistening turns of phrase.

BEAUTIFUL RUINS. By Jess Walter. (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99.) Walter’s witty sixth novel, set largely in Hollywood, reveals an American landscape of vice, addiction, loss and disappointed hopes.

BILLY LYNN’S LONG HALFTIME WALK. By Ben Fountain. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $25.99.) The survivors of a fierce firefight in Iraq are whisked stateside for a brief victory tour in this satirical novel.

BLASPHEMY. By Sherman Alexie. (Grove, $27.) The best stories in Alexie’s collection of new and selected works are moving and funny, bringing together the embittered critic and the yearning dreamer.

THE BOOK OF MISCHIEF: New and Selected Stories. By Steve Stern. (Graywolf, $26.) Jewish immigrant lives observed with effusive nostalgia.

BRING UP THE BODIES. By Hilary Mantel. (Macrae/Holt, $28.) Mantel’s sequel to “Wolf Hall” traces the fall of Anne Boleyn, and makes the familiar story fascinating and suspenseful again.

BUILDING STORIES. By Chris Ware. (Pantheon, $50.) A big, sturdy box containing hard-bound volumes, pamphlets and a tabloid houses Ware’s demanding, melancholy and magnificent graphic novel about the inhabitants of a Chicago building.

BY BLOOD. By Ellen Ullman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) This smart, slippery novel is a narrative striptease, as a professor listens in on the sessions between the therapist next door and her patients.

CANADA. By Richard Ford. (Ecco/Har­perCollins, $27.99.) A boy whose parents rob a bank in Montana in 1960 takes refuge across the border in this mesmerizing novel, driven by fully realized characters and an accomplished prose style.

CARRY THE ONE. By Carol Anshaw. (Simon & Schuster, $25.) Anshaw pays close attention to the lives of a group of friends bound together by a fatal accident in this wry, humane novel, her fourth.

CITY OF BOHANE. By Kevin Barry. (Graywolf, $25.) Somewhere in Ireland in 2053, people are haunted by a “lost time,” when something calamitous happened, and hope to reclaim the past. Barry’s extraordinary, exuberant first novel is full of inventive language.

COLLECTED POEMS. By Jack Gilbert. (Knopf, $35.) In orderly free verse constructions, Gilbert deals plainly with grief, love, marriage, betrayal and lust.

DEAR LIFE: Stories. By Alice Munro. (Knopf, $26.95.) This volume offers further proof of Munro’s mastery, and shows her striking out in the direction of a new, late style that sums up her whole career.

THE DEVIL IN SILVER. By Victor LaValle. (Spiegel & Grau, $27.) LaValle’s culturally observant third novel is set in a shabby urban mental hospital.

ENCHANTMENTS. By Kathryn Harrison. (Random House, $27.) Harrison’s splendid and surprising novel of late imperial Russia centers on Rasputin’s daughter Masha and the hemophiliac ­czarevitch Alyosha.

FLIGHT BEHAVIOR. By Barbara Kingsolver. (Harper/HarperCollins, $28.99.) An Appalachian woman becomes involved in an effort to save monarch butterflies in this brave and majestic novel.

FOBBIT. By David Abrams. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $15.) Clerks, cooks and lawyers at a forward operating base in Iraq populate this first novel.

THE FORGETTING TREE. By Tatjana Soli. (St. Martin’s, $25.99.) In Soli’s haunting second novel, a mysterious Caribbean woman cares for a cancer patient on an isolated California ranch.

GATHERING OF WATERS. By Bernice L. McFadden. (Akashic, $24.95.) Three generations of black women confront floods and murder in Mississippi.

GODS WITHOUT MEN. By Hari Kunzru. (Knopf, $26.95.) Related stories, spanning centuries and continents, and all tethered to a desert rock formation, emphasize interconnectivity across time and space in Kunzru’s relentlessly modern fourth novel.

HHhH. By Laurent Binet. Translated by Sam Taylor. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.)This gripping novel examines both the killing of an SS general in Prague in 1942 and Binet’s experience in writing about it.

A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING. By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney’s, $25.) Eg­gers’s novel is a haunting and supremely readable parable of America in the global economy, a nostalgic lament for a time when life had stakes and people worked with their hands.

HOME. By Toni Morrison. (Knopf, $24.) A black Korean War veteran, discharged from an integrated Army into a segregated homeland, makes a reluctant journey back to Georgia in a novel engaged with themes that have long haunted Morrison.

HOPE: A TRAGEDY. By Shalom Auslander. (Riverhead, $26.95.) Hilarity alternates with pain in this novel about a Jewish man seeking peace in upstate New York who discovers Anne Frank in his ­attic.

HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE? By Sheila Heti. (Holt, $25.) The narrator (also named Sheila) and her friends try to answer the question in this novel’s title.

IN ONE PERSON. By John Irving. (Simon & Schuster, $28.) Irving’s funny, risky new novel about an aspiring writer struggling with his sexuality examines what happens when we face our desires honestly.

A LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME. By Wiley Cash. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $24.99.) An evil pastor dominates Cash’s mesmerizing first novel.

MARRIED LOVE: And Other Stories. By Tessa Hadley. (Harper Perennial, paper, $14.99.) Hadley’s understatedly beautiful collection is filled with exquisitely calibrated gradations and expressions of class.

NW. By Zadie Smith. (Penguin Press, $26.95.) The lives of two friends who grew up in a northwest London housing project diverge, illuminating questions of race, class, sexual identity and personal choice, in Smith’s energetic modernist novel.

ON THE SPECTRUM OF POSSIBLE DEATHS. By Lucia Perillo. (Copper Canyon, $22.) Taut, lucid poems filled with complex emotional reflection.

PURE. By Julianna Baggott. (Grand Central, $25.99.) Children battle for the planet’s redemption in this precisely written postapocalyptic adventure story.

THE RIGHT-HAND SHORE. By Christopher Tilghman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) A dark, magisterial novel set on a Chesapeake Bay estate.

THE ROUND HOUSE. By Louise Erdrich. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.) In this novel, an American Indian family faces the ramifications of a vicious crime.

SALVAGE THE BONES. By Jesmyn Ward. (Bloomsbury, $24.) A pregnant 15-year-old and her family await Hurricane Katrina in this lushly written novel.

SAN MIGUEL. By T. Coraghessan Boyle. (Viking, $27.95.) Two utopians from different eras establish private idylls on California’s desolate Channel Islands; this novel preserves their tantalizing dreams.

SHINE SHINE SHINE. By Lydia Netzer. (St. Martin’s, $24.99.) This thought-provoking debut novel presents a geeky astronaut and his pregnant wife.

SHOUT HER LOVELY NAME. By Natalie Serber. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24.)The stories in Serber’s first collection are smart and nuanced.

SILENT HOUSE. By Orhan Pamuk. Translated by Robert Finn. (Knopf, $26.95.) A family is a microcosm of a country on the verge of a coup in this intense, foreboding novel, first published in Turkey in 1983.

THE STARBOARD SEA. By Amber Dermont. (St. Martin’s, $24.99.) Dermont’s captivating debut novel, whose narrator is a boarding school student and a sailor, takes pleasure in the sea and in the exhilarating freedom of being young.

SWEET TOOTH. By Ian McEwan. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $26.95.) The true subject of this smart and tricky novel, set inside a cold war espionage operation, is the border between make-believe and reality.

SWIMMING HOME. By Deborah Levy. (Bloomsbury, paper, $14.) In this spare, disturbing and frequently funny novel, a troubled young woman tests the marriages of two couples.

TELEGRAPH AVENUE. By Michael Chabon. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.)Chabon’s rich comic novel about fathers and sons in Berkeley and Oakland, Calif., juggles multiple plots and mounds of pop culture references in astonishing prose.

THE TESTAMENT OF MARY. By Colm Toibin. (Scribner, $19.99.) This beautiful work takes power from the surprises of its language and its almost shocking characterization of Mary, mother of Jesus.

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE HER. By Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $26.95.) The stories in this collection are about love, but they’re also about the undertow of family history and cultural mores, presented in Díaz’s exciting, irresistible and entertaining prose.

THREE STRONG WOMEN. By Marie NDiaye. Translated by John Fletcher. (Knopf, $25.95.) In loosely linked narratives, three women from Senegal struggle with fathers and husbands in France. This subtle, hypnotic novel won the Prix Goncourt in 2009.

TOBY’S ROOM. By Pat Barker. (Doubleday, $25.95.) This novel, a sequel to “Life Class,” delves further into the lives of an English family torn apart by World War I.

WATERGATE. By Thomas Mallon. (Pantheon, $26.95.) This novelistic re­imagining of the “third-rate burglary” proposes surprising motives for the break-in and the 18-minute gap, and has a sympathetic Nixon.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK: Stories.By Nathan Englander. (Knopf, $24.95.) Englander tackles large questions of morality and history in a masterly collection that manages to be both insightful and ­uproarious.

THE YELLOW BIRDS. By Kevin Powers. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) A young private and his platoon struggle through the war in Iraq but find no peace at home in this powerful and moving first novel about the frailty of man and the brutality of war.

NONFICTION

ALL WE KNOW: Three Lives. By Lisa Cohen. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30.) The vanished world of midcentury upper-class lesbians is portrayed as beguiling, its inhabitants members of a stylish club.

AMERICAN TAPESTRY: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama. By Rachel L. Swarns. (Amistad/HarperCollins, $27.99.) A Times reporter’s deeply researched chronicle of several generations of Mrs. Obama’s family.

AMERICAN TRIUMVIRATE: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and the Modern Age of Golf. By James Dodson. (Knopf, $28.95.) The author evokes an era when the game was more vivid and less corporate than it seems now.

ARE YOU MY MOTHER? A Comic Drama. By Alison Bechdel. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22.) Bechdel’s engaging, original graphic memoir explores her troubled relationship with her distant mother.

BARACK OBAMA: The Story. By David Maraniss. (Simon & Schuster, $32.50.) This huge and absorbing new biography, full of previously unexplored detail, shows that Obama’s saga is more surprising and gripping than the version we’re familiar with.

BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. By Katherine Boo. (Random House, $27.) This extraordinary moral inquiry into life in an Indian slum shows the human costs exacted by a brutal social Darwinism.

BELZONI: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate. By Ivor Noël Hume. (University of Virginia, $34.95.) The fascinating tale of the 19th-century Italian monk, a “notorious tomb robber,” who gathered archaeological treasures in Egypt while crunching bones underfoot.

THE BLACK COUNT: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo. By Tom Reiss. (Crown, $27.) The first Alexandre Dumas, a mixed-race general of the French Revolution, is the subject of this imaginative biography.

BREASTS: A Natural and Unnatural History. By Florence Williams. (Norton, $25.95.) Williams’s environmental call to arms deplores chemicals in breast milk and the vogue for silicone implants.

COMING APART: The State of White America, 1960-2010. By Charles Murray. (Crown Forum, $27.) The author of “The Bell Curve” warns that the white working class has abandoned the “founding virtues.”

DARWIN’S GHOSTS: The Secret History of Evolution. By Rebecca Stott. (Spiegel & Grau, $27.) Stott’s lively, original history of evolutionary ideas flows easily across continents and centuries.

A DISPOSITION TO BE RICH: How a Small-Town Preacher’s Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States. By Geoffrey C. Ward. (Knopf, $28.95.) The author’s ancestor was the bane of Ulysses S. Grant.

FAR FROM THE TREE: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. By Andrew Solomon. (Scribner, $37.50.) This passionate and affecting work about what it means to be a parent is based on interviews with families of “exceptional” children.

FLAGRANT CONDUCT. The Story of Lawrence v. Texas: How a Bedroom Arrest Decriminalized Gay Americans. By Dale Carpenter. (Norton, $29.95.)Carpenter stirringly describes the 2003 Supreme Court decision that overturned the Texas sodomy law.

THE FOLLY OF FOOLS: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. By Robert Trivers. (Basic Books, $28.) An intriguing argument that deceit is a beneficial evolutionary “deep feature” of life.

THE GREY ALBUM: On the Blackness of Blackness. By Kevin Young. (Graywolf, paper, $25.) A poet’s lively account of the central place of the trickster figure in black American culture could have been called “How Blacks Invented America.”

HAITI: The Aftershocks of History. By Laurent Dubois. (Metropolitan/Holt, $32.)Foreign meddling, the lack of a democratic tradition, a humiliating American occupation and cold-war support of a brutal dictator all figure in a scholar’s well-written analysis.

HOW CHILDREN SUCCEED: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. By Paul Tough. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27.) Noncognitive skills like persistence and self-control are more crucial to success than sheer brainpower, Tough maintains.

HOW MUSIC WORKS. By David Byrne. (McSweeney’s, $32.) This guidebook also explores the eccentric rock star’s personal and professional experience.

IRON CURTAIN: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. By Anne Applebaum. (Doubleday, $35.) An overwhelming and convincing account of the Soviet push to colonize Eastern Europe after World War II.

KAYAK MORNING: Reflections on Love, Grief, and Small Boats. By Roger Rosenblatt. (Ecco/HarperCollins, paper, $13.99.) This thoughtful meditation on the evolution of grief over time asks the big questions.

LINCOLN’S CODE: The Laws of War in American History. By John Fabian Witt. (Free Press, $32.) A tension between humanitarianism and righteousness has shaped America’s rules of warfare.

LITTLE AMERICA: The War Within the War for Afghanistan. By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. (Knopf, $27.95.) A beautifully written and deeply reported account of America’s troubled involvement in ­Afghanistan.

MEMOIR OF A DEBULKED WOMAN: Enduring Ovarian Cancer. By Susan Gubar. (Norton, $24.95.) A feminist scholar recounts her experience and criticizes the medical treatment of a frightening disease in a voice that is straightforward and incredibly brave.

MY POETS. By Maureen N. McLane. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Part memoir and part criticism, this friendly book includes essays on poets canonical and contemporary, as well as lineated poem-games.

THE OBAMAS. By Jodi Kantor. (Little, Brown, $29.99.) Michelle Obama sets the tone and tempo of the current White House, Kantor argues in this admiring account, full of colorful insider anecdotes.

ODDLY NORMAL: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms With His Sexuality. By John Schwartz. (Gotham, $26.) A Times reporter’s deeply affecting account of his son’s coming out also reviews research on the experience of LGBT kids.

ON A FARTHER SHORE: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson. By William Souder. (Crown, $30.) An absorbing biography of the pioneering environmental writer on the 50th anniversary of “Silent Spring.”

ON SAUDI ARABIA: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines — and Future. By Karen Elliott House. (Knopf, $28.95.) A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist unveils this inscrutable country, comparing its calcified regime to the Soviet Union in its final days.

THE ONE: The Life and Music of James Brown. By RJ Smith. (Gotham, $27.50.)Smith argues that Brown was the most significant modern American musician in terms of style, messaging, rhythm and originality.

THE PASSAGE OF POWER: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. By Robert A. Caro. (Knopf, $35.) The fourth volume of Caro’s magisterial work spans the five years that end shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, as Johnson prepares to push for a civil rights act.

THE PATRIARCH: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. By David Nasaw. (Penguin Press, $40.) This riveting history captures the sweep of Kennedy’s life — as Wall Street speculator, moviemaker, ambassador and dynastic founder.

PEOPLE WHO EAT DARKNESS: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished From the Streets of Tokyo — and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up. By Richard Lloyd Parry. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $16.) An evenhanded investigation of a murder.

RED BRICK, BLACK MOUNTAIN, WHITE CLAY: Reflections on Art, Family, and Survival. By Christopher Benfey. (Penguin Press, $25.95.) Mixing memoir, family saga, travelogue and cultural ­history.

RULE AND RUIN. The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party: From Eisenhower to the Tea Party. By Geoffrey Kabaservice. (Oxford University, $29.95.) Pragmatic Republicanism was hardier than we remember, Kabaservice argues.

SAUL STEINBERG: A Biography. By Deirdre Bair. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $40.)A gripping and revelatory biography of the eminent cartoonist.

SHOOTING VICTORIA: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy. By Paul Thomas Murphy. (Pegasus, $35.) An uninhibited and learned account of the attempts on the life of Queen Victoria, which only increased her popularity.

SHORT NIGHTS OF THE SHADOW CATCHER: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. By Timothy Egan. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28.) A deft portrait of the man who made memorable photographs of American ­Indians.

THE SOCIAL CONQUEST OF EARTH. By Edward O. Wilson. (Norton, $27.95.) The evolutionary biologist explores the strange kinship between humans and some insects.

SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID: Memoirs of an Outsider. By Zakes Mda. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $35.) The South African novelist and playwright absorbingly illuminates his wide, worldly life.

SPILLOVER: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. By David Quammen. (Norton, $28.95.) Quammen’s meaty, sprawling book chronicles his globe-trotting scientific adventures and warns against animal microbes spilling over into people.

THE TASTE OF WAR: World War II and the Battle for Food. By Lizzie Colling­ham. (Penguin Press, $36.) Collingham argues that food needs contributed to the war’s origins, strategy, outcome and aftermath.

THOMAS JEFFERSON: The Art of Power. By Jon Meacham. (Random House, $35.) This readable and well-researched life celebrates Jefferson’s skills as a practical politician, unafraid to wield power even when it conflicted with his small-government views.

VICTORY: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. By Linda Hirshman. (Harper/Har­perCollins, $27.99.) Written with knowing finesse, this expansive history of gay rights from the early 20th century to the present draws on archives and interviews.

WHEN GOD TALKS BACK: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God. By T. M. Luhrmann. (Knopf, $28.95.) Evangelicals believe that God speaks to them personally because they hone the skill of prayer, this insightful study argues.

WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL? By Jeanette Winterson. (Grove, $25.) Winterson’s unconventional and winning memoir wrings humor from adversity as it describes her upbringing by a wildly deranged mother.

WHY DOES THE WORLD EXIST? An Existential Detective Story. By Jim Holt. (Liveright/Norton, $27.95.) An elegant and witty writer converses with philosophers and cosmologists who ponder why there is something rather than nothing.

Previous Years’ Lists

2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |2007 | 2006 | 2005

 

Be Free and Read: Our Pick of 7 of the Best Banned Books

By Sarah Cahill

Our favorite literary holiday, Banned Books Week, is finally upon us. In case you are not familiar with it, Banned Books Week is an annual national awareness holiday held during the last week of September that celebrates the freedom to read by drawing attention to books that have been challenged or banned in schools and libraries. According to the American Library Association, there were 326 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2011 for reasons such as language, violence, and sexual content. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the observance of Banned Books Week, which inspired us to recount our favorite banned books. The biggest challenge we faced was narrowing down the list to a mere seven favorites. Be sure to weigh in below with your favorite banned books.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry
It comes as no surprise that a young adult novel dubbed “the suicide book” caused waves among parents. Lois Lowry’s 1993 Newbery-winning dystopian classic about a society that managed to outlaw negative feelings has the distinction of being one of the most frequently challenged books in middle school libraries across the United States. Parents find fault with the actions of the government in The Giver, responsible for a myriad of horrible offenses they consider routine, such as euthanizing the elderly and killing one child in a set of twins. Luckily, most of the challenges made against The Giverhave been unsuccessful, helping younger generations retain access to Lowry’s powerful statement against totalitarian government control and the loss of emotions.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Numbering among the most ironically banned books (along with 1984 and Brave New World), Ray Bradbury’s brilliant 1953 vision of future government using firefighters to burn books that have the potential to inspire critical thinking has been continually met with opposition since publication. Most of the complaints have been about the offensive language (too many “hells” and “damns” for parents) along with “anti-Christian” allegations, due to the fact that the bible was among the books burned. Those who opposed Fahrenheit 451made the claim that Bradbury advocated bible burning, while in fact the opposite was true: Bradbury attempted to illustrate how out of control government censorship had become when religious texts were among the books burned.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series centered on teenage wizards battling evil forces has continued to delight and entertain millions since the first novel was published fifteen years ago. However, Harry Potter managed to upset conservative parents in the United States. In 1999, a group of South Carolina parents lobbied to have the Harry Potter books removed from the classroom on the grounds that they glamorize the occult. It’s a shame that one of the series credited for inspiring children to love reading has been met with opposition. We can only hope that upon the publication of the final book in J.K. Rowling’s trilogy, when good triumphs over evil, some of the opposition was inspired to see the light.

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin’s progressive 1899 novella about one woman’s radical decision to revolt against traditional femininity by leaving her family to take a lover and pursue a career as an artist in an Orthodox Southern community was considered immoral and censored upon publication, due to Chopin’s brazen portrayal of female sexual desire. Despite the fact that The Awakening garnered a number of strong reviews, the backlash proved to be so intense that Kate Chopin never wrote another novel. We feel fortunate that she was brave enough to publish The Awakening, which is today recognized as one of the founding texts for the women’s movement.

Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison’s novels have never shied away from confronting heavy subjects such as racism, evil, and loss of innocence head-on. Her 1987 classic, Beloved, is no exception. Beloved tells the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver after their escape from enslavement during the Civil War. Despite winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988,Beloved was challenged by many concerned parents who protested the book on grounds that it contained incest, rape, sex, infanticide, and profanity.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
It’s hard to believe that a book widely regarded as one of the resonating works of classic literature documenting the atrocities of the Nazi regime was successfully banned from Virginia school systems in 2010. Anne Frank’s firsthand account of her two years hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam warehouse was protested on the grounds that it contained “sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.” The version that was successfully banned in Virginia was The Diary of a Young Girl: the Definitive Edition, which contained passages previously excluded from the original 1947 edition.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
A generation of teenagers sat up and paid attention to Stephen Chbosky’s 1999 ode to awkward adolescence. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is told from the perspective of a teenager who calls himself “Charlie” as he documents the ups and downs of his freshman year of high school. There have been at least ten instances of the book being challenged or banned since publication, mainly attributable to sexual content and drug use. If you ask us, coming-of-age novels that exclude those subjects are potentially disingenuous.

 

New Memoir By A New Yorker Living In Japan Engages Racism In A Refreshing New Way

Nationwide (BlackNews.com) — Here’s a book unlike any other written on the subject of racism by a self-identified black racist. The author, Baye McNeil, is an African American living in Japan for the past decade. His sensational new memoir entitled: Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist, has caught the attention of readers worldwide and has been causing an uproar in Japan since its release in January 2012.

The commotion has not been one of outrage, however. To the contrary, this passionate memoir has been called by readers, “one of the most honest, passionate, engaging and best written books about life in modern Japan for non-Japanese of any race,” and has garnered rave reviews from readers worldwide.

McNeil was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York where some of his earliest encounters with racism were as a child of the Pan-African / Black Power Movement. As a elementary student at a Progressive Pro-Black Family School in the 70s, between Swahili studies and Black History courses, his school’s hands-on approach to “social studies” often placed him and his classmates, placards in hand, on the frontlines of protest marches, boycotts and demonstrations against everything from police brutality and shootings of unarmed black children in New York to apartheid in South Africa and corporate-sponsored civil war in Angola.

In the early 80s, while Disco was on its deathbed and Hip-Hop was a Rug-Rat in diapers, the author was a teen member of a notorious urban cult which touted black superiority in a volatile community fraught with racial tension, and whose membership rolls held such illustrious names as Rakim, Big Daddy Kane and Poor Righteous Teachers. The author takes readers on a scintillating and informative journey through the heart and soul of America as a US Army soldier, which he characterized as “a propaganda pressure cooker” yet “a brilliant way to address racial ignorance,” and then back to NY for a bout with corporate bigotry as a University student in Brooklyn. It was at University that he experiences something so surprising and soul-rocking that it will racially alter the course of his life forever. At least, he thought so…then came Japan.

Prompted by his mind-altering experiences in the land of the rising sun, McNeil uses anecdotes and insights from both his youth and his years in Asia to highlight the insidious nature of racism, and the dangers of responding to it with apathy. In what the author describes as “an impassioned call to arms,” he urges readers to reconsider how they view racism. He warns that “if racism continues to be demonized as a dark aberration that only ‘evil’ people, ignorant fools, or people lacking common decency are subject to, then it will remain at large, hiding in plain sight, in our schools, offices, carpools, living rooms and sometimes even in the mirror.”

Hi! My Name is Loco and I am a Racist is currently available on Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and at many other online outlets where books are sold, in both trade paperback and E-book versions.

For more details, contact Hunterfly Road Publishing at loco@himynameisloco.com or visit http://www.himynameisloco.com

 

From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862-1875

Span, Christopher M. From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862-1875.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2009. 264 pp. $35.00 (hardcover)

From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse is centered on the debate over the control of and purpose of black schools. The book is also a thorough inspection of the political landscape and the policies of racial education in Mississippi.

The main argument is whether schools for freed slaves should establish those freedmen as citizens, equip them for freedom but as inferior manual workers, or devise another, altogether different, end result. The freed slaves perceived that schools they created for themselves would allow them to become independent, politically legitimate, and have some societal and economic flexibility. However, most northerners, who were helping the freed slaves, saw the freed people’s perception of their educated selves as impractical. The northerners fully expected the freed slaves to continue working, albeit under contract, for the very persons who had enslaved them. At the same time, the vast majority of white Mississippians argued against any educational opportunities for former slaves. Limiting his work to Mississippi from 1862 to the end of Reconstruction in 1875, Span proves that the freed slaves’ desire for an all-inclusive public education system plays a critical role in the political landscape and the policies of racial education in Mississippi during that time. It becomes abundantly clear that his purpose for writing From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse is for the reader to understand the significance of knowledge and literacy to the slave community, and how those who were once slaves became knowledgeable.

Others have chronicled the trials of education in the South during Reconstruction, but Span’s work is seemingly the first compelling book to portray the drama of former Mississippi slaves’ quest for a public education. Although predicated upon astounding archival research, Span’s book can arguably serve as an ideal for those southern states who wish to chronicle black educational efforts. Therefore, those interested in African American history, Southern history, Reconstruction, and African American educational history will find this title most informative. From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse would be a wise purchase for any public or academic library.

Mantra Henderson
Interim director, James H. White Library
Mississippi Valley State University

 

Q&A With Tavis Smiley & Cornel West

 

Sandra Varner

web: www.Talk2SV.com

em: Sandra@Talk2SV.com

http://www.talk2sv.com/smiley_west.html

Authors of
The Rich and the Rest of Us:
A Poverty Manifesto

Q. What was the motivation behind this book?

Cornel West: There were a number of contributing factors that led to the writing of this book. First and foremost, my dear brother Tavis and I are avid disciples of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The elimination of poverty, fair wages, and safe working conditions for sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, was the issue King championed when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. It all began in November 1967, when King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a Poor People‘s Campaign to address issues of economic justice and housing for the poor in the United States, aiming itself at rebuilding America‘s cities. The Poor People‘s Campaign did not focus on just poor black people but advocated on behalf of all poor people. King labeled the Poor People’s Campaign the ―second phase‖ of the civil rights struggle. Poverty mattered to King, so it matters to us.

Tavis Smiley: We weren‘t planning on writing a book about poverty until the idea was brought to us. It resonated with us because during our 18-city, 11-state Poverty Tour in August 2011, we were disturbed and disappointed by the narrow focus of the media coverage about poverty, which focused primarily on the middle class who had lost jobs, massive unemployment, foreclosures that resulted from the Great Recession, or political candidates who were depicting poor people as pariahs of society. These myopic conversations gave the impression that our woes will end and the middle class will be saved as soon as the economy bounces back. We felt it was necessary to paint a more realistic picture.

So-called ―entitlements‖ for poor people are not the cause of the recession. A stock market uptick or decreased employment rates that don‘t reflect the needs of those who have given up looking for jobs, or who have settled for part-time work when their families require a full-time salary, will not solve what we witnessed while traveling across this country.  And even if the country did –bounce back, which is doubtful considering we no longer lead in the manufacture of what the world needs—it won’t reconfigure the nation’s current economic equations that keep the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Q. If eliminating poverty is the goal, why title the book The Rich and the Rest of Us?

Cornel West: Anytime you seriously dissect the issue of poverty, you have to talk about wealth, income inequality, and fundamental fairness. While the incomes of the richest 1 percent of Americans have grown by 33 percent over the past 20 years, the income growth for the other 99 percent, including the middle class, has been at a virtual standstill. It is impossible to talk about poverty without discussing the greed, corporate avarice, dwindling opportunities in a politically paralyzed nation, and institutionalized guarantees that the rich will continue getting richer.

Q. “A Poverty Manifesto” is the subtitle of your book. What do you say to critics who contend that you are pushing a radical liberal agenda?

Tavis Smiley: First of all, we‘d invite them to pick up a dictionary. A manifesto by definition is simply a public declaration of intent. It is our belief that we can move toward eradicating poverty in our lifetime. With 150 million Americans poor, near poor, or new poor, it is our intent to publicly encourage citizens of all political persuasions to address the issue of widespread poverty and the growing, obscene, democracy-threatening divide between America‘s rich and poor.

Q. Why was it necessary to give readers a historical perspective on poverty?

Cornel West: We thought it would be fascinating to reveal how poverty has been addressed since this country was founded in the 18th century. Not only were we reminded of the historical divide between the privileged and the impoverished, but we noted several stops, starts, and stalls in the nation‘s efforts to reduce poverty in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt Roosevelt‘s New Deal interventions in the 1930s and Lyndon B. Johnson‘s Great Society initiatives of the 1960s are but two examples. We were also able to chart periods of resistance—such as the abolitionist, women‘s suffrage, and labor movements—when everyday Americans were pushed to a point where they stood up to the status quo and risked death and severe punishment to fight for freedom, equality, and economic justice. Against the backdrop of history we are reminded that we Americans have always sacrificed and fought for the common good once we understood what we were sacrificing and fighting for.

 

Black Author Tells Story of Living With Sickle Cell Disease in New Book

 

Bookcover Nationwide (May 7, 2012) — The pain struck when Judy was only four. Later, Judy noticed she was tired a lot – so tired that on some mornings she could not get up to go to school. However, Judy’s mother Janie was unsympathetic. In Janie’s eyes, Judy had to be punished for skipping school. Later, some folk in the small black community began whispering about that “strange illness of little Judy Gray.” In Living With Sickle Cell Disease: The Struggle to Survive, Judy Gray Johnson describes how she attended college, taught elementary school, endured a troubled marriage, raised a daughter alone, and even presided over a major teachers’ union while enduring severe periods of pain that usually required emergency room visits, blood transfusions, and copious dosages of painkillers such as morphine. All the while, exhaustion was her constant companion.The mysterious disorder remained so until Judy was 16, when a doctor diagnosed her with an ailment called sickle cell anemia. Nevertheless, the doctor would share the news only with Judy’s aunt, who said nothing to Judy about the diagnosis. Therefore, Judy’s frequent pain and fatigue would remain a mystery for most of her life. Along with veteran journalist Leroy Williams Jr., Judy wrote and self-published Living With Sickle Cell Disease to tell her story of living with sickle cell disease, which affects between 70,000 and 100,000 Americans and is present in one of every 500 African American births. The memoir also recounts how she evolved from victim into a staunch advocate for herself and other “sicklers” in the face of an insensitive medical profession and ignorance of sickle cell disease among the public. Judy hopes the book will create greater awareness of sickle cell disease and reassure its sufferers that they too can accomplish great things despite their illnesses. Judy would be happy to serve as a resource for editors and journalists seeking perspectives on sickle cell disease and other chronic illnesses. Living With Sickle Cell Disease is available in hard cover, paperback and e-book versions through http://www.lulu.com. Readers also may visit Judy’s website atwww.judygrayjohnson.com PRESS CONTACT: Judy Gray Johnson (703) 960-3397 jgjproductions@gmail.com Leroy Williams Jr. (856) 236-0860 kyash2909@msn.com

 

Jamaican Book Review: No Pit Too Deep

About the Book:
This novel, though not based on actual events, depicts real life experiences. It is the hard-hitting, graphic story of Julienne, a young girl who experiences rejection, sexual abuse and the consequences of her choices. Her journey takes her on a downward spiral, deep into a pit of pain, hatred, and bitterness. Through all of this, God’s hand is evident in her life, though at first she does not recognize this. She eventually cries out to Him in desperation and reaches for His hand to help pull her out of the pit. But, is Julienne already in too deep? Can the hand of God now rescue her from the depths of despair and hopelessness?  Will there be forgiveness and healing?

This story was written out of my deep concern and the burden I carry for females who experience emotional, physical and or sexual abuse. As a Minister of Religion, I have counselled females over the years and many, too many, who have experienced rejection and abuse at the hands of people they trust. I have seen the devastating effects that rejection and abuse have had on women; but I have also seen many of them experience freedom from these negative effects as a result of coming into a personal relationship with Christ. My hope is that this book will impact girls and women who have experienced and are experiencing abuse, and will give them hope and help them find healing. This book is also intended to help girls make wise choices, no matter how difficult their situation, and to understand the dangers of making certain choices. Above all, it is my hope that this book will help young women who have experienced abuse know that there is ‘NO PIT TOO DEEP’ for God to reach them and that He can make their lives whole. Ultimately, my desire is that persons will come into a relationship with Christ or draw closer to Him because of this book.

Finally, I hope that teenage boys and men will read this book and understand the pain and suffering that girls and women experience from physical, emotional and sexual abuse. This, I trust will bring about a greater level of respect and care for the females in their lives.
Reviews

No Pit Too Deep is a story for “such a time as this”.  This riveting, realistic and colouful novel touches on the most important emotional, social and economic problems and injustices facing young people in Jamaica today.  Importantly, No Pit Too Deep reflects the problems and challenges facing youth all over the world.  In that regard, No Pit Too Deep is a quintessential novel with very wide relevance and appeal.
In simple, yet beautifully written prose, author Michael McIntosh weaves together the fabric of intergenerational poverty, abuse and neglect into a garment that brings to light those things that are difficult to talk about in the society – teenage pregnancy, abortion, rape, incest, drugs, HIV Aids, prostitution and violence.
Then the author unleashes the punch line.  Victory is secured in the end, only with the help of God, and the main protagonists, Julienne, Marie, Sylvester and Dave acknowledge their sins and all except for Dave give their lives to the Lord.  The climax of the book can only be described as reaching the “crescendo of Christ”!
Truly there is No Pit Too Deep for the healing and restorative power of Jesus Christ.  Michael McIntosh has brilliantly and irrefutably confirmed that point in his captivating novel.
No Pit Too Deep is a “must read” for all.  It is an especially important work for parents, teachers, guidance counsellors, social workers, children’s advocates and administrators.
No Pit Too Deep will keep you spellbound from beginning to end.  It is a life-changing story. –  Betty Ann Blaine, Founder/Convener, New Nation Coalition, Founder, Hear The Children’s Cry, Founder, Youth Opportunities Unlimited

In this novel, No Pit Too Deep the author has used the narrative, story-telling format to effectively highlight the pain and suffering suffered by women who have had to endure sexual abuse.
The plot develops quickly and this, together with the author’s simple, straight-forward style, instantly engages and maintains the reader’s interest, even as the characters’ pain and suffering are explicitly described.
The author has, I believe, brought into sharp focus for the reader the psycho-social effects of all types of abuse (physical emotional and sexual) and the emotional and physical trauma resulting from such abuse. All these are graphically portrayed in Julienne’s story.
Women who have suffered in this way will undoubtedly identify with Julienne and the other characters in the story who have experienced deep emotional pain, deprivation, loneliness, homelessness, sometimes raging anger, rejection and abandonment, shame, guilt and low self-esteem. The stark reality of such emotional and physical trauma propel the characters to make decisions resulting in behaviour they later deeply regret but which they feel helpless to avoid or change. The subjects of rape, lesbianism, abortion, prostitution and drug abuse are all candidly and sensitively treated.
Minister McIntosh has, not surprisingly, ended his narrative with the redemption of Julienne, the main character, whose ultimate decision to accept Christ’s forgiveness and the unconditional love, plus the support of a good friend, radically changes her life. This provides the happy ending readers generally like.
I hope that the target audience, especially our men, will indeed read this book and, having gained new insights into the detrimental and often tragic consequences for women, of abusive behaviour, will be moved to change the way they regard and treat our women.
I believe this is a worthwhile addition to the body of Christian literature available today. – Dr. Barry S Davidson, CEO Family Life Ministries , M.A., PsyD.MFT.

“Michael McIntosh, in this gripping novel, yanks us back to the crude realities of economic and sexual subjugation, giving us a peek into the incurable pain, anguish and bitterness of girls on the margins of life.
His writing is forceful, frenetic and fever pitch. There is no space for boredom and your challenge once you pick up this book is to be able to tear yourself from it. Have something to eat before reading it, for not even the hunger pangs might be able to pull you away. But then again, there is enough in its pages to make your stomach turn on its own…Recommended reading. – Ian Boyne, Journalist (Jamaica Information Service), Communication Executive, Talk show host   

About the Author
Michael Martin McIntosh, born in 1966 in St. Andrew  Jamaica, is an ordained Minister and Evangelist.

Michael’s Ministry involves teaching, preaching,       counselling and as speaker, on issues relating to marriage and family, and sexuality. Michael does volunteer work in schools through the Guidance and Counselling departments. He has a passion for youth and a concern and burden for those who are abused. He is multitalented, including being a professional photographer, musician and now an author. He is married with two children.

It is out of his God given talent, his concern for youth and females who are abused, that Michael was inspired to write this gripping and compelling story “NO PIT TOO DEEP” which tells the story of Julienne, a Jamaican girl whose mother Marie gave birth to her as a teenager after being put out by Miss Clover, her Mother.  Julienne’s life took many tragic and  dramatic turns including abuse and rejection. Follow the gripping life story of Julienne as she falls  into a pit of pain, and despair.  Will she get out of this pit and find the hope and healing she so    desperately needs?

 

Morrison’s ‘Home’ won’t leave you feeling warm and cozy

By Mike Fischer, Special to the Journal Sentinel

Raised in a sleepy Georgia town, an 18-year-old African-American named Frank Money enlists in the Army, commits atrocities in Korea, comes home with a broken mind, returns to Georgia to rescue his sister and eventually realizes that home isn’t so bad after all.

That’s the potentially interesting plot to “Home,” Toni Morrison’s 10th novel.

The Morrison we love – whose long meditation on the intersection of race, class and gender is among the finest in American literature – would have transformed this raw stuff into a poetic parable, giving us a fresh and original look at another grim chapter of American history.

But that Morrison never moves into “Home,” which is filled with stick figures trapped in a crudely didactic, clumsily symbolic and poorly structured narrative.

The catalog in “Home” of what the narrator refers to as “the slaughter that went on in the world” is extensive, joining Frank’s war crimes in Korea with numerous examples of racism against African-Americans back home.

The grim tally includes the evacuation at gunpoint of a Texas community, a restrictive covenant barring a woman from buying a house, mob violence during a train ride, a trigger-happy Chicago cop shooting a child, two more Chicago cops randomly frisking passers-by, the murder of an Alabama store owner, a mugging in Atlanta, a white Atlanta doctor’s eugenic experiments on Frank’s sister and men forced into murderous gladiatorial contests in rural Georgia.

That’s a lot of luggage for a wide-margined book of 160 pages. But Morrison stuffed just as much historical baggage into an equally tight compartment in “A Mercy” (2008), her preceding novel.

It worked there – as it had in her best novels, culminating in “Beloved” (1987) – because Morrison’s allusive and poetic language fused history with myth, making us see the past anew while showing us how to move on.

In “Home,” Morrison’s use of symbols – including a horse, a trickster and a melon – is obvious and heavy-handed; rather than create myth, “Home” gives us lurid melodrama.

Worse, Morrison seems less interested in exploring the past than in using it as a cudgel. Instead of making literature out of history, she reduces history to easy slogans. Three of many possible examples:

“An integrated army is integrated misery. You all go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs. Change that. They treat dogs better.”

“After Hiroshima, the musicians understood as early as anyone that Truman’s bomb changed everything and only scat and bebop could say how.”

“They practiced what they had been taught by their mothers during the period that rich people called the Depression and they called life.”

Excepting glimpses we get of Frank in a few of his brief, first-person commentaries on the narrator’s story, the characters in “Home” are as thin as this language.

Minor characters like the eugenicist doctor – “a heavyweight Confederate” who builds a bomb shelter – are either satanic sinners or perfect saints.

Major characters – including Frank, his sister and his girlfriend – at least get the benefit of whole chapters, faintly echoing Morrison’s trademark polyphonic technique.

But they too are types, which means that even key relationships are reduced to implausible plot twists or explanations.

Frank tells us at one point that a never-defined “something” about his girlfriend “floored me.” Less than 40 pages later, Frank discovers he is actually glad to leave her behind, because “his attachment to her was medicinal, like swallowing aspirin.”

We never learn what inspires this or any of the novel’s other epiphanies – including Frank’s eventual realization that his hometown is actually a paradise, in which a strong-minded community of folksy and quilting women heal his sister and teach him to be a man.

It’s a fairy-tale ending and a flight from history – by a writer whose best work brilliantly engages the past so that we can start building a better future.

Mike Fischer is a Milwaukee writer and lawyer.

 

Michael Baisden and Zane Reception/ Booksigning to be Held in New York City at BookExpo America on June 6th at 5pm

— ACGI’s African American Pavilion at Bookexpo America will host a celebration of Zane and Strebor Books and the “Welcome to BookExpo America” reception and booksigning event for author and radio/TV talk show personality Michael Baisden. —

Michael Baisden

Nationwide (May 7, 2012) — Amber Communications Group Inc’s 2012 African American Pavilion Booth at BookExpo America booth will be hosting a special “Welcome to BookExpo America Michael Baisden” Reception and Booksigning for the internationally renowned author, radio and television talk show personality, and a Celebration and Booksigning of New York Times and Essence Magazine Best-Selling Author Zane and the Strebor Books Legacy, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City, Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 1:00pm – 5:00pm in the ACGI African American Pavilion Booth. The event will be coordinated by Heather Covington of Disilgold.com, Troy Johnson of AALBC.com and Charisse and Harvey Nunes of The Book Look.
Baisden was recently voted, once again, as one of the most influential men in radio. As a prominent social activist, he spearheaded the famous Jena Six march in 2007, advocated for National Free Clinics to get volunteers, was credited by the Obama camp as being one of the major forces behind the historic presidential victory, and was publicly congratulated by President Obama for his efforts and outreach with his One Million Mentors National Campaign to Save Our Kids.Michael Baisden is undeniably one of the most influential and engaging personalities in broadcast history. His meteoric rise to #1 is redefining radio with the numbers to back it up. The show is syndicated by Cumulus Media and is heard in over 78 markets nationwide with over 8 million loyal listeners daily. Since his radio show debuted nationally in 2005, Mr. Baisden has captured the hearts and minds of millions of Americans with his provocative mix of relationship talk, hot topics, politics and the best of old school with today’s R&B. When it comes to entertaining, enlightning and educating, no one in talk radio compares. His high energy and love for interacting with his listeners is just one reason for the popularity and success of The Michael Baisden Show.

2012 kicked off with the announcement of a partnership with Michael Baisden, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and African American Fraternities for the Mentoring Brothers Campaign to recruit more African American mentors for Black boys. In March 2012 Baisden along with Rev Al Sharpton held a rally in Stanford, FL to protest the injustice over the lack of an arrest in the killing of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was just walking home from the store. Over 30,000 people attended the rally along with the teenager’s parents and other leaders.

According to Simon & Schuster, Michael Baisden is “probably the most successful self-published African American male author out there today.” With nearly 2 million books in print both hard and soft cover, his books blend the perfect combination of entertainment, humor, provocation and sexuality. Michael’s vibrant personality on and off the air has made him a people magnet.

He began attracting attention with primarily female followers as author and publisher of the highly successful best selling books: “Never Satisfied: How and Why Men Cheat”, “Men Cry in the Dark”, “The Maintenance Man”, “God’s Gift to Women” and most recently a hot new book “Never Satisfied: Do Men Know What They Want.” Baisden is currently writing his 6th book to be released in 2012. Two of his titles ultimately were adapted into stage plays playing to sold out crowds across the US.

New York Times best-selling author, Zane, is undeniably the largest selling author of her genre in the world. Her books on sex and erotica have sold in the millions. Her company Strebor Books is dedicated to publishing a wide diversity of both fiction and non-fiction books. Strebor Books is committed to finding and developing the careers of cutting-edge authors who take risks with their stories.

A personal vision of Zane’s, Strebor Books International examines every aspect and characteristic of the human spirit. From contemporary romance to science fiction, from mystery to erotica, from paranormal to historical, from political to religious, no genre is overlooked amongst the continuously expanding catalog of titles.

Zane has the power of discernment when it comes to ascertaining “the next big thing” as proven with her own success; going from a grassroots publisher to running an imprint of Simon and Schuster in less than five years.

Zane is the creator, scriptwriter and executive producer of “Zane’s Sex Chronicles,” the highly rated Cinemax series based loosely on her real life, and the upcoming “Zane’s The Jump Off,” premiering on Cinemax Spring 2013. She is currently writing two feature film screenplays, a broadway musical, and her novel “Addicted” is scheduled to be filmed this summer by Lionsgate.

She is a huge advocate against domestic violence. Her book “Breaking the Cycle,” dealing with the effects of domestic violence on children, was the 2006 NAACP Image Award winner for Outstanding Literature. She was featured in the HBO documentary “The Black List,” which examined the lives of African-American overachievers like Toni Morrison, Colin Powell, Russell Simmons, Sean “Puffy” Combs, and Chris Rock.

Swiss Public Television has also produced a documentary on Zane entitled “Zane: Queen of Erotica,” that was translated into several languages and broadcast throughout the world.

Amber Comminications Group Inc’s African American Pavilion at BEA is no stranger to influential men and women alike, particularly those in the literary world. Since ACGI’s Publisher/CEO Tony Rose founded the African American Pavilion at BEA in 2004, the event has featured special guest appearances by Magic Johnson, Haki Madhubuti, Wesley Snipes, Tavis Smiley, Zane, Tom Joyner, Kassahun Checole, W. Paul Coates, Dr. Cornell West, George Fraser, Omarosa, Sybil Wilkes, Flava Flav, Coach Tony Dungee, Prodigy of Mobb Deep, Terrie Williams, Dr. Steve Perry (CNN & Random House), Max Rodriguez (The Harlem Book Fair) and Annette Thomas (NAACP Image Awards Literary Coordinator), to name a few.

Along with Michael Baisden and Zane, the 2012 invited guests will include: Book Industry Leaders – Carol Mackey (Black Expressions Book Club), Troy Johnson (AALBC), Ron Kavanaugh (Mosaic Books), Malaika Adero (Atria Books/Simon and Schuster), Dawn Davis (Armistad Press / Harper Collins), Judith Curr (Atria Books/Simon and Schuster), Cheryl Woodruf (Smiley Books), LaToya Smith (Grand Central Publishing), Dante Lee (Diversity City Media), Dr. Farrah Grey (Philanthropist), Wade and Cheryl Hudson (Just Us Books), Clara Villarosa, Lesleigh Underwood (Kensington Press), Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati (Publicist) and Selena James (Kensington Press). Authors will include: Mary B. Morrison, Omar Tyree, Mary Monroe, Victoria Christopher Murray, Irene Smalls, Kevin Weeks, Kevin Johnson, Lynette Velasco, Renee Flagler, James Tanner, Darryl King, Artie Fletcher, Denroy Morgan, Levar Fisher, Dorothy Hughes and many others.

Media personalities covering the event will include: Charisse and Harvey Nunes (The Book Look), Don Thomas (The New York Beacon), Renee Minus White (The Amsterdam News), Calvin Reid (Publishers Weekly), Diane Patrick (Publishers Weekly), Flo Anthony (Entertainment Journalist), Pat Stevenson (The Harlem News), Dr. Bob Lee (WLIB & WBLS talk show personality), Kam Williams (International Reviewer), Michelle Gipson (Written Magazine), Danny Tisdale (Harlem World Magazine), Kyle Donovan (NV Magazine), Sam Chekwas (Black Book News Magazine), Cynthia Horner (Cinnamon CHIPS Publicity – Word Up! and Right On Magazine), Kenneth Harris (Kenthephotographer), Hal and Debbie Jackson (Hal Jackson’s Sunday Classics). More media TBA.

BookExpo America, one of the largest book trade exhibits in the world, provides independent African American book publishers, self publishers, authors, Black Interest Imprints at major publishing houses, distributors, literary agents, publicists, librarians and bookstore owners exposure to 20,561 book buyers and booksellers from across the globe. The event takes place at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City June 5th – 7th 2012.

Now in its ninth year, Amber Communication Group, Inc.’s African American Pavilion Booth at BEA, exhibit space, will showcase African American books, authors, products and publishers. There will be great opportunities to learn, share, educate, sell and network.

There is an open invitation to join book industry professionals and authors for the “6th Annual Black Pack Party”, Wednesday June 6th, 6-9pm at Londel’s Supper Club, 2620 Frederick Douglas Blvd (at 140th St) Harlem, NYC.

Hosted by AALBC.com, MosaicBooks.com, Linda A. Duggins, Written Magazine and The Book Look. All are invited to party, mix and mingle uptown in Harlem as they celebrate book industry professionals, authors and friends.

For more details, visit www.AfricanAmericanPavilion.com
For further information on exhibiting, book display and book signing at ACGI’s African American Pavilion at BEA, contact:
Tony Rose, Publisher/CEO
Amber Communications Group, Inc.
1334 E. Chandler Blvd., Suite 5-D67
Phoenix, AZ 85048
602-743-7211
amberbk@aol.com
www.AmberBooks.com
www.AfricanAmericanPavilion.com
www.QualityPress.info