Category: African American Literature

April 20, 2014

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward *** (of 4)

A fighting pit bull in southern Louisiana gives birth to puppies. A black family is squeaking by: Daddy drinks too much; Skeetah only cares about...

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March 31, 2014

Sycamore Row by John Grisham **** (of 4)

It is the mid 1980s in Mississippi and Seth Hubbard, a cantankerous old buzzard, and self made millionaire hangs himself. Just before setting out for...

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February 23, 2014

We Need New Names by Noviolet Buluwayo *** (of 4)

A young girl growing up in the disintegrating country of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe escapes by moving in with her aunt in Detroit, Michigan. Her account is...

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June 21, 2013

Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart ** (of 4)

While investigating her genealogy, the author, Andrea Stuart, learns she is the descendent of both a slave owner and a slave. She gets all the...

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November 15, 2012

Home by Toni Morrison *** (of 5)

An African American soldier returns from fighting in Korea with his mind in tatters. The army was integrated and ordered, but his experience was profoundly horrifying....

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October 28, 2012

Master of the Senate by Robert Caro **** (of 4)

Third in Caro’s serial biography of Lyndon Johnson, this massive volume covers Johnson’s decade in the Senate. For most of the 1950s LBJ ran the...

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April 1, 2012

March by Geraldine Brooks *** (of 4)

Mr. March, in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, heads south to fight the Confederacy at the opening of Alcott’s novel and returns on Christmas a...

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March 1, 2012

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois ** (of 4)

This book covers Haiti’s history from the first importation of enslaved Africans to the months immediately following the devastating 2010 earthquake. It is as thorough...

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February 5, 2012