Black Issues Book Review articles from January 2005

Black Issues Book Review archives from January 2005

Yes, it matters.(from the editor-in-chief)(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... In the six years since we began publishing Black Issues Book Review, we have witnessed phenomenal growth in the availability of books by black authors and about black culture and concerns. Black books are no longer published "ghetto...

For the common good.(executive editor's view)(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... When the national elections ended last fall, many African Americans were no doubt disappointed and troubled. If nothing else, the results remind us that our citizenry is profoundly divided on the political and moral questions of our time. ...

Cover comment.(letter to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... In the September-October 2004 Black Issues Book Review, both the Editor in Chief William E. Cox and the Executive Editor Angela P. Dodson expressed concern about the predominance of urban lit, hip-hop lit and erotica over "black literature."...

Deals.(Between the lines: the inside scoop on what's happening in the publishing industry)
January 1, 2005... FICTION Melody Guy at Ballantine's One World bought two new novels by Travis Hunter. Hunter's agent is Elaine Koster. HarperCollins/Amistad's Kellie Martin acquired world rights for The Vow by Denene Millner, Angela Burr-Murray and...

Foxxy casting for Hardwick's spy novel.(Between the lines: the inside scoop on what's happening in the publishing industry)(Jamie Foxxm, Gary Hardwick)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Gary Hardwick's just published spy novel The Executioner's Game (HarperCollins, January 2005, $24.95, ISBN 0-060-57584-0), his third published work, has been sold to producer Neal Moritz and Ori Marmur for a Columbia film to star Jamie Foxx....

Books for the motherland: alliance celebrates black history month with a campaign for literacy in rural Ghana.(Books for Ghana)
January 1, 2005... Literacy is the beginning of freedom" is the motto of The Digital Literacy Alliance, Inc. (DLA), based in Getzville, New York. The DLA, founded by Dr. Pharra DeWindt, who is executive director, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to...

Book sales finance livestock.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Charitable Heifer International donates livestock to poor communities around the world as an economic development and empowerment move to enable families to work and feed themselves and neighbors. Go online at www.heifer.org to choose anything...

Detroit, MI.(signings & sightings)
January 1, 2005... Author Betty de Ramus will be signing her new book, Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories From the Underground Railroad February 10, from noon to 2 P.M. At Waldenbooks, Renaissance Center 100 Renaissance Center Call 313-259-8263 for details.

Jacksonville, FL.(signings & sightings)
January 1, 2005... Electa Rome Parks, author of Loose Ends and The Ties That Bind, will be signing and reading from her latest works on March 26 at 3 P.M. at Borders Books & Music, 8801 Southside Blvd; 407-629-8111.

BIBR news.(signings & sightings)
January 1, 2005... In our March-April 2005 issue and on our Web site, look for the winners of Scholastic's "Love to Read" contest, which was announced in BIBR, September-October 2004. Hopefully you got your entries in for J. California Cooper's essay contest...

Congratulations Baraka!(signings & sightings)(Amiri Baraka )(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... The Black Arts Movement celebrated one of its stars Amiri Baraka on his recent 70th birthday. Spotted at the wall-to-wall gathering at poet Ted Wilson's East Orange, New Jersey, home were Quincy Troupe, Barbara Ann Teer, Sonia Sanchez, Askia...

Adventures in the Blogosphere: as Internet journals come into their own, African American voices are rising above the noise.(Book bytes)
January 1, 2005... In the same year that the National Endowment for the Arts issued a report detailing a reading crisis--a national decline in literary reading (novels, short stories, poetry and plays)--the same study has found that the number of people engaging...

The sound of history being made: the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. come alive in audiobooks that preserve his speeches and sermons.
January 1, 2005... The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister, civil rights leader, human rights activist and a Nobel laureate. There is a Federal holiday to mark his birth. Schools, streets and statues have been named in his honor and children...

Guide to the evolving genres of women's fiction: as the lines blur between romance and "chick lit," how does a reader tell the difference?(the love scene)
January 1, 2005... Since the release of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale (Viking Press) in 1992 and the launch of Arabesque's line of black romances in 1994, readers have been enjoying both women's fiction, now frequently dubbed "chick lit," as well as romance...

Romance at any age: a daughter's curiosity brings back a writer's long ago memories of sneaking Mama's romance novels from under the bed and urges her to write for every generation.(the writing life)(Editorial)
January 1, 2005... Editor's Note: This article was adapted from a keynote speech delivered by Evelyn Palfrey at the Romance Siam Jam in New York City in 2004. This year's Jam, the 10th anniversary of the annual gathering and awards event for African American...

Memoir of a 21st-century history maker: why Barack Obama's book, published a decade ago but a best-seller only last fall, may be destined to become an American classic.(Cover Story)(Biography)
January 1, 2005... Editors' Note: Barack Obama will take his U.S. Senate seat in the 109th Congress this month. Obama, 43, will be the only African American senator sitting in this 21st-century federal lawmaking body. Furthermore, he's only the fifth African...

Steal away: new efforts to tell the story of the Underground Railroad reveal much about the American struggle for freedom.(Black history month: onboard the Underground Railroad)
January 1, 2005... What do we really know about the Underground Railroad, or think we know? Maybe snatches of stories told about Harriet Tubman's forays into the southland to escort runaways through dark forests and over rivers. Maybe whispered rumors that a...

Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati's Black Community, 1802-1868.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati's Black Community, 1802-1868 by Nikki M. Taylor Ohio University Press, February 2005 $55, ISBN 0-821-41579-4 Frontiers of Freedom is not just a story about the founding of Cincinnati's African American...

Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad As Told by Levi Coffin and William Still Edited by George and Willene Hendrick, Ivan R. Dee, Publishers February 2004, $24.95, ISBN 1-566-63545-4 When it comes to the Underground...

Noteworthy slavery titles.(Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat World)(Bibliography)
January 1, 2005... Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat World by Thomas C. Buchanan University of North Carolina Press, November 2004 $32.50, ISBN 0-807-82909-9 Although the scope of the book goes beyond the subject of...

American slavery: the ties that bind: newest studies lay bare the painful facts of an ignoble history.(Bibliomane: choice books from university presses and small publishers)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... After I was halfway through the second of the many books I would review for this assignment on American slavery--as all the shameful, stomach churning details slowly unfolded before me--it suddenly became clear why this subject is rarely taught...

A platform for nurturing new literary talent: the Hurston/Wright foundation and its cofounder Marita Golden discover and groom emerging writers of African descent.(spotlight)
January 1, 2005... It is a fall night at a suburban Washington, D.C., hotel where authors--some decked out in artistic and Afrocentric variations of "black-tie"--are arriving for the Oscar-like ceremony. The occasion is the 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the...

Legacy Award Winners for 2004.(spotlight)
January 1, 2005... In Debut Fiction (winner) Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, September 2003, ISBN 1-565-12387-5. (finalist) A Place Between Stations by Stephanie Allen University of Missouri Press, February...

Literary calendar.(Calendar)
January 1, 2005... JANUARY January 14-17 Visit the African American Pavilion at the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) in Boston. The pavilion will feature exhibits from African American publishers directed at the nation's libraries....

Curing our psychological distress: a personal narrative of clinical depression also calls for a national focus to solve black men's health crisis.(Nurture: advice, fitness and health)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... The psychological state of black America provides an out-sized --if overlooked--example of the overall state of America's psyche. Unfortunately, as author John Head points out in his new book, Standing in the Shadows: Understanding and...

Other noteworthy titles.
January 1, 2005... Black Suicide by Herbert Hendin Basic Books, June 1969 ISBN 0-465-00705-8 A groundbreaking epidemiological look at blacks and suicide in the 20th century. Can I Get a Witness? For Sisters, When the Blues Is More Than a Song by Julia A. Boyd,...

Images of a master: Roman Bearden.(eye)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Romare Bearden Photographs by Frank Stewart, David C. Driskell Ruth Fine, Pomegranate, October 2004 $39.95, ISBN 0-764-92979-8 We all benefit from the relationship that developed in the mid-1970s when Romare Bearden, the black master of...

Global aesthetics: black style.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Black Style Edited by Carol Tulloch Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and the Victoria and Albert Museum Publications, September 2004 $40, ISBN 1-851-77424-6 Black style influences and inspires modes like no other in the world. From the manner in...

A collector's encompassing eye.(eye)(Common Ground: Discovering Community in the 150 Years of Art)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Common Ground: Discovering Community in the 150 Years of Art Foreword by Bill Clinton and essays by Philip Brookman, Merry Foresta, Paul Roth, Jacquelyn Days Serwer and Julia J. Norrell Merrell Publishers, November 2004, $49.95, ISBN...

All things bright and beautiful.(Mose T, A to Z: The Folk Art of Mose Tolliver)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Mose T, A to Z: The Folk Art of Mose Tolliver by Anton Haardt Saturno Press, November 2004 $49, ISBN 0-975-38420-1 Eighty-nine-year-old self-taught artist Mose Tolliver approached his art if not in a singular fashion, then in a distinct...

Staking a claim for black humanity: historian Carter G. Woodson dared to argue that African Americans merited the fruits of democracy.(tribute)
January 1, 2005... In America, black heroes seem destined either to die publicly or live to old age in unjust anonymity. In the case of Carter Godwin Woodson's 75 years, what kept him low profile in life was tantamount to a criminal conspiracy. Carter G. Woodson...

Lighting the path: brave lesbian writers of an earlier era made a way out of no way for the others who would follow.(out)
January 1, 2005... Ann Allen Shockley. Pat Parker. Audre Lorde. They were pioneers. During the 1970s and 1980s, these women created lesbian narratives that were rooted in black culture; countered stereotypes of lesbians as deviant; and expanded depictions of...

Hannibal the hero: in his latest work, David Anthony Durham writes an epic novel about the ancient North African military leader.
January 1, 2005... On the heels of two award-winning novels, Gabriel's Story (Doubleday, 2001) and Walk Through Darkness (Doubleday, 2002), David Anthony Durham's epic tome Pride of Carthage is generating buzz in the publishing world as a mammoth literary...

The ministry of fiction: Sharon Ewell Foster found an eager audience when she finally answered the call to write.(Faith)
January 1, 2005... In his first letter to Peter, the Apostle Paul penned these words: "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Sharon Ewell Foster, a pioneer in African American Christian...

High Impact African-American Churches: Leadership Concepts From Some of Today's Most Effective Churches.(Faith)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... High Impact African-American Churches: Leadership Concepts From Some of Today's Most Effective Churches by George Barna and Harry Jackson Jr., Regal Books July 2004, $14, ISBN 0-830-73265-9 This book opens with a simple question: Is there...

The midwives of marketing: programs by book distributors are giving self-published authors more ways to get their works on booksellers' shelves.(self-publishing)
January 1, 2005... For any author, it's a simple equation: the more stores and venues that carry and sell--your book, the more sales you will have. Indeed, distribution is key. And one of the most important relationships a self-published author can develop is one...

Notes of a native bookseller: the successful Karibu chain's co-owner shares his ideas for the survival of black stores.(market buzz)
January 1, 2005... In today's bookselling industry, whispers of six--if not seven--figure deals for up-and-coming authors are fairly common. And so is the scuttlebutt about the struggling state of our retail institutions. From the late '90s to the present, the...

Sisterfriends who brunch: an annual birthday celebration over Sunday brunch becomes the catalyst for a D.C.-area book club.(books & clubs)
January 1, 2005... Each year, for the past seven years, members of the unofficial February Friends Birthday Group get together over Sunday brunch to celebrate their mutual birthdays. With each gathering, the group has grown to include friends who were not born in...

Recovering Haiti's lost literary legacy: newer books help readers understand a complex cultural and political heritage, and renew interest in the island nation's remarkable homegrown classics.(books & clubs)
January 1, 2005... They appeared at nightfall. First there were hundreds; then thousands, then within days, hundreds of thousands. Masters, caught off guard, were unceremoniously killed, sugarcane fields set afire, and one plantation after another, destroyed. The...

Stories of heritage and memory: debut novels, short fiction from a master and other tales take readers on unexpected journeys.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Loosing My Espanish by H.G. Carrillo Pantheon, October 2004 $23, ISBN 0-375-42319-2 In this poignant debut novel, Carrillo gives an incisive look into the lives of a Cuban American family unit. The novel's main character, Oscar...

Dr. King's Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Dr. King's Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories by Charles Johnson Scribner, February 2005 $20, ISBN 0-743-26453-3 A submerged brilliance dwells in all the novellas that make up Johnson's Dr. King's Refrigerator. Even though the author...

Upstate.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon St. Martin's Press, January 2005 $19.95, ISBN 0-312-33268-8 This freshman novel is ambitious in its use of letters, simple correspondence, to tell a complicated story. On many levels, Buckhanon is successful,...

Don't Want No Sugar.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Don't Want No Sugar by J.D. Mason St. Martin's Press, October 2004 $19.95, ISBN 0-312-30158-8 It's 1931 and warm for April, with summer coming early that year. Probably because Miss Martha, a half-Indian midwife, opens her heart and home...

The Accidental Hunter.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... The Accidental Hunter by Nelson George Touchstone, February 2005 $13, ISBN 0-743-23552-5 Extortion. Attempted murder. Kidnapping. Ransom. Ordinarily these are building blocks for a great mystery, but in this novel by noted author and...

He Had It Coming.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... He Had It Coming by Camika Spencer St. Martin's Press, October 2004 $19.95, ISBN 0-312-322334-4 The character Marcus Brooks's first book, From the Palm of My Hand, earned him the respect and admiration of black women readers. As we find...

The Sweethearts of Soul.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... The Sweethearts of Soul by Slim Lambright HarperCollins, December 2004 $23.95, ISBN 0-060-18475-2 In Slim Lambright's second novel, we have the pleasure of meeting the legendary songbirds up close and personal. They become attached to Legs...

Distant Lover.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Distant Lover by Gloria Mallette Dafina Books/Kensington Publishing, October 2004, $24, ISBN 0-758-20471-X As Mallette's sixth novel opens, readers meet Tandi Crawford, a woman whose husband, Jared, has been unfaithful. Their 15-year...

Red Light Wives.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Red Light Wives by Mary Monroe Kensington Publishing Corp. September 2004, $24, ISBN 0-758-20342-X Romance may be dead, but happy endings are still very alive in Red Light Wives, Monroe's third major step into the literary world in which...

In the Paint.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... In the Paint by Philana Marie Boles Amistad/HarperCollins, February 2005 $13.95, ISBN 0-060-57822-X Letting go of love can be especially hard to do when everything else around you seems to be falling apart. Boles, author of Blame It on...

Ailey Spirit: the Journey of an American Dance Company.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Alley Spirit: The Journey of an American Dance Company by Alvin Alley American Dance Foundation Text by Robert Tracy, Foreword by Wynton Marsalis Stewart, Tabori & Chang, January 2005 $35, ISBN 1-584-79364-3 Fabulous images of...

Dark Designs and Visual Culture.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Dark Designs and Visual Culture by Michele Wallace Duke University Press, January 2005 $84.95, ISBN 0-822-33427-5 In 1979, a young instructor in New York University's journalism program published a book titled Black Macho and the Myth of...

Unforgivable Blackness: the Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson by Geoffrey C. Ward Alfred A. Knopf, November 2004 $25.95, ISBN 0-375-41532-7 On March 31, 1878, in Galveston, Texas, a boy was born who became, as many would claim, not only the...

We Shall Overcome: a Living History of the Civil Rights Struggle Told in Words, Pictures and the Voices of the Participants.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... We Shall Overcome: A Living History of the Civil Rights Struggle Told in Words, Pictures and the Voices of the Participants by Herb Boyd Sourcebooks MediaFusion, October 2004 $45, ISBN 1-402-020213-X The highly publicized phase of the...

Judging Thomas: Tim Life and Times of Clarence Thomas.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Judging Thomas: Tim Life and Times of Clarence Thomas by Ken Foskett William Morrow, August 2004 $24.95, ISBN 0-060-52721-8 Ken Foskett of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides a humanizing window into the world of the much-reviled...

Yeah, I Said It.(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Yeah, I Said It by Wanda Sykes Atria Books, September 2004 $23, ISBN 0-743-48269-7 Wanda Sykes has something to say, and she's says it in her on inimitable style. Now for the first time she is saying it in writing--in a real book. As the...

Youthful self-discovery: a host of new titles inspires young minds to march to their own drumbeats.(children's bookshelf)(Children's Review)(Book Review)
January 1, 2005... Ish by Peter H. Reynolds Candlewick Press, July 2004 $14, ISBN 0-763-62344-X Ages 4-8 Little Ramon loves to draw, but when his brother pokes fun at one of his creations, Ramon is crestfallen and decides to renounce his art. It takes his...

Hardcover.(flying off the shelves)(Bibliography)
January 1, 2005... Fiction 1. Drive Me Crazy/Eric Jerome Dickey (NEW) ($23.95, Dutton Books, ISBN 0-525-94790-6) The tenth novel from the best-selling author of Naughty or Nice, Eric Jerome Dickey serves up a new novel with style, sexiness, and a bit of...

Paperback.(flying off the shelves)(Bibliography)
January 1, 2005... Fiction 1. Four Degrees of Heat/Rochelle Alers, et. al.(3) ($13, Pocket Books, ISBN 0-743-49145-9) A collection of steamy summertime encounters featuring four of today's most popular African American women writers--Alers, ReShonda...