The Other Wes Moore: The Story of One Name and Two Fates

Dec 2011

Author(s):

Wes Moore

Genre: Autobiography/Biography

Book Description:

"Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? Wes Moore, the author of this fascinating book, sets out to answer this profound question. In alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world."

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Black Noir: Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Stories by African American Writers

Nov 2011

Author(s):

Otto Penzler

Genre: Anthology

Book Description:

"The best mystery and crime fiction ever produced by African-American writers. As mystery fiction expert Penzler notes in his concise overview of African-American crime writing at the start of this welcome anthology, despite the central element linking the 15 short stories, they transcend race and genre to fulfill their primary purpose—to inform and entertain. Contributors include expected names like Walter Mosley and Chester Himes, not to mention Robert Greer, Gary Phillips and Eleanor Taylor Bland, as well as writers rescued from obscurity by their inclusion in this mostly reprint volume. Edward P. Jones's Old Boys, Old Girls is the standout, a powerful if grim psychological portrait of a man after his imprisonment for murder. Of historical interest are Hughes Allison's Corollary (1948), the first story by an African-American to appear in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Pauline E. Hopkins's Talma Gordon (1900), the first impossible crime tale published by an African-American."

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The Chinaberry Tree

Oct 2011

Author(s):

Jessie Fauset

Genre: Classic

Book Description:

"Adultery, incest, and questions of racial identity simmer beneath the tranquil surface of suburban life in this novel, set in a small New Jersey town of the early 1900s. Lovely young Laurentine is obsessed with her "bad blood," inherited from a common-law interracial union. Proud and independent, she longs for the respectability of a conventional marriage. Laurentine's vivacious and self-confident cousin, Melissa, also aspires to "marry up." But a family secret shadows Melissa's dreams and ambitions as she approaches an explosive revelation."

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Silver Sparrow

Aug 2011

Author(s):

Tayari Jones

Genre: Novel/Popular Fiction

Book Description:

"Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters—the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle—she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another’s lives.""

At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers—think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye—Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women, just not as their mothers.

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