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books

Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique
Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire

articles

22 Contemporary Authors You Absolutely Should Be Reading
This list is so magical and lovely and all the things.

The Rise of the Independent Bookseller in the Time of Amazon
Because reader hopes and dreams.

literary magazine poetry & prose

Unknown Woman, 1964 by Lolita Stewart White (Kweli Journal)

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books

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (novel)
Magic City by Yusef Komunyakaa (poetry)
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (novel abandoned at 220 of 386 pages)
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Adichie (e-short)

articles

8 Arguments Used to Blame Black for Their Own Oppression - And How to Counteract Them
Self explanatory

The Unreconstructed North
In which the North is exposed for not being as racially kumbaya as some would like to pontificate.

Literary magazine Poetry & prose

The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste (novel excerpt) (Kweli journal)
Hush by Emily Spencer (BLACKBERRY: a magazine)
Underwater and a poem: Cowardice in Ferguson (Tennessee Whiskey Woman)

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The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

1/22/2015

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Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes is a sweeping tale of a girl, Aminata Diallo, who is captured from what she eventually learns is her homeland of Sierra Leone and what she endures as a slave in pre-Revolutionary Colonial America. She is a gifted midwife like her mother. She is also somewhat learned in her father’s Muslim faith which is what sustains her on the treacherous Middle Passage. Immediately she stands out as special in the eyes of the many whites or, toubab, she encounters. It is obvious that she is very bright and a quick study of almost anything thrown at her. We see her propensity for midwifery and languages take her from an indigo plantation on St. Helena Island off the coast of the Carolinas to being a house servant in the home of a Jewish couple to Nova Scotia as a free woman to Sierra Leone as part of a resettlement group to London to speak to Parliament in the fight to abolish the slave trade. It is a story involving slavery that Americans are not often privy. Yet, for the obviously amazing amount of historical research that went into this tome, Hill did not, for me, deliver a tour de force book focused on the Colonial period of American slavery. His writing style fluctuated from broad strokes to ones quite narrow. I was jarred several times from lengthy details about one event just to have its conclusion or the next event glossed over. Everything seemed to always come to too neat an ending including the entire novel itself. Better developed characters could have made this read more epic for me. The prose lacked any real color but moved along at a steady pace. It is also heavy on dialogue and dialogue that is...in the pocket. Again, the ending was very neat and a bit fantastical. He took some judicious liberties with some real life characters that our heroine, Aminata, would have encountered in this era. Hill does a decent job of revealing the irony of the colonists who rebelled and demanded their freedom from British rule with its juxtaposition against the enslavement pf Africans. What also shines is the use of place and how it impacted the treatment and well-being of enslaved and freed people of African descent in the burgeoning U.S. The Book of Negroes is, with its flaws, an engaging read that is strong in the history it puts forth during the time when the Atlantic Slave trade was at its peak and being challenged by abolitionists and what one woman endured to find freedom and her own sense of place.

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November in review

12/1/2014

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books

Happiness Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta

Articles

A Better Way to Think About the Genre Debate
In which the author of the piece claims "genre doesn't have to be vexing" but, he, in turn, makes it vexing

15 Books You Hated Reading As the Only Black Person in Class
In which the curator of this list makes me chuckle while sipping my tea

Edward Baptist on the lies we tell about slavery
In which Baptist talks about American history being written in a way that is largely to placate whites and suggests the U.S. abandon "white supremacy as a constitutive way in which our politics and our economics and our culture [are] ordered."

The Shape of My Impact
In which Alexis Pauline Gumbs' articulation of survival as it pertains to Black women just got all down in my spirit

Which Book Marked Your Transition From Child to Adult?
The Bluest Eye. I was 13.

Literary magazine poetry & prose

Skully by Jacqueline Jones LaMon (Kweli Journal)
Perigee by Joy Priest (Solstice Literary Magazine)

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Unofficial commitments

1/2/2013

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Happy new year and whatnot. This is not some big "I'm back" post. I have resolved to stop making such grand gestures of presence in the blogging and social media realm. However, I am here. I won't go into detail on all that has kept me from leisurely reading other than to say, I'm almost done with my BA in Sociology. Yay. I will say that you can expect more reviews and literary things than in 2012. I do still love reading.

Having said all of that, I don't plan to join any reading challenges but there are some that look quite appealing. So, I'm unofficially keeping up with them, if you will. If you're so inclined, do check out the following...

2013 Middle East Reading Challenge
Dive into Poetry Challenge 2013
7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books Reading Challenge 2013
Nerdy Nonfiction Reading Challenge 2013
Books: Passports to the World 2013 Challenge

Also, here are some books on my radar for 2013...

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FIRE BAPTIZED BY KENYA WRIGHT

9/28/2012

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Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright
January 16, 2012
Dragonfairy Press

Urban and Fantasy are not genres I typically read let alone a hybrid of the two. However, I said that I would diversify my reading a bit more this year and I think this was a great book to shake things up.

Fire Baptized is inhabited by several different beings labeled as belonging to one of three groups: Humans, Pureblood Supernaturals or, Supes, and Mixies. They are relegated to the caged city Santeria Supernatural Habitat in Miami. Lanore, the novel's heroine, is a college student accustomed to pilfering her textbooks from the university library but finally gets caught and witnesses a heinous crime in her flee from the campus trolls. She's also a Mixie. Mixie's are half breed humans and supernaturals brandished with an X and have an ongoing struggle for equality in the community. She lives with MeShack, a womanizer who Lanore has known since childhood and considers family. Meanwhile, Zulu, a fellow Mixbreed, heads up the Rebel organization, MFE whose main agenda is to obtain equality for his group by any means necessary. He also has his sights set on Lanore.

What ensues in this urban fantasy novel is a murder mystery with Lanore caught in the middle as the lone witness and determined to discover the killer before more lives are lost. In the midst of this is a love triangle and social activism. Kenya Wright quite seamlessly covers a lot of territory in this first of a trilogy. The pace is great as there is action from the first page to the last and the characters are all engaging. Although, MeShack, a blatant example of a male double-standard, is annoying. The blossoming romance between Lanore and Zulu is sexy to say the least. References to the Santeria religion and culture, both obvious and subtle, added another layer of appeal. What was most intriguing was how Wright cleverly incorporated sociological issues of gender and identity stratifications.

"Professor Rodrigues was from the old school of thought, believing Mixbreeds were abominations and should be euthanized. When she denied my registration for her class, she wrote me a letter, explaining that most interspecies' offspring had serious mental illnesses and the rest were only fit to be criminals or janitors" (46).

Anyone looking for an engaging read filled with colorful, unapologetic characters set in a space where there is seemingly no hope for those deemed second class citizens and the exhibition of an assortment of supernatural powers, you'd be remiss to not give this book a read. There's no question I'll be checking out the rest of this series.

I received this book from the author.

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Quirky Brown Reading 2012

1/3/2012

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To those so kind enough to read my blog, I'm still here. I'm close to finishing my degree...finally. So, getting in some pleasure reading is tough most days. I am, however, going to continue the Quirky Brown Reading Challenge in 2012. Yay! I am all about POC literature in general but I really want to give readers a reason to seek out even more diversity in stories about people of African descent. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season and that you all are getting in lots of "un"required reading. :)

If you feel so inclined, you are more than welcome to link to your reviews and thoughts on books appropriate to the Quirky Brown Reading Challenge.

Here's a reminder of details...
Quirky Brown is about challenging the overly subscribed to depictions of the so-called “Black experience”. I hope participants also discover some of our lesser known contributions to American literature. This challenge will run from January 2012 through December 2012. I'm supplying a list of authors and titles here but, these are merely suggestions. The only requirement is that they are Black authors depicting an offbeat Black experience.

No need to sign up, just start adding links to your blog posts. :)

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Adventures at the Texas Book Festival

10/31/2011

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I actually don't know if I had any real adventures except maybe when speed walking through the festival going from an indoor panel discussion in the Capital building to the book signing tent and back to Capital building for another discussion. But, let me back up to the beginning...
As some of you may know, I live in Memphis, TN. We have no book festival and that's all I'll say about that. The Texas Book Festival is fortunately in a city I already adore and my best friend happens to live there as well.

After a not so cheap plane trip, I'm there and already thinking about how much I'll want to make this stay permanent. The day of the fest my best friend drops me off (mom duties kept her away for a few hours) and I begin to navigate a small section of downtown Austin solo. I was a little emotional (judge me!) at seeing all of the tents, especially the one with the Book-TV sign and the ubiquitous host of the live book festival broadcasts. Hey, I'm 30-something and have never been to a book fest. I was moved seeing shoulders saddled with tote bags filled with books, eternal lines in the Barnes & Noble tent to purchase books for author signings, and eyes scanning the weekend's itinerary then bodies urgently searching for the room of their favorite author's discussion panel. But what was the highlight of the event for me was meeting a fairly new favorite author, Mat Johnson. Now, if you follow my tweets, you already know what went down. But in case you don't....

The first panel I attended was a discussion titled "Wrestling with the Classics" that featured Mat Johnson, Hilary Jordan, and David Liss. They each released this year novels that were takes on literary classics. For Jordan's When She Woke inspiration came from The Scarlet Letter and Johnson wrestled with Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Each author discussed and answered questions on why and how they approach the respective classic for which they were inspired. As an aside, Hilary Jordan's dystopian novel has a very fascinating premise: Individuals are physically colored according to their crime. The main character is red because she has an abortion which in the dystopian future is illegal. After the panel, I bravely went up to where the authors were seated and introduced myself to Mat Johnson who was very gracious. After a mad dash to the book signing tent, he signed my copy of Pym and suggested we take a picture of which I was all too pleased to oblige.

After my mad dash back to the Capital building, I enjoyed a great presentation from artist and author Kadir Nelson on his newest children's book, Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. Of course, I purchased a copy and got it signed for my son. This is when my best friend joined me and we perused and shopped a bit before leaving for lunch.

Later that night, we went to Cheer Up Charlie's in East Austin for the festival's first lit crawl which featured various authors at local venues all in close proximity like a pub crawl. The event at CUC was called Five Things and the invited authors from the fest had to prepare an original piece based around a spirit filled beverage. The chosen five were Erin Morgenstern, Dominic Smith, Hillary Jordan, Mat Johnson, and Kathleen Flinn. I have to say I was most impressed with Dominic Smith's piece which incorporated gin and I was not familiar with this author before that night. His writing was very vivid and captivating. Johnson was hysterical just as he is on Twitter. He wrote a lively piece about a teenage boy who was basically tired of masturbating and ready for his first real sexual experience which then explodes into major drama. I'm having technical difficulty with the crude snippet of video I took on my cell phone. But trust me, it was hilarious.

That brought my adventure with the Texas Book Festival to a close. I had a blast during that and the rest of my time in Austin. I'm already looking forward to next year's festival and hopefully I'll be able attend at least one other (*ahem* Harlem Book Festival).

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Quirky Brown Authors: Martha Southgate

10/26/2011

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I like to think of Martha Southgate as an author's author. She's not only a wonderful writer but she's well read and well spoken. BGBS is delighted to share some insight into the author of Third Girl From the Left, The Fall of Rome and, the recently released, The Taste of Salt. And be sure to follow @mesouthgate.

What fictional character do you most identify with and why?The first character that leaps to mind is Harriet M. Welsch, the protagonist of Harriet The Spy, which I read when I was 10 or 11 and never got over. Harriet is smart, kind of arrogant, intensely observant, funny and altogether unforgettable. She set a high standard which I'm not sure I've lived up to. But she remains a role model--especially in her unblinking acceptance of ambiguity and the realization that complete honesty may not always be the best policy.

How do you live "quirky brown"? (quirky brown is my year long reading challenge focused on fiction depicting atypical Black experiences, like your work!)
A big part of my work is to posit the idea that there are no "atypical" black experiences. We live a million different ways and do a million different things. To define blackness or brownness as a set of behaviors or beliefs is I think, very problematic, especially at this time in history. This is not to say that there isn't an African-American culture--just that it shouldn't and needn't be a straitjacket. So I don't think I can really answer that. I live brown, as myself. I don't know if it's all that quirky.

What books would readers be most surprised to find on your bookshelves?
I have a number of Stephen King books. I think some of his early work is really compelling, entertaining and scary in a good way. Carrie,The Shining, Misery--all have a lot going for them. I particularly like the "revenge of the nerd" theme that he so often returns to. There have been times when I have found myself re-reading "Carrie" for comfort at stressful times (a little weird I know but hey...writers are weird) . I'm also a big fan of The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe--the template for Sex and the City and its ilk written way back in the late '50's.

Who's your favorite quirky brown author and why?
Of course, whenever people ask me this, I go immediately blank. So I'll name a recent book by a young novelist who I think works with (and ignores) race in an interesting way: Open City by Teju Cole. The character in this book is a young Nigerian-American psychiatrist. He is of course aware of his race but it's not the main thing on his mind. I think that's true of a lot of us these days and it's something I find interesting in his work (besides how beautifully written it is).

What's your favorite quirky brown book and why?
I think I'd have to say ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. When I read the title story in the New Yorker a number of years ago I said out loud--"That's me!" Finally some fiction that dealt with the experience of being in that all white elite world when you weren't all white and/or elite. Most of the other stories in the collection also deal with characters who are alienated for one reason and another, sometimes race, sometimes not. This resonated very deeply with me. And I know you just asked for one book but I've gotta give a quick shout-out to Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I love that book's enormous ambition and reach and it's willingness to let its nerd flag fly high.
What 5 songs would you consider the soundtrack to encompass your literary work?
Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me) The Temptations
Theme from Shaft Isaac Hayes
Nothing Compares 2 U Prince
All By Myself Eric Carmen
How can you mend a broken heart?--the Al Green version, not the Bee Gees

What 5 songs would you consider part of your life soundtrack?
Born to Run Bruce Springsteen
I Want You Back, The Jackson 5
A Hard Day's Night The Beatles
When Did I Fall In Love? Audra McDonald
Yeah! Usher

Which, if any, of your works would you like to see in a film adaptation?
I'd love to see any of them in film and two of them (The Fall of Rome and Third Girl From The Left) have been under option for some time. I think Third Girl would make a really visually interesting film with all the different eras and beingpartially set in the film industry itself.  But like I said--either, both--it's all good to me. I'd love to see The Taste of Salt made too. I should add--I'd like to see them made into good movies. A dear friend of mine had his book made into a bad movie and even though he tried to detach, it was hard. I can't say I'd turn the check down--but should any of them ever get made, I really want them to be good.

What's next for Martha Southgate?
A nap. I am writing this as I recover from a cold that really knocked me out. Then I'm off on more book promoting gigs--two conventions and a reading in Cleveland on October 20, then an appearance at the Books By the Bank festival on the 22nd. After that? I'd really like to make my way into some new fiction. I've got some ideas--they need some time and attention from me. I look forward to giving them that.

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Quirky Brown Authors: Mat Johnson

9/29/2011

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I am so thrilled that the ever snarky and brilliant Mat Johnson agreed to a quirky brown interview. If you do not follow this man on twitter, please do so @mat_johnson. He is the author of Drop, Hunting in Harlem, Incognegro, and the recently published, Pym. After a bit of internet stalking, ahem, searching, I discovered he'll be at the Texas book Festival next month and yours truly will be there trolling for Mat Johnson. So let's get a glimpse at what makes him quirky brown...

What fictional character do you most identify with and why?
Comic book hero Mr. Terrific. He's the black nerd superhero. I love him because he's really smart, which makes up for the fact that his super hero power is almost useless- the ability to not be noticed by electronics. That is so amazingly lame it's amazing. No one has ever thought, You know what would be cool? To be unable to use a touch-screen.

I find myself to a combination of really lame attributes that I sometimes manage to turn into advantages. It's a great feeling, winning when you know you're a loser.

How do you live "quirky brown"? (quirky brown is my year long reading challenge focused on fiction depicting atypical Black experiences, like your work!)
I think all you have to do be quirky is to be true to yourself. If you kill off your impulses because you think, Oh that's weird, or, How would that look, then you kill what is unique about you. Learning to listen to your own impulses is one of the greatest paths to freedom.

What books would readers be most surprised to find on your bookshelves?
I'm not sure, because I don't know what people expect of me anymore. I'm looking over at the shelf now. I have Lose Your Gut Now! Is that good? Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom? How about Raising Your Spirited Child?

Who's your favorite quirky brown author and why?
Samuel R. Delany. I used to see him walking around Manhattan. He had a big white beard, suspenders, big grey afro. He looked like a black gay Santa Claus. You gotta love that dude. Also, he's a brilliant writer, with one of the best essays on writing as well.

What's your favorite quirky brown book and why?
Almost anything by Percival Everett. He's one of the baddest dude's in the game. He's the writer all the other writers jock. Specifically, I would choose Erasure. That book really opened my eyes about what could be done in a novel, but that's just for sentimental reasons, he has so many great books.

What 5 songs would you consider the soundtrack to encompass your literary work?
Wow, that's a tough one. Try this:

Pharcyde: Passing Me By
Tricky: Black Steel
Junior Kimbrough: Meet Me In The City
Keith Frank and the Zydeco Allstars: Co Fa
John Coltrane: My Favorite Things.

What 5 songs would you consider part of your life soundtrack?
Songs? I got to do albums:

John Coltrane: Love Supreme
Tribe Called Quest: Low End Theory
Bob Marley: Confrontation
Bois Sec and Canray Fontenot: La Musique Creole
Fela Kuti: Live

Which, if any, of your works would you like to see in a film adaptation?
Shit, I'll take any of them, I could send my kids to college. But probably just the graphic novels, the novel aren't made for it. Seeing a book I worked on so hard turned into two hours of mediocrity, that would be horrible. I'd still take the check, but it would kill something in me.

What's next for Mat Johnson?
More books, a few nice reviews, some sales, and then slowly I grow older until I die. Party!