The Los Angeles Times has named the finalists for its 28th annual Book Prizes. Several black authors are named.

In the current interest category:
A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah

In fiction:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (yeah, I count him)

In first fiction:
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Dinaw Mengestu

In young adult fiction:
What They Found: Love on 145th Street, Walter Dean Myers

I am still deeply amused by the fact that Slash from Guns N’ Roses is not only a New York Times Book Review best selling author, but that he also has been one of the best-selling black authors of the past year. 

This is an interview he did about his eponymous autobiography, which I’ve yet to read but am absolutely certain will be gloriously, wonderfully tawdry.

Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Gotta love it.

I’m back, from outer space, with some bits and bytes

• If ‘free’ is the future of business, what does that mean for the publishing industry?
• Product placement, distasteful as it is, probably really will have to be part of the answer to the above question
• Novelist Tayari Jones unpacks the bravery of black women writers who want to tell black women’s stories
• A review of Arnold Rampersad’s bio of Ralph Ellison

…how many black authors would you have on the class’s reading list? Especially when the class is about romance?

The conversation continues at Teach Me Tonight about the choices of one of the bloggers, who is teaching a class at Fayetteville State, an HBCU. Commentary on the subject also at Blogging in Black.

Posting has been and is likely to continue to be slow this week; I’ve had a death in the family.

No books by a black author were reviewed in this week’s issue of The New York Times Book Review, nor did any black reviewers write about books.

However, a children’s book about Nelson Mandela, Tree Shaker: The Story of Nelson Mandela, by NYT editor Bill Keller gets a prominent review (you may remember the uproar last week when Keller, in a podcast, stretched some to compare Mandela’s campaign for the presidency of South Africa with that of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama):

With its striking layout, bright graphics and photographs on almost every page, Keller’s biography of Mandela vibrates with the feeling of history come alive.

[snip]

This book does not condescend to its young audience, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. A section on the A.N.C.’s tun away from nonviolence, for example, doesn’t offer judgments. Mandela’s own position, which Keller includes in a large-type quotation, was that “nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon.”

(more…)

I do most of my book shopping online, but I popped into one of my local Bookstore Behemoths while out doing some other shopping a couple of days ago.

This was the store’s Black History Month display. It was small, but fairly balanced. I noticed that Dave Eggers book, but decided against quibbling with store management about whether it belonged there.

Black authors are appearing on Canada’s best sellers lists and attracting lots of attention from the country’s major publishers.

A decade or so ago, Austin Clarke might have been the only recognizable name among popular African Canadian authors.

Today Barbadian-born Clarke – broadcaster, journalist, diplomat, lecturer and now celebrated author – is still the most recognizable black Canadian man of letters.

But say “Clarke” in literary circles now and it might evoke the question: Which one? The venerable dean? Or the University of Toronto professor from Nova Scotia, George Elliott?

Then there are Dionne Brand, Nalo Hopkinson, Lorna Goodison, Djanet Sears, Trey Anthony, Andre Alexis, Lisa Codrington, Cecil Foster, Dany Leferriere, Olive Senior, M. Nourbese Philip.

Such is the growth and explosion of African Canadian literature that when literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse released Revival, her anthology of black Canadian writing, Austin Clarke and Brand weren’t among the 29 writers included.

“Canadian fiction, not just black, is very hot,” says Hill. “But black Canadian writers are really, really just nailing it.”

Mystery writer Valerie Wilson Wesley will appear Friday at noon at the Newark Public Library, 5 Washington St., Newark. 

The session is expected to last about an hour and a half.

She’ll be promoting her latest Tamara Hayle mystery, Of Blood and Sorrow (yep, it’s on The List).

Call the library at 973-733-7800 for details.

Apparently, African Americans read more magazines than people of other ethnicities. Who knew? 

Among its findings, the report (“African-American/Black Market Profile”) indicates that the percent of African-Americans who read magazines (86 percent) read more issues per month than the general market—11 issues compared to eight. The report fins also that 85 magazines were launched from 2002 to 2006 that targeted African-Americans.

Apparently, we’re also more susceptible to advertising.

As for ad engagement, African-Americans recall ads on average nine percent more than the market average, and took action in response to advertising 15 percent more than average, the report says.

HarperCollins Publishers will begin offering free e-books on its Web site, hoping to entice readers to flip through them electronically and ultimately buy the real thing. 

The company also will offer 20 percent of some books on the site for free during the two weeks before the books go on sale.

It’s a gamble, certainly. One of the authors whose books are being offered for free insists readers only go through “20 or 30″ pages online before they prefer a hard copy.

Hmmm. Not so sure about that. Free in a clunky format is always going to beat paid in a good format, every time. MP3 quality never has been as good as what a listener can get from a CD or a vinyl album, right?