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Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3241
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 - 01:46 pm: | 
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Including several titles that have been highlighted or discussed here:
http://www.theroot.com/id/48271 |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12969
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2008 - 01:04 pm: |
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Ummm, I'm salivating to read the biographies of Sammy Davis, Jr., and Diahann Carroll! They really sound like they are juicy and shocking. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 496
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2008 - 01:14 pm: |
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I read a little excerpt of Carroll's...apparently Sidney Poitier wasn't very nice.
In her new tell-all, Maureen McCormick (aka "Marcia Brady") writes about doing drugs at Sammy's house. If those walls could talk... |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12971
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2008 - 01:27 pm: |
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Thanks for the inside dope, fellow pop-culture vulture. 
(No, Sidney wasn't nice. When he finally got around to divorcing his black wife, it was for a white woman, not Diahann. Chump!) |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 401
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 19, 2008 - 05:19 pm: |
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I'm already reading Jeffrey Renard Allen but I had to put Rails Under My Back into a Holding Pattern because the B & N book group is discussing one of Senator Obama's choices this month:
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/what-obama-is-reading/
Cynique, You're from Chicago, can you tell me anything about Second Street or any of the other place-name references described in this excerpt from Rails Under My Back?
Second Street. Deep Second, Uncle John Called it. Edgewater. Woodlawn long gone. South Shore too. An axis of distance. Hatch suffered a furnace of sky. The sun's still yellow wheel. Birds winged high in a windless sky, their voices -- yes, voices high above in the blue-red arch -- circling, circling -- like explorers -- new terrain. The air poked sharp, threading the lungs. A trumpet to the blood. Strange cause no wind. Unusual, here in this city of one big lake (Tar Lake) that lifted a hawk from the icy nest of its waters and flapped you in the wind of its cold feathers (stalactites of feathers, dripping winter year-round) -- this lake imitating ocean. [103]
Deep Second is also a poem by Ralph Ellison about Second Street in Oklahoma City, excerpted in Trading Twelves and also in the preface to Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3245
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2008 - 10:14 am: |
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Thanks for the link, Steve! I think I'll check that book out and add it to my looong list! Speaking of Mr. Zakaria, this opinion piece by him will be in the next issue of Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/164498/page/1
His closing paragraphs:
...Let's be honest: neither candidate has past experience that is relevant to being president, except that they have now both run large, multiyear, multimillion-dollar, 50-state campaigns. By common consent, McCain's has been chaotic and ineffective, while Obama has run a superb operation, and done so with little of the drama and discord that usually plague political machines.
This is the case for Obama on substance, which is the most important criterion. But symbolism is also a powerful force in human affairs. Imagine what people around the world would think if they saw America once again inventing the future. And imagine how Americans would feel if they saw their country once again fulfilling its founding creed of equal opportunity, if they saw that there really were no barriers in their country, not even to the highest office in the land, not even for a man with a brown face and a strange name.
I admit to a personal interest. I have a 9-year-old son named Omar. I firmly believe that he will be able to do absolutely anything he wants in this country when he grows up. But I admit that I will feel more confident about his future if a man named Barack Obama became president of the United States. |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 402
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 20, 2008 - 07:31 pm: |
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YvetteP,
Thanks! I agree with everything Zakaria says in the Newsweek article. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 171
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008 - 10:07 pm: |
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Hey Steve! So you're setting it aside? Okay, cool. We'll pick back up at a later time. I haven't been on as much cause I started some new projects and have been busy as hell! LOL @ the play on words with the titles.
I remember this post from Papercuts when it was first published. The comments on it are pretty funny too!
That's a great fall list too.
I admit, I've been reading God's Gym and "Weight" blew me away so crazily that I went and got John Edgar Wideman's Collected Stories this afternoon so short stories have been consuming me yet again, especially now that I have less time to concentrate on a big, demanding novel.
I'll have to flip through Zakaria's book next time I'm out at the bookstore! Happy fall reading, everyone. |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 403
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 - 12:39 am: |
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Nom, The Zakaria discussion is not happening and I'll have more than enough time to finish The Post-American World before its due back. So I'm continuing to read Rails, but slowly. I'm now on Chapter 9. You know I reread the first hundred pages, which took a while.
Naming the preacher "Tower" seems like another nod to Faulkner's Light in August where the preacher is named "Hightower."
I'm also looking out for Sea of Poppies since you mentioned it. |
Nom_de_plume
Veteran Poster
Username: Nom_de_plume
Post Number: 172
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 - 01:32 am: |
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Sea of Poppies is MAGNIFICENT. Magnificent!!!!! It is funny, it is so powerful, oh MY GOD. Don't even get me STARTED on that fucking book. I haven't felt this way since I read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I don't even LIKE historical fiction but this shit here...you just have to read it to see what I'm talkin about!
Please let me know when you pick it up. As astute as you are, you will especially love the language and the work that put into researching it all...
Hurry up and get it! LOL |
Steve_s
Veteran Poster
Username: Steve_s
Post Number: 404
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 - 03:39 pm: |
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Yeah, astute and broke!  Lord, now I have to go out and buy another book! Nom, do you have access to advance reading copies or something?
I just read another chapter of Rails. I'm really interested in where it's going, but the story unfolds slowly, so it's hard to say anything definitive about it yet. I like his prose style, it's poetic but there's a street consciousness too. He's a really good writer, that much I know. I'm interested in learning more about this character named Hatch and his music (which hasn't even been explained yet), and whatever the story with music producer is.
You've got me interested in Sea of Poppies now, so it's as good as bought. I will let you know when I get it, probably Sat. |
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