Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A few new books I'm excited about

Pym by Mat Johnson. It's out now and getting loads of great reviews. For example, Salon called "a blisteringly funny satire of contemporary American racial attitudes," which I believe because I follow Johnson on Twitter and his tweets crack me up.


 
If Sons, Then Heirs by Lorene Cary. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of this. I wanted to send a blurb that said "Love, love, love, love, love, it. You should totally, totally, totally buy it." Yeah, not really articulate. What I ended up sending in was:

"Every single character pops off the page in this amazing story. This masterwork of a novel made me laugh and cry out loud. Important, enjoyable, and wonderfully moving. An absolute delight." It's out in April, and you should totally pre-order it.



Coming in May is Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones, and it's already generating great buzz.



I'm really interested More Than Words because it brings writers of different races together. What a novel concept! It sounds really good too: "Each and every one of us has the ability to effect change—to make our world a better place. The dedicated women selected as this year's recipients of Harlequin's More Than Words award have changed lives, one good deed at a time. To celebrate their accomplishments, some of our bestselling authors have honored the winners by writing stories inspired by these real-life heroines."

More Than Words is on sale today!  


Adding Open City by Teju Cole, which came out last month and skipped my radar screen, because Martha Southgate just told me via Twitter that "it rocks!" A quick Google search shows rave reviews, but Martha's endorsement is all I need.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but y'all know how important pre-orders and first months' sales are. So if you can, go ahead and place an order or pre-order at IndieBound or Amazon or pick up one of these at your local bookstore.

In other news: Zetta Elliott posts an important essay on Women Doing Literary Things. An excerpt:
When I learned that the goal of this blog was to “celebrate and reaffirm the depth and breadth of women’s involvement in literature,” I knew I wanted to participate. Yet when I reflect upon my involvement in the literary world, I find that little of my time and energy has gone toward addressing “the fundamental wrongness of gender disparities.” When everyone in your world is female, gender tends not to be the focus. For me, the main problem isn’t that men are impeding my progress as a writer. The truth is, behind every door that has been closed in my face…there’s another woman.
Sometimes that woman looks like me, but more often than not, she doesn’t. She belongs to a different race, a different class, and a different culture.

3 comments:

Ernessa T. Carter said...

Oooh! This is an exciting list. Thanks for the recs!

evelyn.n.alfred said...

I read a piece of Pym in the bookstore a few days ago and enjoyed it.

It's seems impossible to read all the books I want to read. I've already run out of space on my bookshelf.

I'll check to see if any of these are available electronically.

Perri said...

Pym sounds fantastic. I am looking forward to reading it. And I'm looking forward to checking out these others too.

Great blog, by the way.