Good riddance, and all that.

Just reading his name brings on a nearly irresistible urge to roll my eyes.

Dude called his own books “classics,” and considers himself one of the first to write urban books.

C’mon.

I bet he can’t find a hat to fit that head of his, it’s so swollen.

[h/t black girl lost...in a book]

The Carl Brandon Society is accepting nominations for its Parallax and Kindred Awards for speculative fiction published in 2007 and written by authors who self-identify as people of color.

I’ll be voting. You should, too.

Nominations go here.

When the nomination period is over, I’ll post my thoughts. Maybe we can compare notes.

The Washington Post has a review of Tananarive Due’s newest, Blood Colony.

I just started Blood Colony, and I promise to have something to say about it when I’m done.

No, really, I mean it.

Entertainment Weekly has put out a list of what it calls “The New Classics,” the best books of the past 25 years.

Included on the list are several books by black authors:

• Beloved, Toni Morrison
• On Beauty, Zadie Smith
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
• Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan
• Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat
• The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

While some of the choices are no-brainers (Toni Morrison’s Beloved) and others are inspired (Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary), there’s clearly some stuff they missed.

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In case you’re wondering, that’s The Post American World by Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria in the hands of Famous Black Man and Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Yes, I know I complain about how black authors are categorized in book stores a lot.

But the euphemisms and ways the stores have devised to segregate these authors is getting annoying.

I’m getting tired of it.

When can black authors just be considered “authors?”

I mean, really, “urban fiction?” C’mon.

This week, The New York Times Book Review names the following black authors to its best sellers lists:

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
• The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
• Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama
• The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
• Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker
• Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
• Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Afro-Dominican author Junot Diaz, he of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (which you totally should read, if you haven’t already), was a guest on The Colbert Report on Comedy Central this past week.

I haunt YouTube looking for book trailers, because I find them a fascinating, if often puzzling, art form.

It’s not hard to create and edit video, but so often trailers seem to miss the boat — and can sometimes make the book or its storyline seem more boring than they actually are.

There are so many things that can make a trailer work.

Clip art is usually not one of them, although there are some exceptions.

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(This item has been cross-posted at Blogging in Black)

I blog about books because, well, I like books. It would seem that I’m the perfect person to whom an author should want to pitch novels.

However, most of the pitches I get are quickly deleted, because it’s clear that the authors haven’t given much thought to why my site would be a good place for their books.

Here are three quick tips for authors and publicists who want to figure out how to get me and other bloggers to write about your new products.

1. Tailor your pitch. Know something about me and what I write. It won’t take much time on my site to figure out the kinds of books I like to read, or what subject matter will challenge me or make me delirious with joy.

2. Don’t automatically assume you’ll get a positive review. But don’t necessarily assume that a negative review is all bad. Sometimes I’ve given C, D or F ratings because of something in a book that didn’t ring right, but still thought the book could be categorized as so-bad-it-was-good. I reserve the right to be arbitrary that way.

3. If you are madly searching for a positive review, here’s a quick and easy way to get one from me: Be funny. What ever happened to humor? I generally read three or four books at a time (right now I’m into this, this, this and this, three of which are by black authors) and I always want something that will make me laugh. Most of the books I read — even the romances — are pretty heavy. C’mon, don’t your characters ever laugh? Or tease each other? Look around. The U.S. is at war, gas prices are at record levels and the country’s biggest companies are laying off people left and right. Even in my escapism, I could use some more escapism.