I saw this book (Conception, by Kalisha Buckhanon) at my local bookstore behemoth during this past weekend and got excited, for two reasons: (a) It was in the “New Fiction” section instead of “African American interest” and (b) I thought it was finally the novel about black women and infertility that I’d been hoping for.

Not so much, unfortunately.

Buckhanon takes us to Chicago, 1992, and into the life of fifteen-year-old Shivana Montgomery, who believes all Black women wind up the same: single and raising children alone, like her mother.  Until the sudden visit of her beautiful and free-spirited Aunt Jewel, Shivana spends her days desperately struggling to understand life and the growing pains of her environment. When she accidentally becomes pregnant by an older man and must decide what to do, she begins a journey towards adulthood with only a mysterious voice inside to guide her. When she falls in love with Rasul, a teenager with problems of his own, together they fight to rise above their circumstances and move toward a more positive future.  Through the voice of the unborn child and a narrative sweeping from slavery onward, Buckhanon narrates Shivana’s connection to a past history of Black women who found themselves at the mercy of tragic circumstances.  All of their fates intertwine towards a shocking conclusion.

But not bad. Might be worth a read. Has anybody picked it up and read it yet?

*bad cell phone photo of book cover by me

But that’s a good thing.

No black authors or reviewers, but in this week’s issue of The New York Times Book Review, Douglas Wolk does review Nancy Goldstein’s Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist.

Interested in learning more about Ormes and black female cartoonists? Check The Ormes Society and Torchbearers, both of which are in my (Blog)Roll of Thunder. And look at Glyphs, the Popcultureshock.com blog by comics journalist (and Glyph Awards founder) Rich Watson for what’s happening in the world of black-authored and -centered comics and graphic novels. 

After the jump, this week’s best sellers lists.

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Heh.

Just a couple of days after I took a swipe at Mr. WriteBlack’s Tom Wolfe books, law professor and author Stephen L. Carter (The Emperor of Ocean Park, New England White) takes a look back at the Wolfe book I hate most, Bonfire of the Vanities. 

Although Carter does take on Bonfire for the main reasons I hated it — every single character is reprehensible and a stereotype, which made it a difficult, uninspiring and ultimately tedious read — it seems that’s exactly why he likes it. And he considers Wolfe a master of the game, to boot.

And yet, having said this, I must freely confess that I am speaking here only in retrospect. So powerful is Wolfe’s prose that the thinness of the black characters did not detract from my enjoyment of the novel. Having read it afresh for this symposium, I suspect that I will open it yet again – guilty pleasure! – this summer on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard, surrounded by the black middle class that did not make it into the book.

To each his own. [/shrugs]

But if somebody comes out in 10 years or so and says Wolfe’s A Man In Full is an extraordinary and realistic exploration of life in a large Southern U.S. city, I may become ill.

In me-me-me news, Aulelia at Charcoal Ink did a Q&A with me and let me wax long about some of the book issues close to my heart (I hope I don’t “sound” too silly).

The Q&A is here.

Seems publishers have been chasing the woman who may be the U.S.’s next first lady, eagerly offering her big bucks to write a book about, well, anything.

She has, to date, turned down all offers.  

Inspired by a question at Paper Cuts, I’ve been thinking a little about why I keep the books on my bookshelves.

I’m actually one of those people who insist on reading anything on my personal shelves, so I can honestly say I’ve read pretty much everything I own.

But I have a really hard time getting rid of any books. Each time Mr. WriteBlack and I have moved, we’ve contemplated cleaning house, but we’ve never been able to really do it. We’re too sentimental about our books.

After the jump, pictures of our bookshelves (you’ll note the extra room for more books!):

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Oh, looky here.

There’s a review of a book by a black author in this week’s issue of The New York Times Book Review!

It’s Somebody Scream: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power, by Marcus Reeves, whom you’ll see to the left in a photo from his profile at Redroom.

Not bad, right? Yeah, I’m shallow. What? Of course, I’m equally willing to note that he’s apparently “been called one of the most compelling writers of his generation.” I’ll take their word for it. I’m always on the lookout for good writers, but I’ve, uh, never heard of him before.

As for the book itself, Baz Dreisinger says:

Reeves deserves credit for breadth, though sometimes it’s at the expense of depth. Among the rich issues that go unexplored is the one alluded to in his subtitle, which implies that hip-hop reverberates with echoes of the black power movement. This is a contentious claim. Is hip-hop a torchbearer of civil rights or black power — and should it be? “Woe be it unto a community that has to rely on rappers for political leadership,” the pioneering producer Bill Stephney stated in a 1987 Howard University forum. What is the criterion by which a rapper “has risen to his leadership? He can flow?” A question worthy of a book in itself. 

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In case you didn’t catch the news yesterday, Arthur C. Clarke is dead (and no, you’re not a bad person if you thought he was already dead, because I did too).

I’m not unaware of the debt sci-fi lovers owe him, but if the rumors are true, he was still fairly skeevy.

The Onion, the nation’s best humor paper/Web site, published a funny “story” about a strike by U.S. novelists.

Some excerpts: 

The strike, which scholars say could be the longest since 1951, when American novelists may or may not have voluntarily committed to a six-month work stoppage, has brought an immediate halt to all new novels, novellas, and novelettes from coast to coast, affecting no one.

snip

“We must, as a people, achieve a resolution to this strike soon,” novelist David Foster Wallace said at a rally Monday at Pomona College in Claremont, CA, where he is a professor. “The thought of this country being deprived of its only source of book-length fiction is enough to give one the howling fantods.

“I thank you both for coming,” he added.

While the strike has been joined by an estimated 250,000 novelists—225,000 of whom have reportedly stopped in the middle of their first novel—it has done no damage to any measurable sector of the economy, including bookstore chains, newspapers, magazines, all major media, overseas markets, independent film studios, major film studios, actors, editors, animators, carpenters, those in finance or banking, the day-to-day lives of average Americans, or anything else anyone can think of as of press time.

The New York Times Book Review once again had no reviews of books by black authors, and no black critics. 

On the NYTBR’s various best sellers lists (pickings are getting slim, y’all): 

• The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
• Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama
• The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
• Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
• Henry’s Freedom Box, Ellen Levine (illustrated by Kadir Nelson)