If you get a chance to read any of these great samples, let us know so we can discuss what you took from the reading.
Enjoy!
NONFICTION
• Long before she retired after 35 years as a history teacher, Sherie Labedis was a college student working in the civil rights movement in 1965 South Carolina. Her transition as a voter registration worker, "knowing only the white culture into which she was born, to her enculturation into the 'colored' culture of the segregated South," is the subject of her memoir, "You Came Here to Die, Didn't You" (Smokey Hill, $17.95, 187 pages; order at www.sherielabedis.com).
"Although President Obama is a man of color, the vitriolic atmosphere of the U.S. proves there is still work to be done (in race relations)," Labedis, who lives in Roseville, said on the phone. "Let us apply Martin Luther King's advice: 'That old law about an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.' "
• "The Word," edited by Marita Golden (Broadway, $14.99, 224 pages): Golden conducts fascinating Q&A interviews with 13 contemporary black writers about the "transformative power" of reading and writing.
• "Colin Powell: A Political Biography" by Christopher D. O'Sullivan (Rowman & Littlefield, $17.95, 236 pages): His loyalty to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush proved costly for the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state, the author suggests.
• "Where the Dark & Light Folks Meet" by Randall Sandke (Scarecrow, $40, 288 pages; with vintage photos): The author challenges the belief that the roots of jazz were planted in racial segregation and cultural insulation.
• "The Black History of the White House" by Clarence Lusane (City Lights, $19.95, 544 pages): In eloquent language, Lusane shows how the African American experience helped shape a series of presidential administrations and governmental policies.
• "Black Faces of War: A Legacy of Honor From the American Revolution to Today" by Robert V. Morris (Zenith, $30, 160 pages): Profiles of African American war heroes and other military figures.
• "When We Were Colored: A Mother's Story" by Eva Rutland (IWP, $12.95, 152 pages): Rutland, 94, wrote 20 romance novels during her career. "Colored," first published in 1964, is a memoir described as "the story of a black mother reared in the segregated South who comes west after World War II to raise her children in Sacramento during the turbulent civil rights era."
FICTION
• "Getting to Happy" by Terry McMillan (Viking, $27.95, 400 pages): The characters who engaged readers in "Waiting to Exhale" – Savannah, Gloria, Bernadine, Robin – are back. They're older, yes, but are they wiser?
• "Glorious" by Bernice L. McFadden (Akashic, $15.95, 240 pages): Easter Bartlett flees the racist South in search of love, acceptance and a new life in the Harlem Renaissance. It proves to be a long journey, though she does meet poet Langston Hughes and pianist Fats Waller.
• "Same Song, Same Cry" by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza (St. Martin's, $26.99, 576 pages): The authors are playwrights and sisters who weave a 200-year epic of seven generations of "the Mayfield family's women."
• "The Olympian" by Craig T. Williams (iUniverse, $26.95, 260 pages): Presenting the life of John Baxter Taylor Jr., the first African American to win a gold medal in the Olympics (1908 in London).
No comments:
Post a Comment