books
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At the beginning of last winter, I made a reading list of books I wanted to read for 2011. Looking over the list, I see that finished two of them (Wild Seed and Half of a Yellow Sun , read partial amounts of others (Omeros and The Odyssey) and put all the others away for…
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Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes by Alvin M. Josephy Jr. My rating: 0 of 5 stars A quote: “Recent scholarship on the Doctrine of Discovery by Robert Miller, Eastern Shawnee, Lewis and Clark Law School professor, and member of the Bicentennial Circle of Tribal Advisors […] dispels the popular belief that the Louisiana Purchase…
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The other day, roam reading my way through Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, I found myself reading a delightfully powerfully poem by Frank X. Walker. I liked the poem, titled Homeopathic, so much that I googled him to see what I could find out. Homeopathic – Frank X Walker The unripe…
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Mississippi in Africa by Alan Huffman My rating: 4 of 5 stars Mississippi in Africa details the extremely fascinating story of enslaved black people who were repatriated back to Africa in the early to mid 19th century and who, eventually, became the “founders” of the country known as Liberia. In 1836, one Isaac Ross, a…
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Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill My rating: 3 of 5 stars I came across this book while doing research into Black people who chose the British team in the competition for control of resources known as the American Revolution. Narrated by the fictional Aminatta Diallo, the majority of the book is delineated by…
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Black Women Writers at Work by Claudia Tate My rating: 5 of 5 stars I love Toni Morrison’s take on "writer’s block: "When I sit down in order to write, sometimes it’s there; sometimes it’s not. But that doesn’t bother me anymore. I tell my students there is such a thing as ‘writer’s block,’ and…
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Black Women Writers at Work by Claudia Tate I had read this initially more than 20 years ago and it’s definitely time for a revisit. So I started today with Claudia Tate’s interview with Toni Cade Bambara. Even though on one level, the interview is dated, as Bambara refers to 1980’s in future tense, when…
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Omeros by Derek Walcott This is one of three books I had my heart set on reading this book this year but after the bruisingly long read that is The Odyssey, I’ve decided to put further reading interludes with book length verse on hold indefinitely. View all my reviews
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Prophets by Kwame Dawes View all my reviews
Tichaona Chinyelu 