Black Issues Book Review articles from November 2000

Black Issues Book Review archives from November 2000

letters to the editor.
November 1, 2000... DEAR EDITOR, The article on Joe Wood included in the most recent issue of BIBR was greatly appreciated. It was a lovely tribute to a wonderful man. All of us here at The New Press are deeply grateful to you and to Martha Southgate for...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2000... The review of Beyond Decorum: The Photographs of Ike Ude (MIT Press, March 2000, $25.00, ISBN 0-262-52280-2) in our September-October 2000 issue should have been credited to Kira Harris. BIBR regrets the error.

from the editor-in-chief.
November 1, 2000... This, our 12th issue, completes two full years of publication for Black Issues Book Review. As we approach the holiday season, starting with Thanksgiving, we at BIBR have much to be thankful for. Thank you, all you subscriber book lovers! A...

A Season of Feasts and Light.(Review)
November 1, 2000... As we prepare to ship this final issue of the year 2000 to the printer, I'm paging through a set of galleys I've just received for The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel...

Deals.
November 1, 2000... HarperCollins is spearheading a veritable Zora Neale Hurston revival, having purchased Hurston's recently discovered manuscript, Negro Folktales of the Gulf States, which documents Southern folktales from 1929-1930. It will be the first Hurston...

Stage, Film & TV.(Review)
November 1, 2000... From a portrait to a play... Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry (Doubleday, October 2000) has been optioned by Emily Mann of Princeton, New Jersey's McCarter Theatre. Mann most recently won a...

Awards Spotlight Single Mother Wins Big.
November 1, 2000... Thirty-four-year-old single mom, and 2000 Washington College graduate, Christine Lincoln won the Sophie Kerr Prize, America's largest undergraduate literary award. Her collection of short fiction, Sap Rising, earned her a guest appearance on...

BIBR Wins Design Prize.
November 1, 2000... The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts has selected BIBR's March/April 1999 cover and layout, designed by graphic designer Michelle Washington as one of the textile, graphic, interior and product designs that will be...

Portrait of a Founding Father.
November 1, 2000... Dudley Randall, poet, librarian, teacher and publisher was an influential anchor of the flourishing Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and '70s. His death fast summer prompted reflections on his legacy by one of his many prominent literary heirs....

on the shelf.
November 1, 2000... We are entering the time where we practice one of our most hard-won rights, the right to vote. Issues of diversity and freedom of religion have been tossed back and forth and now come to a head during the season when people around the world...

The Way Forward Is With A Broken Heart.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... The Way Forward Is With A Broken Heart by Alice Walker Random House, October 2000, $23.95, ISBN 0-679-45587-6 This is not a review of Alice Walker's newest book--this is a testimony. The process of reviewing requires a degree of voluntarily...

Drop.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Drop by Mat Johnson Bloomsbury Publishing, October 2000 $23.95, ISBN 1-582-34104-4 Drop is a hip, contemporary morality tale set on two continents. The novel is at times predictable, but the language is so alive, crispy-fresh and musical...

Orange Laughter.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Orange Laughter by Leone Ross Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, November 2000 $23.00, ISBN 0-374-22676-8 I must admit I was skeptical. How would a British author write a novel about Southern life? I was expecting a trite plot and dialogue that...

New fiction we couldn't let the year end without!(Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby Kensington Books, January 2000 $22.00, ISBN 1-575-66489-5 Tanya Black has a great marriage and career, but it's all about to change when she discovers a secret betrayal. Passing by...

Liars Game.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Liars Game by Eric Jerome Dickey Dutton, June 2000, $23.95 ISBN 0-525-94483-4 Author Eric Jerome Dickey, called the "brotherman novelist" in some publishing circles, seems to get better with each book. The former stand-up comedian and...

In the Shadow of the Son.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... In the Shadow of the Son by Michael Simanga Third World Press, December 1999, $16.95, ISBN 0-883-78206-5 Simanga paints a world where a disadvantaged black kid from the hip-hop-infused projects can build a power base with military precision...

Do Or Die.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Do Or Die by Grace F. Edwards Doubleday, July 2000, $22.95 ISBN 0-385-49248-0 The newest installment in the Mali Anderson mystery series sometimes reads like the quintessential guide to Harlem. Our sleuth walks us up and down the streets...

Blind Ambitions.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Blind Ambitions by Lolita Files Simon & Schuster, September 2000, $23.00 ISBN 0-684-87144-0 Trying to make it in Hollywood--a culture dominated by sex, betrayal and self-destruction--isn't easy, especially for a sista. In her latest novel,...

God Don't Like Ugly.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... God Don't Like Ugly by Mary Monroe Kensington, October 2000, $15.00, ISBN 1-575-66607-3 One of the biggest challenges for a writer is to depict dreary lives without telling a dreary story. Mary Monroe accomplishes this for the first...

Lookin' for Luv.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Lookin' for Luv by Carl Weber Kensington, September 2000, $14.00, ISBN 1-575-66965-2 Some advice to the lovelorn: Be really careful of them 900 numbers. The three protagonists in Carl Weber's obnoxiously funny novel could have used that...

Romance ...(Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... Cuddle and keep comfy with these romantic selections Close Encounters by Sandra Kitts Signet, July 2000, $6.99, ISBN 0-451-20048-9 Carol is an innocent woman caught up in a police bust gone wrong. No one except Lee understands the...

Blanche Passes Go.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Blanche Passes Go by Barbara Neely Viking, July 2000, $22.95, ISBN 0-670-89165-7 Barbara Neely's heroine, Blanche White, is a sexy, dark-skinned, confident, over 40, size 16 sister still learning about herself with a reverence for her...

Details at Ten.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Details at Ten by Ardella Garland Simon and Schuster, September 2000, $22.00, ISBN 0-684-87375-3 Here's the scoop--Yolanda Joe, the author of He Say, She Say and Bebe's By Golly Wow has donned a new pen name, Ardella Garland, to tackle a...

An Eighth of August.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... An Eighth of August by Dawn Turner Trice Crown Publishers, October 2000, $22.95, ISBN 0-517-70589-3 Dawn Turner Trice, the author of Only Once I Wished for Heaven, has returned to bookshelves everywhere with a beautifully layered tale about...

Abyssinian Chronicles.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa Alfred A. Knopf, May 2000, $26.00, ISBN 0-375-40613-1 Like the tactile weight of morsels being passed from hand to mouth, Isegawa feeds readers grains of wisdom in the form of well-placed words and...

Dark Secret.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Dark Secret by Elizabeth Atkins Bowman Forge, July 2000, $25.95 ISBN 0-312-86806-5 In the beginning, I wrestled to understand Elizabeth Atkins Bowman's multifaceted racial thriller. I was puzzled by the alternating structure of the...

Bring on Da Funk.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Recent books about Black pioneers in movie scores and musicals The premiere of Shaft this summer rekindled a jones for Isaac Hayes' thumping, original thematic score. The familiar chords symbolized, as they did when they were first heard in...

Natalie Cole Owns Her Life.(Review)
November 1, 2000... Her new book talks about messing up and cleaning up when you're rich and famous Natalie Cole seldom plays it safe. In her eagerly anticipated autobiography, An Angel on My Shoulder (Warner, November 2000, $25.95, ISBN 0-446-52746-7),...

First-Person Singular.
November 1, 2000... Even black celebrities don't often tell their own stories Talking honestly about the life one has lived involves a psychological process not unlike stripping naked in front of a crowd of total strangers. Many of us cringe when one of the...

RACE MAN JULIAN RICHARDSON 1916-2000.
November 1, 2000... 1916-2000 Julian Richardson, founder of the San Francisco Bay Areas Marcus Books, died in San Francisco on August 21st. He was 84. Mr. Richardson established one of the country's first African American bookstores, but he is remembered even...

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Kwanzaa ...
November 1, 2000... Black retailers awaken to ujamaa--the power of cooperative economics Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary A. Mitchell began observing Kwanzaa with her family nearly two decades ago. "When I stumbled upon a book about Kwanzaa in the early '80s,...

Setting the Welcome Table.
November 1, 2000... Holiday cuisine and cookbooks by our favorite chefs... With the proliferation of cookbooks by black cooks, credit is finally being given where credit is due. While not always formally acknowledge as chefs, there is no question that African...

In Memoriam Jacob Lawrence.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... 1917 - 2000 On June 9, 2000, we mourned the death of one of America's preeminent modern figurative painters--Jacob Lawrence. People around the world felt the immeasurable loss of one of the most vivid visual storytellers of the 20th...

Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico by Anne Herzog University of Washington Press, August 2000, $35.00, ISBN 0-295-97940-2 Walking the line between the responsibilities of nationhood and a sense of one's self as an actualized,...

J.D. Okhai Ojeikere: Photographs.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... J.D. Okhai Ojeikere: Photographs by Andre Magnin Scalo, August 2000, $45.00, ISBN 3-908247-30-6 The politics of hair is a tireless issue informing nearly every aspect of black contemporary life. How it's styled, who styles it and the...

Hair in African Art and Culture.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Hair in African Art and Culture edited by Roy Seiber and Frank Herreman Museum for African Art, March 2000, $65.00, ISBN 3-791-32291-5 The politics of hair is a tireless issue informing nearly every aspect of black contemporary life. How...

In The Gallery ...
November 1, 2000... The exhibition, "Hair in African Art and Culture," originated at the Museum of African Art in New York and will travel to the Apex Museum in Atlanta, the Iris & R. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, the Charles H....

The Atlantic Sound.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... The Atlantic Sound by Caryl Phillips Alfred A. Knopf, October 2000, $26.00, ISBN 0-375-40110-5 With a novelist's penetrating, proactive insight and a historian's careful and acute eye for detail, the Caribbean-born, London-raised Phillips...

Whose Song? And Other Stories.(Review)
November 1, 2000... Whose Song? And Other Stories by Thomas Glare City Light Books, October 2000, $12.95, ISBN 0-872-86375-l Thomas Glaves' gifts as a poet are clearly evident in this collection. His style weaves its way through the dark and disturbing...

Blackberries, Blackberries.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Blackberries, Blackberries by Crystal Wilkinson The Toby Press, July 2000, $12.95, ISBN 1-902-881345-6 Available directly from publisher at www.tobypress.com or by calling 1-800-810-7191 Set in rural Kentucky, a place where black folks live...

Witness to the League of Blonde Hip Hop Dancers, A Novella and Short Stories.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Witness to the League of Blonde Hip Hop Dancers, A Novella and Short Stories by Donna Allegra Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, November 2000, $23.00, ISBN 0-374-22676-8 This moving collection of short stories and a novella candidly describes the...

A Little Piece of Sky.(Nicole Bailey-Williams )(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... A Little Piece of Sky by Nicole Bailey-Williams Sugarene's Press, June 2000, $8.95 ISBN 0-970-01860-6 First-time novelist and savvy New Jersey educator, Nicole Bailey-Williams' new book is an enlightening little collection of cogent and...

Domestic Work.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Domestic Work by Natasha Trethewey Graywolf Press, September 2000, $12.95, ISBN 1-555-97309-4 Natasha Trethewey's southern tongue is thick with memory. Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and recipient of the 1999 Cave Canem poetry prize,...

Multitudes.(Review)
November 1, 2000... Multitudes by Afaa Michael Weaver Sarabande Books, July 2000, $14.95, ISBN 1-889-33041-8 Afaa Michael Weaver's new and selected poetry collection, follows the poet's career across his five books published since 1985. His poems, grouped...

Muscular Music.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Muscular Music by Terrance Hayes Tia Chucha Press, July 2000, $10.95, ISBN 1-882688-21-X In his award-winning first collection of poetry, Terrance Hayes displays a delicate yet broad-shouldered attentiveness, revealing the interior...

Our Miss Brooks.
November 1, 2000... At age 83, she continues with us, strong as ever, and even more honored by her beloved community of poets--especially the community of black poets to whom she is a pioneering example and godmother. Since 1950, after becoming the first...

Fruit of the Learning Tree.
November 1, 2000... Black writers talks about how historically black colleges and universities particularly cultivated their talents Ethnic News Watch reported that more than half of all African American students earn bachelor's degrees in journalism and...

Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray edited by Albert Murray and John F. Callahan Random House, June 2000, $24.95, ISBN 0-313-29424-0 Reading the correspondence between these two towering figures of...

Freedom's Children.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Freedom's Children by Velma Maia Thomas Random House, September 2000, $32.50 ISBN 0-609-60481-3 Breathtaking in its scope and successful in its delicate handling of historical facts and memorabilia, Thomas strikes gold again with this...

Honoring our Endurance.(Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... African Americans were held in bondage for the first half of our nation's history. As we move forward, during this time of remembrance, here is a selection of titles to expand our understanding of the past while we celebrate our survival. ...

Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Slaves on Screen: Film and Historical Vision by Natalie Zemon Davis Harvard University Press, September 2000, $22.95, ISBN 0-674-00444-2 Davis' scholarship demands a restructuring of basic thought processes around of history and cinema, and...

Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace by Angel Kyodo Williams Viking Compass, September 2000, $23.95, ISBN 0-670-89268-8 Angel Kyodo Williams offers a uniquely refreshing flavor of food for the soul. If you've...

It's the Little Things: The Everyday Interactions That Get Under the Skin of Blacks and Whites.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... It's the Little Things: The Everyday Interactions That Get Under the Skin of Blacks and Whites by Lena Williams Harcourt, September 2000, $22.00 ISBN 0-151-00407-2 If you've ever had a frustrating conversation at work with a co-worker over...

Sisterfriend Soul Journeys: The Spirit and Expressions of African American Women on Tour.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Sisterfriend Soul Journeys: The Spirit and Expressions of African American Women on Tour by Maria Dowd and Carol Smith-Passariello Promo Trends, Inc., July 2000, $18.95, ISBN 0-9678645-0-X The power to stop unhealthy personal traits seems...

Souls of My Sisters.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Souls of My Sisters Dawn Marie Daniels & Candance Sandy Dafina Books, October 2000, $15.00, ISBN 1-575-66653-7 This compilation of 76 essays from black women of all walks of life has one goal in mind: to promote healing and celebration...

Spiritual Wisdom.(Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... A Private Woman in Public Spaces by Barbara A. Holmes Trinity Press, June 2000, $17.00, ISBN 1-563-38302-0 This book about Barbara Jordan, the first African American congresswoman elected from Texas since reconstruction, offers creative...

An American Story.(Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... An American Story by Debra J. Dickerson Pantheon, September 2000, 524.00 ISBN 0-375-42069-X I'm sure it's no coincidence that the title of Debra J. Dickerson's memoir echoes Colin L. Powell's 1996 bestseller My American Journey....

New Non-Fiction.(Review)
November 1, 2000... More Than Sex: Reinventing The Black Male Image edited by George Edmond Smith, M.D. Kensington Books, January 2000 $23.00, ISBN 1-575-66498-4 Prejudice Across America by James Waller, fwd Douglas Brinkley University Press of Mississippi,...

Heart Sounds.(Bibliography)
November 1, 2000... Mother Goose Meets A Woman Called Wisdom by Linda H. Hollis United Church Press, July 2000, $21.95, ISBN 0-829-81348-9 Reverend Hollis puts a new spin on the Mother Goose fairytale. She transforms it with a decidedly spiritual twist,...

A Good Man is Hard to Find.
November 1, 2000... But Perry Brown's The Shirt Off His Back features a black male hero everyones loves What do you do if you're an avid reader who enjoys books by African American authors, but you're disappointed with the way black men are portrayed in...

Online Shopping for Dummies.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Shopping on the Net is a convenient perk for the tech-savvy gift-giver and book-buyer. But, whether you're computer illiterate or simply concerned about the safety of your financial information, there are some important things to consider...

E-books, e-zines and other adventures in Internet publishing.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... E-books first made their appearance in sci-fi flicks. Now, with Riding The Bullet, a novella issued exclusively as an e-book, Stephen King's attempt to level the playing field is opening doors for electronic publishing. Writers worldwide are...

Soul on Ice.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... A handful of black hockey players have a longer tradition than most fans would Frequently referred to as the fastest team sport in the world, professional ice hockey is unique--the only non-martial arts sport where you can legally punch...

The African Spirit of Storytelling.
November 1, 2000... Making it a family occasion For centuries, storytelling has been the moral, ethical and cultural foundation on which African peoples reared their families and built their communities. Stories were told by workers in the fields in an effort...

children's bookshelf.
November 1, 2000... The holidays are here again, and it is time to celebrate with family and friends, acknowledging our African heritage and by renewing our faith in God, community and ourselves. Books are an important part of how I have reconstructed parts of...

Holiday Harvest Basket.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... A Child Is Born by Margaret Wise Brown illustrated by Floyd Cooper Jump at the Sun: Hyperion Books for Children, October 2000, $17.99 ISBN 0-786-80673-7, Ages 2-5 The miracle of Christmas is retold with luminous illustrations by...

Catching the Wild Waiyuuzee.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... Catching the Wild Waiyuuzee by Rita Williams-Garcia illustrated by Mike Reed Simon & Schuster Books for Young Children October 2000, $16.00 ISBN 0-689-82601-X Preschool Ages This wonderfully written book will entertain preschoolers with a...

Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker by Kathryn Lasky; illustrated by Nneka Bennett Candlewick Press, March 2000, $16.99, ISBN 0-76364-0253-1 Ages 8-11 The dying words of the first female African American self-made...

The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs by Tamara Bower Anatheum Books for Young Readers, July 2000, $17.00 ISBN 0-689-83046-7, Ages 7 and up This beautiful story is based on a papyrus scroll of hieroglyphs dating back to...

For Very Young Readers.(Review)
November 1, 2000... The Adventure of Sparrowboy by Brian Pinkney Simon & Schuster Aladdin Paperbacks, July 2000 $5.99, ISBN 0-689-83534-5, Ages 4-8 After an encounter with a sparrow, Henry finds he is able to fly just like Falconman, his favorite comic book...

Satchel Paige.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Satchel Paige by Lesa Cline-Ransome, paintings by James B. Ransome Simon & Schuster, January 2000, $16.00, ISBN 0-6898-1151-9, Ages 6-10 Leroy Satchel Paige was one of the brightest stars of Negro League baseball. His life, times and...

Uptown.(Review)(Children's Review)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2000... Uptown by Bryan Collier Henry Holt & Co,, June 2000, $15,95, ISBN 0-805-05721-8, Ages 4-8 Harlem brownstones and barber shops are fodder for exploration as Collier's collage illustrations create a truly wonderful sense of adventure through...

For Tweens and Teens.(Review)(Young Adult Review)(Brief Review)
November 1, 2000... The Heart Calls Home by Joyce Hansen Walker & Company, October 1999 $16.95, ISBN 0-802-78636-7 The story of Obi and Easter, two escaped slaves from South Carolina, is completed in this finale to the trilogy. Miles' Song by Alice McGill...