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yasmin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 09:29 am: | 
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Hello Everyone! I know the year is not quite half-over yet but it is already May! Can you believe it?!?!
Having said that what are some of your favorite reads thus far this year?
I'll start with one...Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheila Williams. |
Bayou Lights
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 03:50 pm: |
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Yasmin--
Here is my list, a mix of fiction and nonfiction, AA and non AA.
After the Dance - Edwidge Dandicutt (travelogue)
City of Masks - Daniel Hecht (New Orleans mystery)
More Like Wrestling - Danyel Smith (coming of age novel, LOVED THIS BOOK)
N: A Romantic Mystery - Louis Edwards (New Orleans mystery)
Random Family - Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (nonfiction, couldn't stop thinking about the people in this book. About a group of kids/adults in the Bronx)
Samaritan - Richard Price (great book, mystery, great writing)
Soul Circus - George Pelecanos (DC mystery series)
Devil in the White City - Erik Larsen (story of the Chicago World's Fair, and the first serial killer operating in the early part of the century. Excellent)
The Silence of the Rain - Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza (Brazilian mystery)
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (SCREAMING, HILARIOUS FUNNY)
Jolie Blon's Bounce - James Lee Burke (one of my top five favorite writers)
Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Caballeros of Argentina - Nick Reding (Excellent).
That's it for now, I'll post more if I remember any.
Bayou
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Yvette
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 04:27 pm: |
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Yasmin,
I have listed below my favorite reads so far in 2003:
Kindred - Octavia Butler
The Wake of the Wind - J. California Cooper
Welcome to the World Baby Girl - Fannie Flagg
Billy - Albert French
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
The Ecstatic - Victor LaValle
Douglass' Women - Jewell Parker Rhodes
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
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yasmin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 05:08 pm: |
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Bayou Lights: I also read More Like Wrestling and would probably add it to my list...althought it was well told I did have a problem with the credibility of two teenagers living on their own w/o adults present in the home and no one reporting them. I know it can happen (because anything can happen) but I just didn't find it believable that no one would have reported the parents after all those years.
I have a girlfriend who read Me Talk Pretty One Day and she gave it a positive word of mouth (wom) so I will pick it up sometime in the future.
Yvette: I've read all of the books on your list except Welcome to the World Baby Girl, Secret Life of Bees and The Ecstatic. In the past, Kindred, Wake of the Wind, Bill and The Douglass' Women have made my favorites list. I read Slaughterhouse Five 2 long ago to remember the details. ;(
The Ecstatic just got moved to my short trp(to read pile)...;)
Tell me about Secret Life of Bees I have another reading buddy who read it and she didn't enjoy it...but from what I know about this book I wouldn't have recommended it to her because I didn't think it was her cup of tea. You seem to like a lot of the same books that I like so I would love to hear your thoughts on this one. What worked for you?
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yasmin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 05:12 pm: |
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Other Favorites for 2003:
Loving Donovan by Bernice McFadden
Discretion and Grace by Elizabeth Nunez
Chocolate Sangria by Tracy Price-Thompson
Triple Take by Yanier Moore
HatWearer's Lesson by Yolanda Joe
No Regrets by Patricia Haley
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
Night Before 30 by TJ Butler
Selah's Bed by Jenoyne Adams
and of course...my top favorite so far:
Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheilia Williams |
Bayou Lights
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 06:15 pm: |
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Yasmin--
How was "Night Before Thirty" by TJ Butler?
Bayou |
Kola
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 07:34 pm: |
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Some of my favorites this year:
"The Lovely Bones"--Alice Seebold
"Joys of Motherhood"--Buchi Emecheta
"A Warm December"--Bernice McFadden
"Sugar"--Bernice McFadden
"John Henry Days"--Colson Whitehead
"Erasure"--his name escapes me (great writer!)
"Parable of the Talents"--Octavia Butler
"Even the Stars Look Lonesome"--Maya Angelou
"Drinking Coffee"--Z.Z. Packer
"Chocolate Sangria"--Tracey
I read SO MANY books, these are just a few.
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Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 09:36 pm: |
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Well, folks,
My reading taste has been slowly evolving to a place where it's become really peculiar. A book just has to call out to me. I don't know why, but I do know that earlier this year, I ran across 2 little obscure volumes that completely charmed me. I picked them off the shelf as I was browsing in the library. They were an autobiography and its sequel, and were written by a remarkable black woman named Mary Mebane, a poor little southern girl who weathered a lot of adversity before growing up to achieve her dream of graduating from college, even going on to get her masters. Her writing style was simple, and her voice spoke to me in its despair and its joy. She became my friend. I kept hoping she had written something else and when I started tracking her down, I found out that she had died at age 59 in 1992. I felt really sad...
One of my other favorites this year was Zora Neale Hurston's biography "Wrapped in Rainbows," another book whose subject came alive for me and became my friend. Am I eccentric, or what?
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yasmin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 10:48 pm: |
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Bayou Light--The Night Before Thirty was a cute and delightful read. It's definitely a chic lit read...nothing deep...and the ending was wrapped too neatly. But the concept was awesome! And she did a great job with character development. I sometimes cringe when I read a book description and see that the storyline has multiple characters because inevitably I get the characters mixed up and can't remember one from the next. But each of the characters in The Night Before had distinctive personalities and voices. Like I said I liked the concept (of the story) so much that I now have some ideas for a Night Before Party that I would like to host for the APOOO Showcase later this year. |
GG
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 09, 2003 - 10:39 pm: |
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Hi Everyone: My favorite books of 2003 so far are:
1. The Lion's Blood by Stephen Barnes ( An incredible novel..one of my very best of all times)
2. This side of the Sky by Elyse Singleton ( I loved this one!)
3. The Douglas Women by Jewel Parker Rhodes
4. Sapphire's Grave by Hilda Gurley-Highgate
P.S. Kola, I read A Warm December and Sugar by Bernice McFadden and they were both great, even though I think A Warm December was my favorite, I read it on one Sunday Afternoon.
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Yvette
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 03:35 am: |
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Hi Yasmin,
Just getting back to you about The Secret Life of Bees. I really enjoyed the storytelling in this book. It was just a feel good book for me. It's the story of how a young girl survived being abused by her father. I really cared about all of the main characters in the book, with the exception of the father. It was a selection of one of my local bookclubs. It was a great discussion book! |
reppskearn
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2003 - 11:54 am: |
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So far, my favorite reads for this year are as follows:
Another Country, James Baldwin; The Human Stain, Phillip Roth; Kindred, Octavia Butler; Black No More, George Schuyler; The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd; and Night, Elie Wisel. |
yasmin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 11, 2003 - 12:28 pm: |
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Yvette and Repp...I'm adding the Secret Life of Bees to my TRL...;)
GG...I'm moving Sapphire's Grave UP on my TRL...sounds like you and I like a lot of the same types of books. |
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