About Book Marks
Lesley Williams
Recent Reviews
Damien Lewis
Rave Booklist Lewis provides a rollicking, energetic commentary on Baker’s adventures, noting her sangfroid in face of German interrogators and her boundless compassion for wounded soldiers and war victims. Lewis also reveals her quirky side, her bawdy humor, her spats with jealous fellow entertainers, and her ill-advised love affair with spy chief Jacques Abtey. Lewis’ biography is set to be adapted for a miniseries starring Janelle Monáe as the remarkably talented and courageous Agent Baker.
Robert Samuels, Toluse Olorunnipa
Rave Booklist ... gripping ... Samuels and Olorunnipa enlarge on the poster image by introducing us to people whose lives were changed by encountering Floyd ... A wrenching chronicle of one of the most devastating events of our time.
A J Verdelle
Positive Booklist Verdelle captures Morrison’s appreciation for Black female labor in a loving tribute to baking yeast rolls—a lengthy, intricate ritual that nourishes and connects generations and is a tangible embodiment of Black family strength. Verdelle has created a remarkable literary portrait and memoir.
Margo Jefferson
Rave Booklist Like a skilled embroiderer, [Jefferson] blends the multicolored threads of Black cultural life with memories of her past in a memoir that is impressionistic rather than chronological ... Jefferson is a critic’s critic, turning her keenly honed analysis on herself, her family, and her class, while relentlessly interrogating the broader underlying context of white racism.
Elizabeth Alexander
Rave Booklist Poet and memoirist Alexander...deftly blends family history and cultural criticism in this bittersweet essay collection on race, memory, and memorialization ... Alexander is a thoughtful and eloquent chronicler of racial anxiety and pain ... Illuminated and illustrated with poetry and art by Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, and many more, Alexander’s piercing inquiry merits a place in the ongoing social justice conversation.
David Wright Falade
Rave Booklist Tenseley wrought ... A masterful depiction of the precarious nature of Black life during the war and of slavery’s unrelenting assault on human dignity.
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Rave Booklist Chase-Riboud elevates this tale with a sobering look at Black female exploitation at the turn of the nineteenth century ... Peppered with such historical figures as Lillian Russell, Granville Woods, and J. P. Morgan, and enlivened with a showstopping courtroom debacle, Chase-Riboud’s biographical novel is a randy, rollicking tour of Gilded Age excess, racism, and misogyny.
Bernardine Evaristo
Rave Booklist What a fascinating life Evaristo has led ... Evaristo continues to fight the perception that multicultural writing is provincial or somehow less worthy than writing from the dominant white European perspective ... an inspiring yet unassuming memoir from a woman of indomitable creative energy.
Natashia Deón
Rave Booklist ... tantalizing, intoxicating, and fantastical ... Déon creates a haunting and atmospheric tale of immortality and mystery grounded in Black history and tradition.
Asali Solomon
Rave Booklist ... [a] tender novel of roads not taken ... Solomon charts the social and cultural geography of her native Philadelphia with clear-eyed affection, and gives each woman character a full-throated voice. Unforgettable.
Wil Haygood
Rave Booklist ... captivating ... wistfully concludes with the cautionary tale of Spike Lee, who has yet to win a best director or best picture Oscar. Haygood’s defining history is as moving as it is enlightening.
Natasha Brown
Positive Booklist With stylistic economy, Brown etches a portrait of contemporary Britain in all its racial hypocrisy and contradictions, and of a stubbornly brilliant woman for whom death becomes the ultimate protest.
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Rave Booklist Poet Jeffers reinvigorates the multigenerational saga in her first novel, an audacious, mellifluous love song to an African American family. In alternate chapters, Jeffers traces the coming of age of her contemporary heroine, Ailey, juxtaposed against the tales of multiracial ancestors whose sufferings and blood infuse the rich Georgia soil. Jeffers’ lyrical cadences shimmer across the historical chapters, echoing biblical genealogies in connecting Ailey to her roots ... Incandescent and not to be missed.
Jason Mott
Positive Booklist In his fourth novel, which veers from skewering satire to unspeakable sorrow, Mott dangles his readers over a precipice of uncertainty. Is the Writer’s book meant only to absolve white readers of their complicity? Maddening, disorienting, and illuminating.
Nathan Harris
Rave Booklist Harris’ lucid prose and vivid characterization illustrate a community at war with itself, poisoned by pride and mired in racial and sexual bigotry. Prentiss and Landry are technically free, but they remain trapped by a lifetime of blighted hopes and broken promises. Reconstruction will prove to be yet another lie. Harris’ first novel is an aching chronicle of loss, cruelty, and love in the wake of community devastation.
Ashley C. Ford
Rave Booklist ... an affecting, no-holds-barred memoir ... As she comes of age, she wrestles with grief, self-doubt, body image, and troubled relationships, eventually realizing that she deserves happiness, safety, and love. A remarkable debut.
Clint Smith
Rave Booklist ... [a] powerful and diligent exploration of the realities and ongoing consequences of slavery in America.
Stacey Abrams
Rave Booklist [Abrams] now displays her considerable talent for fiction in this gripping legal thriller ... The buzz is loud and wholly deserved for this shrewd and exciting legal thriller.
Annette Gordon-Reed
Rave Booklist As Juneteenth morphs from a primarily Texan celebration of African American freedom to a proposed national holiday, Gordon-Reed urges Texans and all Americans to reflect critically on this tangled history. A remarkable meditation on the history and folk mythology of Texas from an African American perspective.
Andrea Lee
Rave Booklist In her first book in 15 years, Lee asks, can an African American be a colonizer? Shay, an accomplished Black literature professor, is captivated by Senna, an Italian adventurer ... In a series of linked short stories, Lee reveals Shay’s growing connection to this most isolated of African countries, and her discomfort with the crass, exploitative Europeans who have made it their private playground ... Brilliant and tragic.
Kaitlyn Greenidge
Rave Booklist Few novels have as strong a sense of place as this fascinating blend of magical realism and African American historical fiction ... Greenidge succeeds beautifully at presenting the complexities of an intense mother-daughter bond, with its blend of unrealistic expectations, disappointments, and betrayals. At the same time, the historical context of traumatized escaped enslaved people, race riots, colorism, and conflicting visions on how to achieve Black freedom (stay in the U.S. and fight or build an all-Black civilization abroad?) weaves the story of one family into the larger tragedy of the African diaspora. Greenidge creates a richly layered tapestry of Black communal life, notably Black female life, and the inevitable contradictions and compromises of \'freedom.\'
Ibram X Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Rave Booklist African American history is a communal quilt, crisscrossed with the stitches of elders, youth, LGBTQ folk, mothers, fathers, revolutionaries, and poets ... Some essays address events and legislation, others cover cultural elements as diverse as spirituals and queer sexuality, and such icons as Sally Hemings, Jack Johnson, and Anita Hill. The poems enhance and elaborate on the historical narratives ... Like the poem, this seamless collection crackles with rage, beauty, bitter humor, and the indomitable will to survive.
Cicely Tyson
Rave Booklist Cicely Tyson is a living treasure; at 96, she remains passionately outspoken about national affairs, politics, and the entertainment world. Her enthusiasm, intelligence, and wit sparkle across the pages of this engaging and lively memoir ... Whether discussing the politics of natural hair or the racial violence that led to the Black Lives Matter movement, Tyson speaks with incisive clarity, humor, and moral authority.
Robert Jones Jr
Rave Booklist The most horrific tales often inspire the most exquisite language. How else to explain The Prophets, a first novel of slavery’s brutality, racism, misogyny, and homophobia recounted in prose of limpid beauty? ... Jones conveys powerful truths with well-chosen words in spare prose ... A masterfully told story that will haunt readers from beginning to end.
Alicia Garza
Positive Booklist ... a moving and impassioned account of her in-the-trenches experience as a social justice warrior ... While most of her examples are drawn from her work with BLM, Garza’s advice is broadly relevant ... A book that could not be timelier.
Les Payne and Tamara Payne
Rave Booklist As renewed calls for Black liberation fill the streets and the airwaves, what better time to review the legacy of one of the most influential proponents of Black independence, Malcolm X ... monumental ... Payne’s Malcolm is less a revolutionary than part of a continuum of Black struggle.
Ayad Akhtar
Rave Booklist ... a bold, memoiristic tale ... an array of fascinating characters with different insights into the American character ... Money, and the debasement of other values, is a defining element of Akhtar’s relationship with his writing and his father, while the crude racism unleashed by 9/11 prods them both to question whether America can ever truly be their home.
Claudia Rankine
Rave Booklist Rankine presents another arresting blend of essays and images, perfectly attuned to this long-overdue moment of racial reckoning. In language all the more devastating for its simplicity, Rankine analyzes the overwhelming power of whiteness in everyday interactions ... Rankine once again opens a literary window into the Black experience, for those willing to look in.
Percival Everett
Rave Booklist Everett...the author of biting satirical comedy, dark thrillers, and literary reworkings of Greek myth, gifts us with his most heartfelt, nakedly emotional story yet ... Everett has created an exquisite portrait of grief and one man’s search for meaning in the face of unimaginable loss.
Michael Zapata
Rave Booklist Zapata spins an iridescent web of grief, loss, and memory ... The connection between Saul and Maxwell, and the role Adana’s novel plays in both their lives constitute an enchanting blend of history, science, and fairy tale. Zapata’s unforgettable characters lose loved ones, countries, and even identities, but they preserve \'lost worlds\' in the stories they tell and by \'reading the night sky ... A lush, spellbinding tale.
Mark Katz
Mixed Booklist Katz provides a thorough overview of the origins of cultural exchange, dating back to anti-Nazi and anti-Communism efforts, when clueless, racist bureaucrats dismissed the value of jazz, which young people around the world adored, in favor of classical music. Likewise, Katz faced an uphill battle to get hip-hop accepted as a medium for a state-department program then had to explain that \'Get Hip USA!\' was not likely to win over skeptical youth. While Katz addresses the inherent contradiction in trotting out marginalized cultural groups to demonstrate the superiority of American values, neither he nor the majority of the artists interviewed fully acknowledges the paradox.
Jeffrey Colvin
Positive Booklist Colvin depicts the heartbreaking neglect and ultimate destruction of Africaville by white Canadian governments while also dramatizing the resilience that enabled its residents to survive.
Kerri K. Greenidge
Rave Booklist Rejecting both the accommodationist politics of Booker T. Washington and the \'talented tenth\' elitism of W. E. B. Dubois, and challenging the complacency of northern liberals who preferred to see racism as a uniquely southern problem, Trotter resists easy categorization. Yet as Greenidge argues in her beautifully realized biography, Trotter’s theory and practice of Black liberation anticipated Black Lives Matter and the contemporary focus on institutional rather than individual racism. Essential reading for our times.
Leah Vernon
Positive Booklist With disarming (and occasionally disturbing) candor, Vernon recounts her struggles with sexism, Islamophobia, and racism in the U.S., the fashion world, and the Muslim community, reserving much of her frustration for the fat-shaming culture which permeates all three. Vernon’s determined advocacy for body positivity as a feminist and mental health issue, and her painful journey to self-acceptance, are moving and powerful, forcing readers to examine their own preconceptions about beauty standards and health.
Curdella Forbes
Rave Booklist Forbes’ novel, rich in metaphors and biblical and fairy-tale allusions, explores the cyclical nature of birth and death, and the overwhelming and terrifying power of love. It is also a forceful critique of colonialism ... A fascinating post-colonial blend of romance, social history, and myth.
Susan Rice
Rave Booklist Rice’s behind-the-scenes take on major foreign policy challenges are fascinating ... While she prefers not to dwell on the racism and sexism of Washington, her anger comes through loud and clear. Although Rice is frank about the toll her career took on her family, she is able to look back on her experiences with pride, gratitude, and bracing realism.
Kalisha Buckhanon
Rave Booklist Buckhanon captures Autumn’s frustration at the undervaluing of black women, accompanied by the creeping gentrification of her Harlem neighborhood ... Yet it is Buckhanon’s elegant images of grief that most captivate ... Devastating.
Rion Amilcar Scott
Positive Booklist Reminiscent of classic isolated-world fantasies like The Martian Chronicles (1950) ... Scott’s imagery and unique voice blend horror, satire, and magical realism into an intoxicating brew.
Sarah M. Broom
Positive Booklist Broom is blunt about the callous incompetence Katrina survivors faced ... A moving tribute to family and a powerful indictment of societal indifference.
David Maraniss
Positive Booklist Maraniss paints an affecting if somewhat scattershot portrait ... The younger Maraniss’ affection and admiration for his father are palpable, though tinged with queasiness over what he perceives as naïveté regarding the Soviet system ... Maraniss falls into a common trap of family biographers. He both over- and underestimates his father. It would also have been good to learn more about how Maraniss’ mother coped with raising a family despite constant upheaval. Overall, this is a beautifully realized account of an ordinary family in extraordinary circumstances and of how easily \'normal\' life can be disrupted by a powerful megalomaniac with a dangerous political agenda.
Peter Hessler
Positive Booklist Archaeology is the science of interpreting a distant past without being misled by one’s familiar present. Hessler... conveys the near-impossibility of this challenge ... Hessler’s inability to transcend his cultural biases and his condescending reduction of Egyptians in amusing anecdotes is grating, yet he has the self-awareness to recognize the West’s childlike romanticization of Egypt in himself and his Western colleagues.
Damon Young
Rave Booklist \"A passionate, wryly bittersweet tribute to Black life in majority-white Pittsburgh ... [Young\'s] barbed riffs on gentrification, Black barber shops, basketball, appropriate use of the word \'nigga,\' and the obtuseness of white privilege are sharply observed ... A must read.\
Doug Jones
Mixed Booklist Less a history than an account of [Jones\'] own tortured journey toward racial awareness. We could happily do without self-absorbed reflections ... Yet Jones, with journalist Truman, manages a deeply affecting portrait of the devastation wrought by the 16th Street Church bombing and the enduring blight and bitterness it left in the black community ... A decent account of a key moment in the antisegregation movement told primarily from the white perspective.
Saidiya Hartman
Positive Booklist Illustrated with startling historical photographs, Hartman’s blend of narrative and imagined internal monologue uncovers a world of unjust imprisonment, child prostitution, and race riots but also lively dance halls and chorus lines and the daring transformation of tenement hallways into \'places of assembly\' and rooftops into \'stretches of urban beach\' ... Hartman has created an insightful feminist reassessment of a key era in American history.
Kathleen Collins
Positive Booklist This new collection highlights [Collins\'] strengths as dramatist, screenwriter, and short-story creator ... Collins limns incisive portraits of artistic, intellectual Black women stretched to their limits that glimmer against a background of racism, sexism, and just plain life. A timely reclamation of a remarkable voice.
Damaris Hill
Rave Booklist With a lyricism that sings, swings, and stings, poet and writer Hill reflects on black women who resisted violent racism and misogyny, ranging from the notable and notorious (Fannie Lou Hamer, Eartha Kitt, Ida B. Wells, Joanne Little) to lesser-known, no-less-heroic women. In this distinctive inquiry in verse, Hill refuses to make them mere victims.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Rave Booklist A harsh indictment of a society that views blackness as a disorder and that forces black men to choose between self-respect and survival ... Brilliant and devastating.
Marlon James
Positive Booklist \"James’ tale digs its hooks in and never lets go, rather like the claws of the flesh-eating Zogbanu trolls, or the teeth of a vicious ghommid. Yet for all the fantasy and action, James never loses sight of the human story as his hero ... Gender-bending romance, fantastical adventure, and an Afrocentric setting make for an inventive and engaging read.\
Marcello Di Cintio
Rave Booklist One of the great tragedies of Palestine is how little most outsiders know of everyday Palestinians. Journalist Di Cintio narrows this gap by recounting his nearly 20 years of visits to the West Bank and Gaza, weaving conversations around the writings of Palestine’s many literary figures ... A timely and exquisite book. \
Stephen L. Carter
Positive Booklist \"...Eunice Carter, best-selling crime-writer Stephen L. Carter’s grandmother, was a leading figure in one of a tiny handful of female African American lawyers, she was connected professionally and socially with the most influential people of the day. As a member of the National Council of Negro Women and the NAACP, and an early observer at the United Nations, she, along with her family, were closely involved in key issues and political events ... Carter’s millions of readers will be curious about his return to nonfiction to share a slice of his family’s history within the larger national picture. \
John Julius Norwich
Mixed Booklist \"...Norwich’s quip-filled \'political history\' is a mad dash through France’s greatest hits: Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Francis I, Henri IV, a succession of kings named Louis, the Revolution, Napoleon, Dreyfus, the Somme, Vichy, de Gaulle, and the Resistance ... Although the epilogue’s borderline racist perspective on colonialism gives one pause, as do admiring asides about royal mistresses, which, as with such Gallic delicacies as snails, may leave one feeling queasy, there is much here to learn and enjoy. \
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Positive Booklist \"Appiah—who could variously be described as biracial, Ghanaian British, an Asante, a Londoner, and a gay cis man—is perfectly positioned to explore the various meanings and missteps involved in charting human identity ... Perhaps the most startling of Appiah’s claims is that cultural differences are a response to the need for a distinguishing identity. Herein lies the paradox of cultural identity: the human need to belong will always require an outsider group to reject.\
Zachary R Wood
Rave Booklist Online ...The child of a mentally unstable mother and a hardworking but overwhelmed father, Wood writes movingly about the debilitating effects of racism and poverty, including vermin-filled housing, haphazard dental care, and a constant need to disprove stereotypes. To cope as a scholarship student at elite private schools, Wood drove himself to the point of hospitalization for exhaustion. Yet he never felt he belonged in the world of wealthy white friends, whose patronizing parents encouraged him to \'impersonate a thug\' for their entertainment. Reasoned, well-informed argument became his most effective weapon, a gift he insisted on sharing with fellow students, whatever the cost. A singular voice that, as Wood would say, you may not agree with but to which you at least have to listen.