The Reading Diva

Relax in Paradise  Doris Pilkington Garimara , Alistair MacLeod .and Phillip Hayes . Looks like Gabriel Garcia Marquez left an unpublished manuscript behind . William Shakespeare's 450th birthday was celebrated on Wednesday. HBO will co-produce The Casual Vacancy mini-series . Gillian Flynn said that the changes for the Gone Girl movie are  greatly exaggerated .  Here is an article about Postcards From Cookie , which was recently featured in Mailbox Monday. After reading this , I will have to put Saint Monkey in the always-growing TBR list. There are celebrations and festivals honoring James Baldwin's 90th birthday, but many high schools and colleges don't teach his work . If anyone has video of the conversation between Pearl Cleage and Tayari Jones that happened on Tuesday, please put the webpage link in the comments. Thanks!

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,...

Relax in Paradise Mary Cheever , Sue Townsend  and Peter Matthiessen . Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been released from the hospital . Congratulations to all of the RT Award winners and nominees ! Should a Black writer write White characters ? Pearl Cleage's memoir was released this week.   The Root has a story about it . Hillary Clinton's book will be released in June . Marina Keegan's life ended too soon but she did leave behind essays, stories and life lessons for all of us to enjoy. Here is a story on CNN's website regarding diversity in YA . Looks like children's literature is a man's world . Read about how fast the process was for The Returned to be published and adapted to a TV show .  It usually doesn't happen this fast. The author line-up has been announced for the National Book Festival . Does anyone want to sponsor me in going to Jamaica next month for a book festival? I guess we were so busy with the Cooper River Bridge Run...

Happy Birthday Maya Angelou! Here are quotes that will inspire you ! Congrats to Karen Joy Fowler for winning the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction ! Prayers go out to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is in the hospital . For those who haven't gotten enough Harry Potter: a spinoff book will be adapted into three movies . Want to raise funds for a book event without leaving your computer?  Here's your chance by sponsoring the Black Authors and Readers Rock Weekend . Michael Connelly's Bosch series will be adapted for shows on Amazon . And Aisha Tyler's Self-Inflicted Wounds may be heading to CBS . Hope it's better than the sitcom they tried to make out of Chelsea Handler's books. Rainbow Rowell's novel Eleanor and Park will be turned into a movie by Dreamworks .  This made my YA librarian friends very happy. Heidi Durrow does a question-and-answer interview with Queen Sugar author Natalie Baszile . Pearl Cleage's new book and one of my ...

 More books arrived last week, so it is time for another edition of Mailbox Monday! All of the books listed are from Random House . Two are ARCs and one is a Goodreads win. And The Dark Sacred Night Astonish Me Every Day is for the Thief (this is the book I won on Goodreads) Do you plan to put any of these books on your to-be-read list?  Drop me a line at the comments section!  Thanks Random House for the books!

Monday was the 102nd birthday of Dorothy Height.  And as you can see from above, she was honored with her own Google Doodle.  She was an activist for civil and women's rights, the long-time leader of the National Council of Negro Women and worked on the national staff for the YWCA .  And did I mention that she was the 10th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc ?  And if you want to read about her incredible life, her autobiography Open Wide The Freedom Gates will be a great start. Relax in Paradise Lawrence Teacher and Ken Forsse . Congrats to all of the nominees for the RITA Awards  and the winners of the Anisfield-Wolf Awards . Here are 30 classic books to inspire African-American kids . Whoever wrote this article about five books by five Black authors that should be made in movies :  THANK YOU!!  But I would need a 32 Candles movie before an Awesome Girl's Guide movie. Two Black authors will see their books become m...

Several months ago at the National Conference on Health Disparities (the conference that sent me to St. Thomas), I heard from several panelists regarding human trafficking for labor and sexual purposes.  The one that touched me the most was hearing from Lisa Williams, who is the founder of Living Waters and Circle of Friends in Atlanta.  For the last several years, Lisa has helped girls escape sex trafficking, violence and street life.  Everyone was moved when she discussed the human sex trade among young girls and what they go through. All of this started to come back while I was reading  Anybody's Daughter by Pamela Samuels Young . The Image Award-winning books is about a 13-year-old girl who is kidnapped and winds up in the human sex trade.  Her uncle, along with his girlfriend (who is the main character), tries to find her.  It's sad that what is happening to girls around the world is not fiction.  I am reading this book for my book club and ...