Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!

I was a big fan of Greenidge’s debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, so I was over the moon when I was able to read her new one! Set during the American Civil War, it’s about a young Black woman named Libertie. Libertie and her mother live in Brooklyn, where her mother is a doctor. Because her mother is light-skinned, she is able to pass as white, and she has high hopes that Libertie will follow in her footsteps as a doctor. But because Libertie’s skin is darker than he mother’s, she is subject to the racism of the times. And Libertie isn’t sure she actually wants to be a doctor, even though she is going to school for it. So when she meets a charming man from Haiti who tells her she would be free to live her life as she wants and as his equal if she marries him and moves back to his country, she accepts his offer. But Libertie quickly learns that life for a Black woman in Haiti is still a life of subservience. This is a wonderful novel about a young Black woman trying to find herself and freedom in a world that opposes her at every turn. And it was inspired in part by the life of one of the first Black women doctors in the United States.

Backlist bump: We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Abdurraqib is one of today’s most incredible nonfiction writers. He’s previously released collections of essays about music and pop culture as well as a National Book Award-nominated book on a Tribe Called Quest. Now, in A Little Devil in America, he covers Black performances in America through history, such as Josephine Baker and Merry Clayton. Each performance is thoroughly examined, and its impact and significance at the time is explained. It’s a fascinating, important look at parts of history that often go unremarked. And as with all his work, Abdurraqib elegantly explains why these works resonate with him personally. I could read a million more of his essays. Abdurraqib is my new ‘automatic buy’ author, and I hope he becomes yours, too.

Backlist bump: Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib

I want to say up front that I have not read much Shakespeare and I don’t have a favorite dog in the ‘Shakespeare didn’t actually write his plays’ fight, but I do love reading about it! Over the centuries, a few people have been credited with his work, most famously Christopher Marlowe. This book is a look at self-taught Shakespearean scholar Dennis McCarthy and his 15-year quest to prove that Shakespeare’s works were actually written by Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier. Using technology, McCarthy claims to have found links between Will’s plays and North’s unpublished works that he says proves the bard is a fraud. Blanding presents the story in a way that lets readers decide for themselves, and whether or not you decide it’s true, the book is an epic nerdpurr about one of history’s longest-running literary mysteries.

Backlist bump: Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn’t Change the World by Paul Collins (This is one of my favorite nonfiction books, and includes a chapter about a Shakespeare denier, as well as many other fascinating people.)