The Reading Diva

Note: Received an ARC from HarperCollins. Opinions are my own. Happy Pub Day to The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson! Summary: It’s 2008 and Barack Obama has just been elected President of the United States.  In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle  is a married  engineer  and her husband wants to start a family. But she had a child as a teenager and walked away from her small hometown in Indiana, promising not to look back.  But  for  her to move forward, she must return to her hometown, confronting her family and  befriending  a  White boy named Midnight, who is  adrift  and looking for connection.   Review: Let me start by saying that I liked this book. I thought it was well-written and the storyline flowed.  I liked Ruth, her brother Eli and Mama, her grandmother (even though I didn't agree on what she did).  I also like some of the minor characters (Corey and the Cunninghams, Natasha, etc). And there are issues of race, class...

Relax in Paradise Peter Gay and William Zinsser . Congratulations to the winners of the African Poetry Prize and the PEN Awards ! New stories about Attica Locke are here , here and here . Rachel Howzell Hall talks about the lack of color in the mystery genre . Toni Morrison responds to The New Progressive Agenda , which was announced this week. Here is an excerpt of Judy Blume's new book . The Big Little Lies series will be on HBO ! Are we surprised that the Obama Presidential Library will be in Chicago ? If this book about Hilary Clinton had so many errors , why was it printed in the first place? I don't know who this Tyler Oakley fellow who is writing a book , but I do know who Luvvie is and she's writing a book too! #internetstars If you are in the Columbia area this weekend, check out the South Carolina Book Festival .  Most likely, I'm skipping it again this year.  If you look at the author list , you will know why. What do you get if yo...

Congratulations to all of the Triangle Award and Edgar Award winners!  Congrats also go to Marion Coutts for winning the Wellcome Book Prize ! The Broadway musical Fun Home, which is based off an autobiography ( that caused much controversy at one of the local colleges two years ago ), was nominated for 12 Tony Awards. More than 90 authors are protesting PEN American Center giving a free speech award to Charlie Hebdo .  But Salman Rushdie feels that the authors should get over it . Publishers Weekly has come out with their Summer Reads book list for 2015!  So has Huffington Post . Angela Fournoy's The Turner House was reviewed in the New York Times ! And Roxane Gay reviewed God Help the Child for The Guardian. Speaking of Toni Morrison, if you were like me and missed her speak during her short book tour this week, here is video of her event in New York City on Monday . And this chick got to meet Toni .  I'm jealous. Here are some new stories abo...

I found out earlier this week that Toni Morrison was coming to DC the end of April.  The more I thought about it, the more I felt that I could pull the trip off.  I could take off from my full-time job and my part-time job would be closing early that week (finals would be over by then).  I had looked at flights and hotel rooms.  I have even started to ask friends to come along.  All to find out yesterday that the event sold out .  The other two dates of her tour are in Philly and in NYC (which is sold out, but has a waiting list).  My friend Valinda is going to check to see if we can still get in to the DC event since she knows the owner of the bookstore who is hosting. Pray for a miracle. Saturday, I got a chance to meet motivational speaker Valerie Burton at this year's Charleston Black Expo.  Her speech was great and she was very nice. Congratulations to all of the Pen Literary Award nominees! I know this is comparing apples to...

More books came in the mail, so it's time for another edition of Mailbox Monday! I won Power Forward  from Goodreads through Simon and Schuster .  Reggie Love talks about his experiences about being the President's right hand man. Harper Books sent me Diamond Head .  I requested some other ARCs, but they ran out! So they sent me this book in their place. Do you see anything you are interested in? Hit me up in the comments section!  Thanks to the publishers for the books!

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...

“In truth, love is everything. You can live without money. You cannot live without love…of someone or something. Everyone is forever trying to find love in some way. Everyone is trying to win something. Wanting some satisfaction.” — Paul from “In Search of Satisfaction" by J. California Cooper Relax in Paradise J. California Cooper  and Alastair Reid . Congratulations to all of the Amtrak Residency Program winners! Publishers Weekly wrote about diversity in the publishing industry and realized that it was sorely lacking . Duh. The mother of one of the Columbine shooters is writing a book .  Um...I don't know about this. I'm looking forward to reading The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace.  The author, Jeff Hobbs, spoke to an NPR station about the book. Another book I am looking forward to is New York Times columist Charles M. Blow's memoir.  Read an excerpt here . Gabriel Garcia Marquez's books will be released as e-books . R.L. Stine supp...

Relax in Paradise Juan Gelman . Congratulations to all of the Edgar Award nominees !  Glad to see that The Good Nurse was nominate for best Fact Crime Book! Nominees for the National Book Critics Circle Awards were also announced this week. A stamp honoring Ralph Ellison will be released later this year. Attica Locke will receive her Gaines Award next week . In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's 85th Birthday, Pearl Cleage talks about meeting him and ways we can truly honor his legacy . Nakia at ZoraToniMaya has a list of 21 books that she plans to read this year. There will be a New York festival honoring the work of James Baldwin . Happy 50th Birthday to our wonderful and beautiful First Lady Michelle Obama!!

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 ...

In 1982, Barack Obama Jr., then a student at Columbia University, received a phone call that informed him of his father's passing. The father, which he barely knew and only met once, was killed in a car accident in his native Kenya. As many of you know, this event will start a path of the now President to find out more about his father - which was explored in his first book, Dreams From My Father. While writing about Barack Sr. for the Boston Globe, Sally H. Jacobs wanted to find out more about the man that who shares a name with the President and little else. The result was The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father. And bold and reckless it was. Growing up in the rural part of Kenya, Barack Sr. was raised by a strict man who had several wives. His intelligence made him a star in school, but his arrogance caused him to get kicked out of the country's equivalent of high school. Eventually, he was able to meet Betty Mooney, a lite...

While I was on vacation last week, I finished A Singular Woman by Janny Scott . It is the biography of S. Ann Dunham, who is President Obama's mother. Scott's purpose of this book was to show that Dunham was more than "a white woman from Kansas". Born in 1942, Stanely Ann Dunham moved around during her childhood because of her father's work. After living in Washington state for a few years (which may have influenced some of her views), Ann moved to Hawaii and enrolled in college. She met Barack Obama, Sr. during her first few days on campus in 1960. Less than a year later, their son was born. After Ann's divorce from the President's father, she remarried an Indonesian man and moved to his home country with Barack. She fell in love with Indonesia, spending most of her life doing anthropology work in the country. She was also able to obtain a PhD while raising two multiracial children by herself (and help from her parents). You can tell by this book th...

I know Joe, I lied. (And FYI, even thought I live in South Carolina, I do not live in the district he represents and I DO NOT CONDONE HIS ACTIONS). But back to the books. Several months ago, I swore that I would not read the book "O" because it was possible it was from one of Joe's fellow Republicans. But once the book arrived for me at the library, I did check it out. The book came into my possession around the time of my housewarming. The cousin who tells me it's good to hear what the other side says....he was in town for the event. And one of my friends, who has more books and items about Obama than I could imagine, said she had the book and that we could read it together. After trying to read this book off and on for the past two months, I just gave up. Not because the allege writer is Sen. McCain's former speechwriter. It's not because it seems anti-Obama and shows him as an arrogant man who thinks he knows it all, which it does. And it's not be...

Last week I was debating whether I should by "O, A Presidential Novel". I was wondering whether I should buy it, let the library order it or just plain not read it at all. Since the author was anonymous, I had a bigger concern that I would be reading a book that was written by an anti-Obama person. On Tuesday, I decided to let the library order it. That way I would save money and wouldn't be at a total loss if the book was bad. Yesterday, Time revealed that Mark Salter, one of of John McCain's former speechwriters, is the author of the novel (even though he nor the publisher has confirmed it). But since they have a lot of evidence that looks like that may be true, I'm going to take their word. The New York Post also pointed towards Salter. Part of me is relieved that I did not buy the book. I really don't want to support anyone who is against the mission of the President and of the man himself. There is even a book that is coming out in the next few w...

I'm sorry that is has been over a week since I last posted. I was without a car for a few days and had to stay with the parents so I could get a ride to work. Right now I am in Columbia (about 2 hours away) for work. Then with my last semester in graduate school cranking up, I have been pretty busy the last few days. I found out from one of my friends a few days ago that Carl Weber will be at the Northwoods Mall Books-A-Million a week from today (January 28) at 7 p.m. I will be there, as well as many of my friends. I will take plenty of pictures so I can share it with you. At least someone at Books-A-Million realize that there are plenty of fans in Charleston. Also, one of my friends told me about a kiosk at Northwoods Mall that sold African-American books. It's called the Urban Knowledge Book Store and I got to talk to one of the guys who helps run the booth. They have a lot of books and they have been doing well since word has been spreading. After looking at the Web...