Old Blog

The BOOK Yaa Gyasi [debut author of  Homegoing] takes readers on a journey through three centuries that explores the effects slavery had, not just on our sociopolitical history but, on the human lives changed forever by this institution. Starting at Cape Coast Castle, the point of no return for many Africans who would be enslaved in the Americas, Gyasi introduces us to half sisters Effia and Esi, who never meet each other but are carrying similar stones left by their mo …

THE REVIEW... Mysterious, magnificent, and right on time, Tiffany McDaniel has gifted readers this summer with a story that is so deep and difficult that you’ll need air conditioning and a tall glass of iced tea to wade through the heat of her debut novel. The Summer that Melted Everything is a one-of-a-kind experience in storytelling that draws on the greatness of Harper Lee, William Faulkner, Spike Lee, and whatever grace it is that brings our greatest stories to the page. It’s a&nb …

HOMEGOINGBy Yaa Gyasi305 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95.From the floor of the dungeon, I could see a fragment of sky through an air hole near the ceiling, a tree length beyond reach and too small for a human body to squeeze through. Nearly two centuries after humans had been chained in this fortress on the coast of ­Ghana, I stood with a group of African-American ­scholars too numb to speak. The breath and sweat of the doomed seemed brined into the walls. Might our ancestors have lain pressed again …

Set in 1968, MWA Grand Master Mosley’s excellent 14th Easy Rawlins mystery(after 2014’s Rose Gold) finds the favor-dealing L.A. PI working as a partner inthe WRENS-L Detective Agency, which combines his initials with those of histwo partners. A dangerous friend of Easy’s, Raymond “Mouse” Alexander,introduces him to Rufus “Charcoal Joe” Tyler, who wants Easy to clear SeymourBrathwaite, a 22-year-old doctor of physics doing postgraduate work at UCLA.Seymour was arrested on …

Everyone is raving about Sadeqa Johnson's SECOND HOUSE FROM THE CORNER!ESSENCE MAGAZINE gives Second House an incredible review in the March "Hollywood" Issue! "Novelist Sadeqa Johnson should take a bow for her latest effort."1 MADAME X Novelist Sadeqa Johnson should take a bow for her latest effort. Fans of 2011's Love in a Carry-On Bag (12th Street Press), her first offering, will devour every word of Second House From the Corner (Thomas Dunne, $25.99). Even those unfamiliar wit …

One of the great things about independent presses is that they are often the first to bring new or emerging voices to market. Craig T. McNeely’s Double Life Press is one such indy press, fairly new to the game, and already putting out established authors who I love, such as Will Viharo. Double Life’s newest release, A Negro and an Ofay, by debut author Danny Gardner, is sure to impress with its heavy cultural subtext.Set in the post-WWII 1950’s midwest, A Negro and an Ofay is, as the tagline rea …

The Beast Side, D. Watkins (Skyhorse Publishing) To Watkins, there are two Baltimores—one white, the other black. This is something he continues to realize as an adult in his home city, through dinners with community leaders in a Hampden restaurant and his appearance at The Stoop Storytelling Series (see page 136) in March 2014. That night, he joked to a supportive, albeit mostly white, crowd at Center Stage, “This ain’t the stoop I’m used to. There’s no pit bulls, red cups, or blue …

Inspired by James Baldwin’s 1963 classic “The Fire Next Time,” Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book, “Between the World and Me,” is a searing meditation on what it means to be black in America today. It takes the form of a letter from Mr. Coates to his 14-year-old son, Samori, and speaks of the perils of living in a country where unarmed black men and boys — Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Walter L. Scott, Freddie Gray — are dying at the hands of police officers, an America where just last month …

Twisted: My Dreadlock Chroniclesby Bert AsheBolden / An Agate ImprintPaperback, $15.00252 pagesISBN: 978-1-932841-96-1Book Review by Kam Williams“After leading a far too conventional life for nearly 40 years, Bert Ashe began the long, arduous and uncertain process of growing dreadlocks in an attempt to step out of American convention. As his hair takes on a life of its own and gets 'twisted,' Ashe chronicles the reactions of his family, friends, strangers and colleagues—and his own frustrat …

Easy Rawlins, who once spanned years between volumes, takes his third case of 1967. Or rather, his third batch of cases.What are the odds that the LAPD would not only press Easy (Little Green, 2013, etc.) to take a job, but offer to pay him for it? But that’s exactly what Roger Frisk, special assistant to the chief of police, does. If Easy will look for international weapons manufacturer Foster Goldsmith’s daughter, Rosemary, who’s gone missing from UC Santa Barbara, Frisk will pay him $6,000, w …