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28 Days of Literary Blackness with VSB | Day 27: Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones by Quincy Jones
Publisher Synopsis (via B&N): Musician, composer, producer, arranger and pioneering entrepreneur Quincy Jones has lived large and worked for five decades alongside the superstars of music and entertainment—including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ray Charles, Will Smith and dozens of others. Q is his glittering and moving life story, told with the…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness With VSB | Day 26: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Publisher Synopsis: Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous—from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids’ backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide—while others are devastatingly poignant—a new mother and funeral singer…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness with VSB | Day 25: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Publisher Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward,…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness with VSB | Day 24: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Publisher Synopsis: Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness with VSB | Day 23: Cane by Jean Toomer
Publisher Synopsis: Jean Toomer’s Cane is one of the most significant works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, and is considered to be a masterpiece in American modernist literature because of its distinct structure and style. First published in 1923 and told through a series of vignettes, Cane uses poetry, prose, and play-like dialogue…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness With VSB | Day 22: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Publisher’s Synopsis: A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for 16 weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness With VSB | Day 21: Blended by Sharon M. Draper
Publisher Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Isabella’s parents are divorced, so she has to switch lives every week: One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighborhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness with VSB | Day 16: The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Publisher Synopsis: The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness With VSB | Day 15: Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
Publisher Synopsis: On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target…
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28 Days of Literary Blackness With VSB | Day 14: all about love: new visions by bell hooks
Publisher Synopsis: “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet … we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, the renowned scholar, cultural critic, and…
