Tag Archives: race
*** How to be Black by Baratunde Thurston
How to Be Black is a very funny mix of a memoir and reflections on race in America — or I should say a mix of hilarious and soberly true stories and essays that expose the stereotypes that linger under … Continue reading
Filed under Non fiction
** Is Marriage for White People? by Ralph Richard Banks
I found Is Marriage for White People? to be a very interesting yet somehow disappointing book. The idea is that marriage rates within the African American community are low, especially for black women who are much less likely to marry … Continue reading
Filed under Non fiction
*** The Grace of Silence by Michele Norris
What if your dad had been shot by a police officer and you never knew about it? That’s what happened to Michele Norris, of NPR fame (who is African-American, as I discovered while reading the book, since radio is discrete … Continue reading
Filed under True story
The Girl who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow
Another novel with a great premise that does not quite succeed. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky obligingly does so, spectacularly, in the first chapter, and the boy who sees her falling never forgets her. She is falling from … Continue reading
Filed under New fiction
Passing Strange by Martha Sandweiss
Passing Strange tells the strange, true story of Clarence King, a scientist who helped mapped California (establishing the altitude of Lake Tahoe, for instance) and who also led a double life, pretending to be a black husband and father to … Continue reading
Filed under True story
The Black Girl Next Door by Jennifer Baszile
The Black Girl Next Door is the story of an apparently successful black family who moves into tony Palos Verdes Estates (not just plain old Palos Verdes) in Southern California to be greeted by ugly graffiti on their house, and … Continue reading
Filed under True story
The Professor’s Daugher by Emily Raboteau
The Professor’s Daughter reminded me, in the form of a novel, of One Drop, the memoir of the daughter of a black man and a white woman. The daughter here, Emma, is clearly informed of her black father’s race, but the dads’ … Continue reading
Filed under New fiction
Bombay Anna by Susan Morgan
Bombay Anna, as its subtitle says, is the biography of the woman who was the model for The King and Igoverness. Not being familiar with the musical, I read the book as simply the adventures of a most interesting woman of … Continue reading
Filed under True story
One Drop by Bliss Broyard
One Drop is the memoir of the daughter of a man who chose to pass as white for his entire adult life and who raised her in complete ignorance of her racial background (although his wife, her mother, knew about it.) … Continue reading
Filed under True story
