Category: Book Review

There’s no magic wand to change the things that’ve been on your mind lately:

social issues, inequality, poverty, politics, apathy, violence. Those ills didn’t arrive quick

and they won’t leave quick but, says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, they can be repaired.

Mine, mine, mine.

When you were two years old, that was your favorite word. Everything you saw belonged to you, somehow, one way or another. If you liked it, it was yours. If you didn’t like it, it was yours, too. And as you’ll see in the new novel “You’re the One I Want” by Shane Allison, some people never outgrow that.

Your parents always taught you to stand up for yourself.

Form your own opinions, they say, and don’t follow the crowd. If so-and- so wanted to jump off a cliff, be brave enough to not go, too. Speak up when something’s not right, and hold your head high. Stand up for yourself and, in the new book “She Stood for Freedom” by Loki Mulholland, stand up for others, too.

Charges dropped.
You were surprised, but not surprised. Hopeful that it might be different, but only barely.
You know that these days, the idea of justice can be a slippery issue that’s sometimes based on all the wrong things, and in the new book “Nobody” by Marc Lamont Hill, you’ll see how we’ve come to this.

Never be afraid of….

Your Mommy and Daddy have taught you that. Never be afraid of spiders, big animals,

lightning, or loud noises. Always be brave, they say, and so you are – and in the new

book “Brave Like Me” by Barbara Kerley, you’ll see how that courage you’ve got

helps them, too.

You never knew what you didn’t have.
There were times in your childhood when cereal was supper because there was nothing else. When birthday toys seemed gently pre-loved, hand-me-downs were new to you, and you were none the wiser.

An accident, a murder, a surprise can happen in an instant that can seem like a lifetime. It

doesn’t take very long – or does it? The odd thing about time is that it’s shapeable, as

you’ll see in the new book “83 Minutes: The Doctor, the Damage, and the Shocking

Death of Michael Jackson” by Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne.

In every love life, there’s always The One That Got Away.

He got away because you were both too young, too scared, too broke, or too different.

Things were said that couldn’t be unsaid, done that shouldn’t have been done. It just

didn’t work out then, but now…? In the new novel, “I Almost Forgot about You” by

Terry McMillan, he’ll never get away twice.

Two heads are better than one.

Another body can make work lighter, both in mood and in task. A partner can support

you, encourage you, inspire you, and sympathize with you. You solve easier with another

mind on the problem.

The authors may have said it best near the end of the book: Malcolm X “died in the struggle for Black power.” It was not the “Black Power” so fiercely espoused by more radical civil rights leaders of the 1960s but, rather, Malcolm X’s death being the result of a vindictive struggle within the upper echelon of the Nation of Islam that found sports icon Muhammad Ali caught in the crosshairs.