Some May releases everybody should know about:
God Says No by James Hannaham. “A tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing. A revelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world.”
—Steve Martin, author of ShopgirlShadow Valley by Steven Barnes (fantasy)
Where Did You Sleep Last Night? by Danzy Senna (memoir)
Kiss the Sky by Farai Chideya (novel)
I am Not Sydney Poitier by Percival Everett (Check out this starred review in Publishers Weekly, which states it has "the most sidesplitting dialogue this side of Catch-22")
Did you catch the cover story of the NY Times Book Review this weekend? Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor reviewed by Toure. RingShout points out that it's been 2 years since an African American made the cover. The blog also asks an interesting question about "post-black" fiction.
And another blogger asks Whitehead if Sag Harbor is YA, and Whitehead seemed to take offense. Whitehead responds that he dislikes talking about marketing rather than writing.
A nice review of Stacyann Chin's new memoir, The Other Side of Paradise. From the review: "The reader who is already familiar with Staceyann Chin, and who knows her as the riveting spoken word artist famous for her role in the Tony award winning Def Poetry Jam, will perhaps be surprised by this book. While Chin the performer is charismatic, tough, and assertively political, Chin the memoirist has a quieter voice. Her writing is exquisitely beautiful and emotionally tender."
Got any news to share? Lemme know.
6 comments:
Thanks for the recs. I think I have to check out Sag Harbor.
Love this blog.
I posted about 'National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month' in December and found this blog while searching that term.
great recommendations.
Another great May release--God Says No by James Hannaham. It's just out from McSweeney's. Don't miss it. (and Carleen, if you could add it into the blog with a hyperlink, that'd be awesome)
Thanks Summer & Rebecca.
Ringshout, thanks for letting me know about God Says No. Sounds great!
For anybody in the Philly area, May means the Festival of Black Writing, and this year is the 25th Anniversary Festival so it's going to be big.
May 20-23.
Great list. Whitehead may not like that his book is labled YA. But it is YA or better yet a wonderful crossover novel. It is the kind of book I would have loved to have had when I was about sixteen.
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