edited by Stephanie Stokes Oliver ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 30, 2018
Revelatory, often moving essays by impressive writers.
Writers testify to the significance of reading and writing in their lives.
In a well-chosen selection of essays by black writers from Frederick Douglass to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and including a candid interview with book-lover and author Barack Obama, former Essence editor Oliver (Song for My Father: Memoir of an All-American Family, 2004, etc.) offers ample testimony to the power of the written word. For slaves coming from disparate African countries, it is likely, writes poet Nikki Giovanni in her foreword, that the first word they had in common was “sold.” Stories, many told through song, evolved from a need to form a community: “We write because we are lonely and scared and we need to keep our hearts open.” Oliver divides the essays, most excerpted from longer works, into three sections: “The Peril, 1800-1900,” represented by Douglass, Solomon Northrup, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. Du Bois; “The Power, 1900-1968,” which includes Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, stars of the Harlem Renaissance; James Baldwin; Malcolm X; and important contemporary writers, such as Nobel Prize–winning Toni Morrison, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker; and prolific bestseller Maya Angelou; and “The Pleasure, 1968-2018,” which features acclaimed, multiple award–winning writers (several have been awarded MacArthur Fellowships) such as Junot Díaz, Roxane Gay, Colson Whitehead, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Walker reveals that poetry lifted her from suicidal depression. Morrison sees her work as an extension of and “complement” to slave narratives. Gay writes about her love of the Sweet Valley High series of young-adult novels, whose “blond and thin and perfect” characters were models of all she wanted to be. Díaz writes of his despair in Cornell’s MFA program, where lack of diversity among the faculty and “the students’ lack of awareness of the lens of race” threatened to silence him. Oliver’s cogent author introductions contextualize each piece, making the anthology an informative overview of African-American literature.
Revelatory, often moving essays by impressive writers.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5428-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: 37 Ink/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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