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Over at The New York Times‘ “Papercuts” blog, Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus speaks with Toni Morrison (video).
Morrison is the Times‘ most super-favoritest person this week: a review of A Mercy leads the whole Sunday Book Review.
The Review also takes a look at Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.

A Mercy
Toni Morrison
Alfred A. Knopf/Random House
2008
Everyone in the universe (even some of you) has already reviewed Toni Morrison’s newest, A Mercy. I figure that there isn’t a lot I can add to the discussion.
So I’ll just give some brief impressions.
The good:
More after the jump.
The New York Times has put together its list of the 100 Notable Books of 2008.
Books by black authors or focused on black subjects that may be of interest:
Were these the most notable? Did they miss something?
This is a quick, short review of Forever and a Day, by Dyanne Davis; Release Me, by Farrah Rochon; and Cajun Moon by Gigi Gunn. All three are set largely in post-Katrina Louisiana, so I grouped them together. And yes, two of the three actually grapple a bit with the ways life has changed since the storm for people in the Bayou State.
Not as much detail here as I’d give in a written review, but I think you’ll get the point.
New Orleans from WriteBlack on Vimeo.
If you have trouble watching the Vimeo version of this, you also can see it on YouTube.
I got tired of the old theme.
Still tinkering to make sure everything that was there before is in place now.
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Edited and with introduction by Rebecca Walker
Riverhead Books/Penguin Group
2009
Ah, the personal essay.
Other than the tortured-artist memoir, is there anything like it to make you feel so completely judgy and sure of your own righteousness? When you’re feeling a little low, an anthology of personal essays is like Christmas and your birthday at the same time, because no matter how unconventional you are and how deeply disturbing your own upbringing, there’s nothing like looking at the inner workings of someone else’s life to make you feel better.
Tananarive Due, one of the hardest-working women in popular literature, informs that her new book, The Ancestors, comes out Nov. 25.
It’s a collection of novellas by horrormeisters Due, L.A. Banks and Brandon Massey. All of the stories are about ghosts.
The Ancestors also apparently is the Essence Book Club pick for this coming January (of course, that doesn’t mean much, given the crappy nature of many of the books Essence has been highlighting lately).
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