The Reading Diva

2013 was an eventful year in my literary adventures. 2014...not so much.  I did go to two literary events in Charleston: Nina Foxx (which I helped bring to my local library) and Pearl Cleage during the MOJA Festival.  And as of this writing on Christmas Eve, I have only read 35 books, which is low for me.  Somehow, I lost my reading groove this year.  But I was able to select my favorite books of 2014.  So here they are (in no particular order). Anybody's Daughter : This book was one of my book club selections earlier in the year.  This book about a teen girl who is kidnapped and is forced into the world of sex slavery and trafficking (and the efforts of her uncle and his girlfriend to get her back) was a great read. No wonder it won the NAACP Image Award for Best Fiction of 2013! And it reminded me of the stories I heard about sex trafficking in a conference I was at a few months before I read the book. The Prodigal Son : This is one of my favorite ...

Look what came and arrived under the tree for today's Mailbox Monday! The book on the left, Driving the King , came from Harper Books.  This book will come out in January. The book on the right, Brown Girl Dreaming ,came from Rock Inked! As many of you know, this book just won the National Book Award for Young Adult Fiction! Are you interested in any of these books? Hit me up in the comments section! Thanks to those who provided the books! Happy Holidays!

Relax in Paradise Norman Bridwell . The last of the Best of 2014 lists: Book Riot , Flavorwire ( fiction and nonfiction ), The Guardian (selected by authors), The O Magazine  and Booklist .  BuzzFeed even did a Best of 2014 list of women authors . Author Kalisha Buckhanon also list her favorite books of 2014 . A new Judy Bloom book is coming out in June ! Here are some African-American books to add to your TBR list in the new year. PW also featured some  recently released and upcoming African-American books  for you to check out.  Which ones do you plan to check out? Farai Chideya talks to Lalita Tademy about her new book , why she quit her job to write and how she got married at 55.  There's hope for me after all! Ceiling has been found! David Oyelowo has joined the cast of the movie adaptation of Americanah ! Publishers Weekly talked to six book industry professionals on how important diversity is in the book industry . This story cl...

Congratulations to all of the NAACP Image Award nominees ! To find the literary nominees, scroll towards the bottom. Congratulations also go out to Mitchell S. Jackson, who won the Ernest J. Gaines Award  and Tiphanie Yanique for winning the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize ! Gillian Flynn got a Golden Globe nomination for her Gone Girl screenplay! More Best of 2014 lists: The Daily Beast ( fiction , biographies and memoirs ), The Root ( fiction and nonfiction ), Entertainment Weekly ( fiction and nonfiction ), Vulture , Newsweek ,  The Atlantic (some of their books weren't released this year) and Shelf Awareness . We are already looking forward to books we want to read in 2015 . A former Occupy Wall Street activist lands a memoir deal . Brits are upset that YouTube star Zoella used a ghostwriter for her book .  Um...do they know how most books by celebrities get written? Lena Dunham's publisher had to clarified that a pseudonym was us...

Relax in Paradise Kent Haruf , Mark Strand ,   P. D. James  and Claudia Emerson . Congratulations to all of the Morris Award nominees. The Best of 2014 lists keep coming in with Slate  (they also had an overlooked books list ),  BookPage , New York Times  (they also have a children and YA list  and have narrowed it down to 10) ,   Huffington Post ,  NPR ,  BuzzFeed ,  PopSugar (over 200 books) and  Time  adding theirs. GoodReads users also got a chance to vote for their favorites of 2014 . Was 2014 the year of the debut author ? Jacqueline Woodson addressed the National Book Award controversy in an essay in the New York Times . Claudia Rankine didn't win the National Book Award for poetry, but she did get props from the New York Times . And spoke about the violent deaths of black men on PBS NewsHour. Musician PJ Harvey is releasing a poetry book in the new year. Vox suggested people read Men We Rea...