The Reading Diva

My Friday Reads is Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward.  Just started reading it, but so far, so good. Congratulations to the Whiting Writers' Award winners ! Blame Uncle Steve and Supahead for this one: Will the celebrity self-help book trend ever die ? Following Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, two of the three women held captive in Cleveland for a decade are writing about their experience .  BTW, Jaycee's book was really good. Be on the lookout for the tons of books coming out about JFK . Edwidge Danticat talks about her new book in Ebony . In light of Grambling State's troubles, it may be a good time to pick up Breaking The Line .  Author Samuel Freedman writes about it in this essay for ESPN . James Bond, Jeeves and Philip Marlowe have returned , thanks to new authors who have picked up the characters after their creators have passed on. Here are five things you didn't know about Maurice Sendak . And speaking of Sendak, this year is the 50th an...

In case you didn't know, I am a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc .  I know, the blog's background and the 1913 on the end of my website address gave it away.  But something awesome happened this year: on January 13, we celebrated 100 years of sisterhood! To celebrate this milestone, Delta held their biggest National Convention yet in our nation's capital! They pulled out all of the stops to make sure the 38,000 people in attendance had a good time.  And two of the programs that are always popular (at least, in my opinion) they have for the sorors during conventions is the author and artist pavilion and the Literary Cafe, which were on July 15-16.  And I like going to the step show too. This was the second National Convention I went to.  In 2008, I attended the convention in Orlando.  The big draw that year was Hill Harper, who just came out with Letters for a Young Sister.  And E. Lynn Harris was there (sadly, this will be the last time...

Relax in Paradise Oscar Hijuelos . Eleanor Catton became the youngest author ever to win the Booker Prize . Due to poor health, Alice Munro will not be able to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony . Here is the short list of the National Book Award nominees. We Need New Names might have lost the Booker Prize, but NoViolet Bulawayo is still getting some love from the press . Next year is the 75th anniversary of Madeline and she's still a hit among the kids. By the time Goosebumps came along, I was into Fear Street.  This is what would happen if Goosebumps were written for 20-somethings . Neil Gaiman gave a lecture on why our future depends on libraries .  He rocks. This essay explains all of the awesome things you can learn from reading Jane Eyre . DMC (yes, from Run DMC), has started a comic book company and has his own comic . The guy from Sons of Anarchy probably made the best decision of his career and dropped out of the 50 Shades movie .  You can't ...

Tamika Newhouse visited North Charleston on March 23 and visited the Sistah Reading Sistah Book Club. Weeks before this event happened, two friends told me that Tamika was coming to Charleston.  One didn't know an actual date and when the date was revealed, she had to work.  The other friend who told me the date was suppose to come, but never showed up.  Luckily, my friend Nadia showed up and we were greeted warmly by the Sistah Reading Sistah Book Club, which is a book club for single mothers (despite the fact that Nadia and I are single, but don't have kids).  The meeting was at an Extended Stay America meeting room and representatives from Thirty-One was there. Tamika talked about her life journey, from becoming a teen mom to a published author.  She also talked about the writing process and why she decided to go the independent route when it was time to publish her books.  Tamika has her own publishing company, Delphine Publications , and how...

Sonia Sanchez made her first visit to South Carolina in years when she visited the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston on March 22.   This event was packed! Close to 100 people came to Avery to see Sonia, in which I got a chance to see many of my neighbors.  There would have been more, but an African writers forum was going on the same time at the nearby Marriott.  There was a ting on sadness at both events due to the passing of Chinua Achebe the day before. Growing up in Alabama, Sonia said she started writing at age 6 when she wrote a poem about her grandmother.  In between stories about her life, she shared several of her many poems.  Sonia also talked about how she is helping put up peace murals in Philadelphia (where she lives) and how she reaches out to children, saying that "they are human beings."  "We have to be innovated about peace, but we have to be peaceful ourselves," she said. Sonia said that the new c...

Back in February, a librarian friend and I were talking about authors we had seen in person.  She told me that Pearl Cleage was coming to Claflin University in Orangeburg (where she works), but didn't know the exact date. I filed it in my memory bank, waiting to hear on the date. Several weeks later, the thoughts of Pearl coming to Claflin returned in my head.  When I did a Google search to find out when she was coming, I found out she would be on campus THE NEXT DAY, which was March 19.  After finding out that she was doing a 6 p.m. lecture, I gather up my books and camera and decided to leave work early to drive one hour to see Pearl. And it was worth the drive! Pearl talked about her journey as a writer, which first started when she started reading Langston Hughes and from that point, knew that she was going to be a writer.  Pearl also talked how she finds a way to make her stories relevant to the times, saying that African-Americans and other minori...

Team Stacey Forever!! Congratulations Alice Munro ! I was shocked when I found out that Elizabeth Smart was found alive.  More than ten years after her kidnapping and rescue, Elizabeth tells her story in a new book . Malala Yousafzi is my new shero . E-books are changing reading habits . Duh. The movie based on The Fault In Our Starts will have a summer 2014 release date . Michael Hastings' novel will see the light of day . A new Richard Scarry book is coming out . The six-year-old in me is very happy. Kimberla Lawson Roby was featured in the New York Times ! I remember reading one of my mother's Lois Duncan books as a teenager. Now she's reaching a new generation of teens. I didn't go see Terry McMillian in Atlanta. But Our Literacy Lives and Bernice McFadden did! And my friend Valinda got to see Terry at the National Book Festival . They can only come up with 16 best things about being in a book club ? So Raj from The Big Bang Theory (wel...

After the release of The Man in 3B, Carl Weber returned to the Northwoods Books-A-Million February 1. There were not as many people who attended this book signing as the one in 2011 , but Carl still entertained us with his stories, opinions and future plans. The event started off with a laugh when my friend Cat noticed that Carl was wearing the same sweater that he wore when he visited Charleston the last time.  He said that he doesn't pay attention to those kind of things. LOL. Carl mostly talked about his plans for the Family Business series.  He said that Family Business 2 was finished (it was released late August) and that he plans to expand the series to at least 15 books.  Since then, another book (To Paris With Love) has been announced and will be released in November.   He also talked about The Choir Director 2, which was scheduled to be released in February 2014, but has since been pushed back to next June.  There are also plans to turn s...

Last year, the College of Charleston picked Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals as their College Read book selection. This was part of the reason why the Charleston County Public Library chose Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as last year's One Book Charleston County selection.   Last October 23 (2012), I spent part of my birthday at the TD Arena to hear Foer speak about both books. But the event, since it was at C of C, was mostly about Eating Animals.  For those who don't know, Eating Animals is about how meat are manufactured and consumed by the public. A student introduced Foer, saying that Eating Animals changed her life so much that she gave up eating meat. More power to her.  Foer reacted to her introduction by saying that the success of a book depends on the conversations that people have after reading it.  Some people may feel uncertain about reading this type of book or it may make them think.  He also said that young people ...

This post has been a year in the making, so here it goes! When many people were getting ready to enjoy the last unofficial days of summer, many people packed the Sottile Theater last August 31(2012), to see noted feminist and scholar bell hooks at the College of Charleston . I was surprised to see how many people, especially students, attended since the event happened the Friday before Labor Day.  The college, especially the Women and Gender Studies program, did a great job in promoting this event. bell discussed a variety of topics during her time on stage. She talked about how it is a perilous time to be an African-American woman in the age of Michelle Obama.  She said that when you see an African-American woman, you can see "all of our journeys".  She also said that feminists theories from an African-American standpoint must not be ignored. bell also said that despite all of the trials we go through, "love is the necessary foundation that keeps us whole...

Some of you may have seen this story already via Facebook and/or Twitter, but if you haven't seen it, here it goes. On September 22, I ordered The Awesome Girl's Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men from a book store that was not called Amazon.  I knew the book was scheduled to come out two days later, and I figured by the time I returned home from Washington, D. C., it would be there.  And they were offering free express shipping since I was a member of their discount club.  I get an email on Friday, September 27 (last Friday, which was five days later) that the book was on back order and it would take up to four weeks to get the book. NO MA'AM.  I canceled that order and ordered through Amazon.  Monday, I got an email saying Amazon had just mailed it off and it arrived on Tuesday. And I didn't do express shipping (Amazon has two warehouses in the state and they may have come from one of them). Lesson: when in (serious) doubt, order from Amazon.  I hav...

I have not featured a book event on the blog in a while.  More than a year, as a matter of fact.  So starting on Monday, October 7, I will be (finally) starting to put the book signings I've attended over the last year on the blog.  They will be in order of the event.  Here is the schedule: Monday, October 7: bell hooks Wednesday, October 9: Jonathan Safran Foer Friday, October 11: Carl Weber Monday, October 14: Pearl Cleage Wednesday, October 16: Sonia Sanchez Friday, October 18: Tamika Newhouse Monday, October 21: Author's Pavilion at the 51st National Convention of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Wednesday, October 23 (My birthday): Tina McElroy Ansa Friday, October 25: Terry McMillian There may be one more book event preview this month, with Attica Locke coming to the Spartanburg County Library on October 24.  I am still debating on whether to attend this one, since I would have to take at least a day and a half off of off work, woul...