So. Let’s talk about Toni Morrison for a moment, shall we? Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Toni Morrison has a new novel coming out in May, which I reviewed here yesterday. In honor of Morrison’s forthcoming novel, the good folks at Book Riot have declared May 8th “Toni Morrison Day,” and they have a [...]

Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes Fiction (Children’s) Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2010 Kindle edition 224 pages (in hardcover edition) From the author’s website: Twelve-year-old Lanesha lives in a tight-knit community in New Orleanes’ Ninth Ward. She doesn’t have a fancy house like her uptown family or lots of friends like other kids [...]

Home by Toni Morrison Fiction Knopf Release Date: May 8, 2012 Hardcover 160 pages (I received an Edelweiss digital review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.) From the publisher’s website: An angry and self-loathing veteran of the Korean War, Frank Money finds himself back in racist America after [...]

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes Fiction Knopf, October 2011 Kindle edition 176 pages (in hardcover edition) Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize Tony Webster is a typically pretentious and philosophical teenager attending a London prep school, when his history teacher asks of the class, “What is history?” Tony knowingly answers, “History [...]

The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates (Historical) Fiction Ecco, 2004 Hardcover 496 pages In June of 1950, Ariah Erskine and her husband are on their honeymoon in Niagara Falls, New York, and have been married for less than twenty-four hours when she wakes up to find him missing from their honeymoon suite. When she finally [...]

The Bee-Loud Glade by Steve Himmer Fiction Atticus Books, April 2011 Paperback 224 pages (I received a NetGalley digital review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.) Finch works for Second Nature Modern Greenery, a company that manufactures and sells plastic plants. As Assistant to the Director of Brand Awareness, [...]

The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us by Sheril Kirshenbaum Nonfiction Grand Central Publishing, January 2011 Hardcover 272 pages From the inside flap: Are humans the only animals who kiss? Why is kissing integral to some cultures and alien to others? Do good kissers make better lovers? And is that expensive lip-plumping [...]

One Day It’ll All Make Sense by Common with Adam Bradley Memoir Atria Books, September 2011 Hardcover 320 pages I don’t know what I was expecting when I bought a copy of Common’s new book back in September. Honestly, buying this book was just another way for me to support a man who has been [...]

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton Fiction — Classic Literature Scribner Paper Fiction, 1982 Paperback 361 pages (In lieu of a formal review, I am going to use the February prompt of the classics challenge from November’s Autumn to put down my thoughts about this book in the form of a letter, written from [...]

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan Fiction — Dystopian/Speculative Algonquin Books, 2011 Hardcover 352 pages When She Woke, Hillary Jordan’s second novel, is a modern-day take on Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. As the result of a sexually transmitted pandemic nicknamed the “Great Scourge”, the United States has reverted back to a Puritan-like society. The country [...]