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Showing posts from December, 2013

The Best of 2013

Can you believe that 2013 is almost over? A lot has happened this year: Attended the 51st National Convention of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., where I got a chance to meet (and re-meet) some of my favorite authors . Attended several author events around Charleston and the state, including Pearl Cleage , Sonia Sanchez and Carl Weber . Organized my first ever book signing event with Kwame Alexander. Went to St. Thomas for the first time (and ready to go back). Went to Nashville to attend my sister's wedding. Despite doing all of this, I was able to finish 64 books (as of Christmas Eve, when I wrote this). Here are my 10 favorites from this year.  They are broken up into fiction and non-fiction and are in no particular order. FICTION The Awesome Girl's Guide To Dating Extraordinary Men: Several months before this book came out, I had pretty much acknowledged (in my mind) that I wasn't going to hear much from Ernessa T. Carter for a while.  She just had twin g

Book News You Can Use 12/20/13

Relax in Paradise George Rodrigue ,  Janet Dailey ,   Paul Tourday  and Ned Vizzini . Trayvon Martin's parents are talking to publishers about a possible book deal , with faith as a possible element. God bless them. Viking has acquired the rights for the book that will be by two of the Cleveland kidnapping victims . Lindsay Lohan may be also working on a book . Here comes the train wreck. And speaking of train wrecks, please don't give her a show . PLEASE. And in more train wreck news, ARod is shopping a book deal . Wonder if Jeter's imprint will pick it up. Nikki Giovanni talks about her new book, grief and Nelson Mandela in this Democracy Now video . Random House has acquired a memoir from an African-American prisoner in the 1800s . A double dose of Walter Mosley here and here . The "myth and reality" of self-publishing is explained by a CEO of a publishing company . The Guardian released a best-of-2013 list of African fiction . Just in

Book News You Can Use 12/13/13

Relax in Paradise Ida Pollock . Congratulations to fellow Charlestonian Sue Monk Kidd as her newest book is the latest Oprah's Book Club selection ! The Happy Ever After Blog chats with two of my favorites , Michelle Grant and Cheris Hodges, on being authors and BFFs. Leah Dunham got a chance to interview Judy Blume , which will be published. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Sandy Hook shootings.   Here is a new book about the tragedy. Here is a review on Nikki Giovanni's new book . The couple that brought you The Bible miniseries and CBS have joined up to create a miniseries based on The Dovekeepers .  I though networks didn't do miniseries anymore. Terry Crews (the dad from Everybody Hates Chris) is writing a book . Wendell Pierce (from The Wire and Treme) is releasing a book on how he has helped rebuild his New Orleans neighborhood after Hurricane Katrina and the effects the storm has on him and his family . Here is a blog post of 10 books wri

Book News You Can Use 12/6/13

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Relax in Paradise Mandela!! This is a short documentary of the behind-the-scenes preparation and inspiration for "Sheer Good Fortune: Celebrating Toni Morrison". It was a poetry reading at Virginia Tech that was hosted by Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou.  This was also going to be the head picture for today, but I changed it due to Mandela's passing. Relax in Paradise Andre Schiffrin . If Donna Martin can write several books, Kelly Taylor can write a memoir too ! #90210 Gone Girl will finally be published in paperback in April , almost two years after it released. Slate came up with a list of the most underrated books of the year .  I agree with two of these. Here's an article on how African fiction could (and should) grow . So teachers are assigning students to read The Help to learn about civil rights . This story got so much coverage that there is a Change.org petition to stop teachers from doing this.  Did these teachers ever heard of To Kill A