The Reading Diva

Author's note: I was on the committee for Black Ink the first three years of its existence and was on a panel during last year's virtual conference. I attended the in-person portion of the 6 th Black Ink Book Festival on January 14. The event was at Trident Technical College’s Complex for Eco nomic Development. This was the first in-person event for Black Ink since 2019 and the first time it was held outside the peninsula . This year’s theme was “Black to the Future”, which focused on Black futurism, science fiction and fantasy.   About 25 a uthors e xhibited at the event . Several of them were from the Charleston area and the stat e b ut there were also some from out of state . As in previous years, most of the authors were self-published but there were a few that were published by the major publishers (or will be published soon). There were also three independent publishers in attendance. Turning Page Books hop , t he only African American owned bookstore that has a p...

  Disclaimer: Received an advance copy from Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and Netgalley. Opinions are my own. Slight TWs: prolonged grief/guilt Summary: In the second book of The Boyfriend Project series, Taylor Powell is trying to get her personal training career off of the ground. But homegirl is broke. BROKE, BROKE. Jamar Dixon is a NFL player who is trying to get back on the field after a devastating injury. And he picks Taylor to help him with that goal...but he doesn't want anyone to know. They start posing at boyfriend/girlfriend, but what happens when that romance gets a little too real? Review: The Boyfriend Project was one of my favorite books of last year and didn't think Farrah could top that one. But I liked The Dating Playbook more and it's one of my favorites of this year (so far)! I found myself rooting for both Taylor and Jamar in their professional and personal endeavors! I love that despite the fact that Taylor was the trainer and Jamar was the cli...

It was taped yesterday but since it's Monday, let's keep the theme going!

I'm starting off today's post with a picture of Eric Jerome Dickey and myself at the 2011 South Carolina Book Festival.  I know you are wondering why I have this picture up.  One, his latest book One Night came out this week.  And two, I will be seeing him again tomorrow at the Sandhills Books-A-Million in Columbia!  So we will most likely take a new picture together that won't have Eric's locs. And I'll be carrying a few more pounds.  Learn more about One Night here , here and here . Relax in Paradise William Price Fox  and Frederic Morton . Congratulations to the winners of the Pulitzer Prize (shout-out to the hometown paper, The Post and Courier ) and the L.A. Times Book Prize ! Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner Gregory Pardolo is getting use to his sudden fame .  And I didn't know his brother was in City High ! Another author who released a book this week was Attica Locke.  She talks about Pleasantville here (with Rachel Ho...

As some of you know, my job allows me to travel all over the great state of South Carolina, exhibiting for the website I work on.  And this week, I found myself exhibiting at the South Carolina Association of School Librarians  Annual Conference.  And they had authors...and book signings! So I got a chance to meet Sharon Flake at the conference yesterday. It was great to have something different to do during the humdrum that is exhibiting. Relax in Paradise Terry Pratchett. Congratulations to all of the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Awards ! Also congrats to the nominees of the Baileys Women's Prize , Pen Faulkner Awards  and Triangle Awards ! Speaking of school libraries, James Patterson is donating over $1 million to them! And this comes at a good time after a report that not all school libraries are equal . A no-no at the library: making a sex tape . People were so concerned about Harper Lee that the state of Alabama was looking in ...

  By the time your read this, there is a good chance that I've finished this book, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway. My Friday Reads is Into the Go-Slow by Bridgett Davis . It's 1987 and Angie's life has been stuck in neutral since her older sister Ella died in Nigeria three years earlier.  After college graduation, she decides to go to Nigeria to trace her sister's last days and finds herself in the meantime.  I decided to bump this book to the top of my reading list after the Blerd Book Club decided to make it their January section.  I've enjoyed it, but since I'm close to the end, the route it has taken the last few pages I've read has me scratching my head.  I look forward to the discussion about the book on February 8. Relax in Paradise Margaret Bloy Graham , Tadeusz Konwicki , and Colleen McCullough . Publishers Weekly has a list of the most anticipated book adaptations (on the big screen) of 2015. Sim...

More books have arrived in the mail so it's time for another edition of Mailbox Monday! I received these books two weeks ago.  But due to my busy schedule, I was unable to post them last week.  So here are the books I received from Kensington Publishing : As Close As Sisters The Pleasure Trap Boy Trouble Do you see any books that you would like to read?  Hit me up at the comments section!  Thanks to Kensington for the books!

Relax in Paradise Marsha Mehran ,  Farley Mowat  and  Leslie Thomas . Congratulations to all of the O. Henry Prize winners ! The Residue Years and Long Division were two of the nominees of the Saroyan Prize . A sequel to The Pillars of Earth is on the way , but no date of release has been made. The Daily Mail has to pay JK Rowling after making false claims about the Harry Potter author. In the article I posted last week, the author of the new Michael Jordan book said that he did not interview Jordan for the book, but had interview him once before.   So why are people mad that Jordan's racism quotes aren't new ? Herbie Hancock's memoir will be released in October . Recent interviews/book events caught on video and audio include Walter Mosley and Michael Eric Dyson , bell hooks (one includes Janet Mock) and Kiese Laymon . Marcus Books in San Francisco has been evicted from their building . The New York Public Library has abandoned plans to revam...

It's that time of year where I take part in the 10 books 30 days challenge . As some of you may know, I have struggled with this challenge by only reading 4-5 books during the month.  What makes this year even harder is that somehow I have lost my reading groove.  Yes I'm still reading, but for some reason I haven't been able to finish a book. Maybe Southern Charm has zapped my brain cells. And Goodreads kindly reminds me that I am seven books behind my reading goal for the year (which is part of the reason I want to do this challenge).  And did I mention that I will be out of town for a week and have three college graduations in May?  I hope to finish reading a book. Soon. Relax in Paradise Paul Robeson Jr. ,  Stefanie Zweig  and Al Goldstein . Congratulations to all of the Edgar Award winners ! To Kill a Mockingbird will finally be released as an e-book and a downloadable audiobook . Almost ten years after her passing, new short stories from O...

Happy National Library Week!  Here are stories from CNN and NPR commemorating this awesome week. Relax in Paradise Gabriel Garcia Marquez ,   Tanji Dewberry and Gregory White Smith. Congratulations to all of the award winners and nominees! We have the Library of Congress Prize , the Go On Girl Award , the Carnegie Medals and the Pulitzer Prizes . I wouldn't pay this much money for an iPad with every single last bell and whistle, much less pay $1100 for an e-reader .  And who buys Sony e-readers anyway? The relationship between libraries and publishers regarding e-books are improving, but still have a long way to go . Written Magazine did an interview with Pearl Cleage regarding her new book.  And here's an article from Shelf Awareness. I was sad that I had to miss Eric Jerome Dickey during his time in South Carolina Wednesday (I either need him come on the weekend or visit Charleston. PLEASE!).  But before he came to Sumter and Columbia,...

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...

Note: this blog post has spoilers for two books.  About three years ago, I read In Love With A Younger Man by Cheryl Robinson.  It's about 43-year-old Olena Day trying to decide between two younger men.  Matthew is 25 and has his life together at a young age. Jason's 32 and a retired football player. While reading this book, I really wanted Olena to get with Matthew because he seemed to be a pretty decent guy.  Something about Jason always seemed off and I wasn't feeling him. At the end of the book, Olena finds out that Matthew is the son of a man she dated in college (and got pregnant by, which resulted in an abortion).  That leaves her with only Jason, who just found out he has prostate cancer . So when I heard a sequel was coming out, I was happy, but cautious.  I was hoping that Olena had enough sense to give Matthew another chance. But based on the description of The One , I wasn't holding my breath. This book starts out with Olena nursing J...

About ten years ago, I read Fifth Born .  It's about Odessa, a St. Louis girl who experienced mistreatment from her mother and sexual abuse from her father during the 1960s and 1970s. It was a book that I highly enjoyed and it has stuck with me to this day. When I read from another blogger that there was a sequel , I wanted to read it.  My local library didn't have it, but I was lucky that my employer offers a ILL service where books are shared among the colleges in the state.  One of the community colleges had the book and it was sent my way. ( MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! If you have not read the first book, you may want to skip to the end.) I was so glad that the sequel rehashed the end of the first book.  Odessa finds out that her assumed crazy aunt Ella Mae (who lives in Mississippi) is her real mother and that she was a product of rape (the aunt was raped by her father).  Odessa is left in Mississippi after she confronts her parents, especially her fathe...