Speaking of books turned movie, according to BV Entertainment Newswire:
. . . filmmaker Will Packer has designs to adapt Steve Harvey’s best-selling book ‘Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man’ for the big screen. An official announcement isn’t expected to be serviced to film industry media until next week, but the mastermind behind black blockbusters such as ‘Stomp The Yard’ and ‘Obsessed’ and Screen Gems have reportedly acquired the film rights to the Amistad/Harper Collins book, which has been atop the New York Times Best Sellers list for the past six months. “It’s pretty amazing,” Harvey, a first-time author, told BlackVoices.com about the book’s meteoric success back in February. “It really has to be some amount of favor from God, because I have no experience at writing a book,” he continued. “It ain’t like I’ve been there, done that. It’s got to be favor from God. It’s gotta be something that he has planned for me bigger than I could see, because I just wanted to write a book so the women on my show could quit asking me to write a book.” (Read more)
I originally found news concerning Omar Tyree’s upcoming film adaptations from Shadow and Act. However, upon further research, I discovered Tyree’s announcement via his blog:
I know, I know, I know, many of you guys would just loooove to see Flyy Girl as my first movie. The only problem is, most of the readers who love Flyy Girl so much have never bothered to read many of my other books. So if I gave them Flyy Girl first as a movie, would they even bother to see my otherfilms? Because if I can’t trust them to read the other books, then whyshould I trust them to see the other films? And they have all had PLENTY of time toread my other books. And they ALL GOOD READS!
So for the first film, since I want to have a film CAREER and not just one movie deal, we decided very strategically to go with the Leslie franchise first, where we can possible do 3 films with a character that folks willlove and want to see much more of. But if you guys have not read Leslie the book,you have no idea what you’re missing.
Therefore, a New Orleans-based suspense vehicle like Leslie would get us “out-of-the-box” of typical African-American films that may immediately destroy new types of ideas if I were to do the obvious Flyy Girl first. Andsince we know everyone is waiting for Flyy Girl anyway, we decided do it when we have more experience and power to do it RIGHT and have plenty of marketing money to push it. But you often have to beg on the first movie, so we’drather do that on an exciting trilogy film like Leslie. (Read more)
I’ve read 3.5 books by Tyree (in the 90s – lol). I wouldn’t consider myself a fan, but I would definitely be interested in viewing the film versions. Happy reading, y’all.
You can convince me to see just about any movie if you tell me it’s based on a book. If I read the book first, then I tend to enjoy the movie more. However, if I see the film first, I might buy the book…but I usually never get around to reading it. Take The Namesake, for example. Loved the movie, but still haven’t read the book (its on the shelf collecting dust). The Moral Compass? Couldn’t get into the movie. Refuse to read the book (its on the shelf collecting dust). Wicked? Enjoyed the book and I’m finally going to see the musical this fall. The Ruins? Really liked the movie (surprisingly) and became even more intrigued by the excerpt found below.
So, here are the trailers and book excerpts for flicks that are coming to theaters soon or that you may have missed. What do you recommend?
My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn’t happen.
In my junior high yearbook I had a quote from a Spanish poet my sister had turned me on to, Juan Raman Jimanez. It went like this: “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” I chose it both because it expressed my contempt for my structured surroundings a la the classroom and because, not being some dopey quote from a rock group, I thought it marked me as literary. I was a member of the Chess Club and Chem Club and burned everything I tried to make in Mrs. Delminico’s home ec class. My favorite teacher was Mr. Botte, who taught biology and liked to animate the frogs and crawfish we had to dissect by making them dance in their waxed pans. (Read more)
Comment: I read this book a few years ago and loved it. I honestly feel like I’ve waited forever for the film version. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of Mark Walhberg’s acting skills, so I am a bit concerned about him playing the father. Sigh.
Teddy Daniel’s father had been a fisherman. He lost his boat to the bank in ‘31 when Teddy was eleven, spent the rest of his life hiring onto other boats when they had the work, unloading freight along the docks when they didn’t, going long stretches when he was back at the house by ten in the morning, sitting in an armchair, staring at his hands, whispering to himself occasionally, his eyes gone wide and dark.
He’d taken Teddy out to the islands when Teddy was still a small boy, too young to be much help on the boat. All he’d been able to do was untangle the lines and tie off the hooks. He’d cut himself a few times, and the blood dotted his fingertips and smeared his palms.
They’d left in the dark, and when the sun appeared, it was a cold ivory that pushed up from the edge of the sea, and the islands appeared out of the fading dusk, huddled together, as if they’d been caught at something. (Read more)
Comment: I haven’t heard anything about this book or movie until now, but I am secretly STAN for Leonardo DiCaprio. I can’t think of one role that I’ve disliked him in—The Beach, Catch Me if You Can, Titanic, Revolutionary Road…yeah…I like DiCaprio.
When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he’d wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.
Comment: I downloaded the audiobook version from iTunes and couldn’t focus long enough to get into it. I guess I’ll have to actually READ the book.
All I have to do is get around the track five times. I can do this.
I line up, the whistle blows, and I immediately stumble as I take off. I keep skating, fighting my wobbles, and get around the track one time with relative ease (yes!). But then something clicks on the second lap. I lean low into the track, push as hard as I can and—bingo!—I go flying out of the turn at speeds the other girls haven’t even touched. For a second, it feels like I might not be able to control the speed, but I bend my knees lower, and manage to go even faster. From there on, the track is mine, I attack it with all I have . . .
At practice, the humiliation factor decreases as my skating improves. Even though I’m covered in bruises aka “derby kisses” I feel surprisingly proud of what I’m learning to do (it’s so weird; I’m kind of like a jock). I even sneak out late at night to covertly practice my T-stops and power slides in the driveway, determined to catch up to the other girls.
I love the way the wind whips through my hair as I fly through the turns, sitting low, leaning into the track for maximum speed. My life feels like it has been so slow for so long, it’s fun to finally be going fast.
Comment: Did you see Eve in the trailer? Nice cast on this one.
Clare: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays.
I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I’m tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that’s been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?
Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow? (Read more)
Comment: I have walked past this one in bookstores on several occasions. I can’t say that I ever bothered to read the summary or flip through the pages. Now that the film is coming out, I hate that I ignored this book for so long. I’m really interested now.
I had been looking forward all day to the visit. Indeed, I had been looking forward to it ever since we had planned our trip to the south of France, and I had arranged the route so that we would pass through Orléans. It was a visit that I had wanted to make for a long time, a kind of pilgrimage to a shrine of happiness now suitably veiled in the rosy mists of youth.
Nineteen years is a long time. One cannot remember everything, and the tendency on occasions such as this is to remember only the happiness. The weather seems always to have been warm and sunny, the days filled with love and laughter, the nights throbbing with the notes of the nightingales in the woods, and, in my case, with the blithe croaking of the amorous frogs in the moat around the château.
If I concentrate hard enough, I can, of course, recall that there were minor irritations and frictions, but it is true to say that they never lasted long. We were all too young, too filled with the joy of living; and perhaps the mild and gentle air of the wooded Sologne country was itself an antidote to prolonged bitterness.
Even the pangs of youthful jealousy have a curious sweetness in retrospect, for with the near approach of middle age the emotions, in matters of the heart, tend to be flattened, and the ecstasies and agonies toned down. (Read more)
Comment: Don’t like the excerpt, but the film has hope.
He stood motionless in the entryway, staring at his own shadow splayed before him like a stain upon the floor. He studied the patina of dust, sampled the stench of mold and rat urine, listened to a beam settling one more fraction of an inch toward the center of the earth.
This room bore so little evidence of the events that had led to the dawn. From this vantage point, it was just one more abandoned house. Interesting.
But the rest of the house told the truth.
Beneath his boots, the floorboards lay shoulder to shoulder like the buried dead, cupped with creeping moisture, edges buckling, obscured by gray dust and fallen flakes of white paint.
Across the foyer, at the base of a wall, the rose-printed wallpaper fluttered. Behind one of the roses, something scratched, pushed, gnawed, and clawed until a black, whiskered nose burst through. With a wad of shredded wallpaper in its jaws, the rat wriggled through the hole, then rested on its haunches and met his eyes. Neither found the other’s presence alarming. The rat skittered along the baseboard and disappeared around a corner.
In the summer of 1642 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a teenage boy was accused of buggering a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey. This is real history on the books. In accordance with the Biblical laws of Leviticus, after the boy confessed he was forced to watch each animal being slaughtered. Then he was killed and his body heaped with the dead animals and buried in an unmarked pit.
This was before there were sexaholic talk therapy meetings.
This teenager, writing his fourth step must’ve been a whole barnyard tell-all.
I ask, “Any questions?”
The fourth-graders just look at me. A girl in the second row says, “What’s buggering?”
I say, ask your teacher.
Every half hour, I’m supposed to teach another herd of fourth-graders some shit nobody wants to learn, like how to start a fire. How to carve an apple-head doll. How to make ink out of black walnuts. As if this is going to get any of them into a good college.
Besides deforming the poor chickens, these fourth-graders, they all walk in here carrying some germ. It’s no mystery why Denny’s always wiping his nose and coughing. Head lice, pinworms, chlamydia, ringworm–for serious, these field trip kids are the pint-sized horsemen of the apocalypse.
The amber light came on. Two of the cars ahead accelerated before the red light appeared. At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called. The motorists kept an impatient foot on the clutch, leaving their cars at the ready, advancing, retreating like nervous horses that can sense the whiplash about to be inflicted. The pedestrians have just finished crossing but the sign allowing the cars to go will be delayed for some seconds, some people maintain that this delay, while apparently so insignificant, has only to be multiplied by the thousands of traffic lights that exist in the city and by the successive changes of their three colours to produce one of the most serious causes of traffic jams or bottlenecks, to use the more current term.
The green light came on at last, the cars moved off briskly, but then it became clear that not all of them were equally quick off the mark. The car at the head of the middle lane has stopped, there must be some mechanical fault, a loose accelerator pedal, a gear lever that has stuck, problem with the suspension, jammed brakes, breakdown in the electric circuit, unless he has simply run out of gas, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened. The next group of pedestrians to gather at the crossing see the driver of the stationary car wave his arms behind the windshield, while the cars behind him frantically sound their horns. Some drivers have already got out of their cars, prepared to push the stranded vehicle to a spot where it will not hold up the traffic, they beat furiously on the closed windows, the man inside turns his head in their direction, first to one side then the other, he is clearly shouting something, to judge by the movements of his mouth he appears to be repeating some words, not one word but three, as turns out to be the case when someone finally manages to open the door, I am blind.
Comments: I don’t care for Julianne Moore. Since she’s in the film…I’m a little suspect. Really hate a few of her films.
They met Mathias on a day trip to Cozumel. They’d hired a guide to take them snorkeling over a local wreck, but the buoy marking its location had broken off in a storm, and the guide was having difficulty finding it. So they were just swimming about, looking at nothing in particular. Then Mathias rose toward them from the depths, like a merman, a scuba tank on his back. He smiled when they told him their situation, and led them to the wreck. He was German, dark from the sun, and very tall, with a blond crew cut and pale blue eyes. He had a tattoo of an eagle on his right forearm, black with red wings. He let them take turns borrowing his tank so they could drop down thirty feet and see the wreck up close. He was friendly in a quiet way, and his English was only slightly accented, and when they pulled themselves into their guide’s boat to head back to shore, he climbed in, too.
They met the Greeks two nights later, back in Cancun, on the beach near their hotel. Stacy got drunk and made out with one of them. Nothing happened beyond that, but the Greeks always seemed to be turning up afterward, no matter where they went or what they were doing. None of them spoke Greek, of course, and the Greeks didn’t speak English, so it was mostly smiling and nodding and the occasional sharing of food or drinks. There were three Greeks—in their early twenties, like Mathias and the rest of them—and they seemed friendly enough, even if they did appear to be following them about. (Read more)
Comments: I really want to read this book. Love the excerpt. Enjoyed the movie (especially after witnessing silly tourists firsthand in Mexico last summer).
The sky had gone black at sunset, and the storm had churned inland from the Gulf and drenched New Iberia and littered East Main with leaves and tree branches from the long canopy of oaks that covered the street from the old brick post office to the drawbridge over Bayou Teche at the edge of town. The air was cool now, laced with light rain, heavy with the fecund smell of wet humus, night-blooming jasmine, roses, and new bamboo. I was about to stop my truck at Del’s and pick up three crawfish dinners to go when a lavender Cadillac fishtailed out of a side street, caromed off a curb, bounced a hubcap up on a sidewalk, and left long serpentine lines of tire prints through the glazed pools of yellow light from the street lamps.
I was off duty, fired, used up after a day of searching for a nineteen-year-old girl in the woods, then finding her where she had been left in the bottom of a coulee, her month and wrists wrapped with electrician’s tape. Already I had tried to stop thinking about the rest of it. The medical examiner was a kind man. He bagged the body before any news people or family members got there.
I don’t like to bust drunk drivers. I don’t like to listen to their explanations, watch their pitiful attempts to affect sobriety, or see the sheen of fear break out in their eyes when they realize they’re headed for the drunk tank with little to look forward to in the morning except the appearance of their names in the newspaper. Or maybe in truth I just don’t like to see myself when I look into their faces. (Read more)
I’m headed to Redbox to see if I can find a few of these. When I do posts like this I get a little confused. Should I spend time catching up on my reading or movies? I guess the answer is obvious. READ! But in this day and age of technology, why spend a few hours or days on a storyline that I can pick up in 2 hours or less? Kidding….kinda?
There are plenty more of these books/movies to post, but if you can’t wait until next time, please visit my favorite movies based on books website, chasingthefrog.com.
Happy reading, y’all—but if you aren’t going to read, at least read a book based movie. I give you permission.
Don’t expect me to post a black book excerpt every Saturday, even if it does sound like a good idea. *wink* Here’s a look at Larry Tye’s New York Times Best Seller Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend (published in June 2009):
Chapter One - Coming Alive
“I was no different from any other kid, only in Mobile I was a nigger kid.”
Satchel Paige entered the world as Leroy Robert Page. He was delivered at home into the hands of a midwife, which was more help than most poor families could afford in 1906 in Mobile, Alabama. His mother, Lula, was a washerwoman who already spent her nights worrying how to feed and sustain the four daughters and two sons who had come before. Five more would follow. Leroy’s father, John, alternated between the luxuriant lilies in the gardens he tended uptown and the corner stoops on which he liked to loiter, rarely making time to care for his expanding brood. With skin the shade of chestnut and a birthplace in the heartland of the former Confederacy, the newborn’s prospects looked woeful. They were about to get worse.
The hurricane that battered Mobile Bay just two months after Leroy’s birth started with two days of torrential rains carried in on the back of a driving northeast wind. By the next morning ten-foot-high surges had dispatched oyster and fishing vessels to the bottom of the sea. Tornado-like squalls ripped from their roots southern pines, blew tin roofs off Greek Revival homes, and made it look as if birds were flying backward. At historic Christ Church only the choir loft was left standing. The lucky escaped by fleeing to third-floor attics or climbing tall trees; 150 others were consigned to watery graves. One area hit especially hard was the Negro slum known as Down the Bay, where the Pages lived.
Their home was a four-room shack called a shotgun, because a shot fired through the front door would exit straight out the back. That is the path storm waters took when they burst through Down the Bay’s alleys on the way to more fashionable quarters. Rental units like the Pages’ were ramshackle and fragile, with no flood walls to protect them from the nearby sea and no electricity to ease their recovery. The Page cottage remained standing but the thin mattresses the children shared and their few furnishings needed airing out. That cleanup would have to wait: Lula’s white employers insisted she be at their homes early the next morning to mop up the storm damage. The kids would wait, too, the way they did every day when Mama headed to work, with the older ones watching over baby Leroy and the rest of the young ones. (Read more)
I use to sell snacks out of my bookbag in high school. Until the day a teacher turned me in for disrupting her class, my top selling snack were those tasty Famous Amos cookies. I probably ate just as many bags as I sold—and I never shared. If you wanted some, you better have your $1 ready (I overcharged because I had no competitors). Recently, BlackNews.com reported that Wally Amos is back in business with a new cookie line.
After several decades away from the gourmet cookie business, (an industry that Amos is credited with creating), writing books, working as a motivational speaker, even hosting a PBS TV Literacy Series, and baking gourmet muffins (“Uncle Wally’s”), among other things, the very active Mr. Amos decided that he really wanted to get back to his first love, baking and selling the absolutely best tasting cookies anywhere. And that is just what he is doing again. As Amos recently said, “I am absolutely delighted to be baking my delicious handmade cookies again for my millions of friends and fans.”
Using his “original recipe” with pure butter, Watkins pure vanilla extract, lots of chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, and other natural ingredients, Wally went to work building a new bakery in Kailua, a small town on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu, his home for the last 32 years. Wally appropriately named the new cookie business Chip & Cookie after two boy and girl Hawaiian characters that had been created years before by his wife, noted artist and print maker, Christine Harris-Amos. A second Chip & Cookie store has already opened in Honolulu on Waikiki Beach at the Royal Hawaiian Center, 2nd floor, upstairs behind the Apple Store. When you place an order at www.chipandcookie.com, your cookies will be handmade and fresh baked in Hawaii, then shipped out the same day via air using USPS Priority Mail. Orders usually reach the East Coast in 3-4 days and the West Coast in 2-3 days.
Widely known as a passionate longtime advocate of early childhood literacy, Wally created an organization he called the Read It LOUD! Foundation several years ago to encourage parents to read aloud to their children for 10 minutes each day, especially from birth through age six. Wally’s new cookie business, Chip & Cookie, LLC proudly supports the work of the Read It LOUD! Foundation by donating 10% of net profit to the Foundation. Wally so strongly believes in the benefits of early childhood literacy that he is often found reading to children in the dedicated reading areas set aside in each Chip & Cookie cookie store, complete with kid size chairs and dozens of his (and the kids) favorite children’s books. (Read full article)
Mr. Amos is an advocate for literacy? You don’t say. And he writes books too? Wow. You know I had to do a little Amazon research to see exactly what he’s published thus far. Shamefully, this is what I found:
WATERMELON MAGIC is talk from the soul using watermelons as a metaphor for life. Watermelons symbolize the slurpy happiness of life for Wally Amos (formerly known as “Famous Amos”). From his life experiences, Wally sees many parallels between humans and watermelons. Just as the vine connects watermelons and the umbilical cord connects mother and child, we are all connected by spirit. Wally shares his personal path to wisdom and tells how he never lost his humor, joy, and positive outlook on life in the process. He shows us how to overcome adversity and make healthy choices – how to reframe and rethink challenging situations in positive, optimistic, and uplifting terms. A master storyteller, Wally believes we all have a choice in our own happiness – no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve been through – and his stories will touch you at the very depth of your soul. If these ideas and beliefs speak to you, grab them like slices of watermelon, devour them, and have fun! Look out for the seeds, and live life to the fullest!
Why Wally? I am not impressed or pleased. I can’t imagine taking a regular photograph holding up a watermelon slice or a piece of fried chicken with a big smile on my face. Forget about that “meaphor for life” nonsense. I say no. And if you aren’t feeling me on this, let me post a few photos for you:
I’m just saying…Wally Amos you know better. I understand taking a positive twist on something, but this ain’t that. Get ya mind right. Happy reading,y’all.
Tyrese Gibson delves into the world of comic books with his new release Mayhem. Although he acknowledges the other contributing authors in interviews, I think its interesting that only his name appears on the cover. No big deal I guess. Comic Book Resources notes:
Gibson is diving headfirst into the four-color world with “Mayhem!”, a brand new three-issue series from Image Comics launching in August. With the assistance of writers Mike Le and Will Wilson and artist Tone Rodriguez, the “Transformers” star is rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands in the ink of the comic book industry. For a star of Tyrese’s caliber, his hands-on approach to the medium might surprise some; after all, how hard would it be for Tyrese to slap his name on the comic book and call it a day?
“That’s not Tyrese,” Mike Le, co-writer of “Mayhem!” and vice president of Tyrese’s HQ Entertainment, told CBR News about the star’s involvement in the series. “I’ve known Tyrese for a long time and he has his hands on every project his name is on. He is one of the best ideas guys I’ve ever met, and [is] just an amazing person to brainstorm with. Like the rest of the team, Tyrese is extremely excited about ‘Mayhem!’” (Read full article)
I’m always excited about lead black comic book characters. I’d love to flip through a copy of this. Happy reading, y’all!
In his new biography,Stormy Weather, James Gavin offers a fascinating study of a complicated woman and the complicated times that shaped her. Gavin interviewed Horne, now 92, only once, in 1994, a few years before she withdrew into reclusion. But through conversations with key figures and probing research, he delivers a portrait of a very human artist who is as compelling for her foibles as her accomplishments. Key to that portrait is Horne’s family background, which includes an adored but absent father, a jealous mother and an activist grandmother who forbade Lena from playing with white children but also harbored disdain for lower-class blacks. That girl evolves into a beautiful young woman who performs for white audiences in clubs where black performers are kept segregated and black fans shunned, and a Hollywood starlet who yearns to defy racial stereotypes as she sees prime roles go to white actresses. Yet the frustration and bitterness afflicting Horne — qualities mined in some of her most triumphant performances, notably 1981’s Broadway smash Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music— aren’t just written off to prejudice and a troubled youth. Gavin documents critics’ qualms and Horne’s own doubts about her abilities; her films, concerts and recordings are zestfully dissected. (Read Full Article or Read an Excerpt)
For the E. Lynn Harris fans who still patiently await a film/theatrical adaptation of his books, BET.com reports:
So will we finally see Harris’ work on the silver screen? Well, the answer literally was being played out a few weeks ago until the day the bestselling author died. Despite fainting on a train en route to Tinseltown to solidify his book-to-movie dreams, Harris typed that he was “soldiering on” in a text message to an assistant. Once he arrived in Los Angeles, he met with producer Tracey Edmonds just hours before he died.
One insider reports that Harris “basically blessed the project” for the film adaptation of “Invisible Life,” his first novel, which shot Harris to fame in 1994. There are reportedly also two finished scripts, one which focuses on the college years and the other on the New York City years of characters Raymond, Nicole and Basil.
Other finished scripts include “Not A Day Goes By” and “I Say A Little Prayer.” In September, the novel “Mama Dearest,” which is the follow-up to “Not A Day Goes By,” hits bookstores. And the first of a new book series Harris had just created titled, “The Bentley Chronicles,” arrives in 2010.
It’s also been confirmed that Harris reserved the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. for a 4-week run in 2010 for “Invisible Life (The Musical),” which was being primed for an eventual Broadway run. So important was this project that the music was written by the legendary duo Ashford & Simpson and the script written by August Wilson’s protégé, Javon Johnson. (Read the full article)
I believe Moonwalk is one of the few Jackson biographies I decided not to read in high school. And I have no plans on purchasing or reading it any time soon.
According to Entertainment Tonight:
Harmony Books has acquired the rights to Moon Walk, Jackson’s only autobiography that was originally published in 1988. The book became an instant No. 1 New York Times bestseller, selling nearly 500,000 copies, according to a release from Harmony Books. The new edition will include a new introduction by a “well known figure.”Moonwalk chronicles Jackson’s life growing up, his time as one member of the Jackson 5, and his mega-success as a solo pop artist. It also unveils his writing process behind his classic pop hits, “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “We Are the World.” The book will also delve into Jackson’s personal relationships, including with his sister Janet Jackson, and celebs friends, like Diana Ross. You can grab the new edition of Moonwalk, selling for $25, on October 13.
Thanks to blackfilm.com, I just learned that they’ve turned Karrine “Superhead” Steffan’s Confessions of a Video Vixen book into a movie.
. . . well . . . kinda . . .
The truth is Steffans inspired Thomas Gibson to create and direct a documentary that sheds light on the unheard voices from the book. In an interview with blackfilm.com, Gibson notes, “I think the underlying thing in all of this is that you can’t believe everything you read and that every story has another side and everyone has a point of view. Everytime you tell the same story, it gets told 100 different ways. Karrine’s version of events is going to be different from Ja Rule’s version of events [ . . . ] we wanted to show another point of view from the guys.” (Read full interview) This might just be worth a watch! Here’s more info:
Go deep into the underworld of hip-hop groupies and video vixens where sex is the backstage pass and young ladies use their bodies as a way to promote themselves and further their own careers. Narrated by top talk radio personality Wendy Williams, Kiss and Tail: Hollwood Jump Off takes a provocative look at the seedy side of the music business where hip-hop groupies pay a high price to get a taste of the celebrity lifestyle. Hear the real, raw truth about the groupie lifestyle from the scene’s biggest stars, including Ja Rule, Big Boi, Akon, Juelz Santana, Twista and more, and get the inside story from one of hip-hop’s most notorious femmes, Karrine: Superhead Steffens. Reenactments show how Karrine sexed her way through the hip-hop world, climbing her way up the ladder before crashing to the bottom. Now a bestselling author, she’s still kissing and telling, but the huge stars she allegedly bedded are telling their side of the story.
The DVD was released July 14th and is currently available on Amazon.com. Happy reading, y’all.
Before I picked up my copy of Nina Simone’s autobiography from the public library (money is tight), I read chunks of David Nathan’s The Soulful Divas. I’ve always enjoyed music biographies. There’s just something about the inner workings of a creative mind. I guess there’s also another part of me that likes to learn about people’s lives before the fame and glitz.
Unfortunately, instead of allowing me to fade into the background to watch 17 songstress’s lives unravel, I had to read about some other random bulljang. Nathan provides those details you would only pretend to care about when the conversation is lagging at a dinner party. For example, I don’t necessarily care about Aretha Franklin’s “melt-in-the-mouth, better-than-ever, to-the-bone, righteously soulful peach cobbler!” or the fact that Nathan set up a fan club for Nina Simone in the U.K. I don’t know David Nathan, but I understand he’s a music journalist. Good. So. . .he has a personal connection to all of the females mentioned in his book. Ok. . . But what I want is a solid biographical sketch that allows me to really dig deep into an individual’s life. Nathan’s book of brief bios didn’t accomplish that for me.
So, after reading a little bit about each of Nathan’s female soul artists, I decided to see who had written biographies of their own. It’s a shame to find out that women like Dionne Warwick, Millie Jackson, and Roberta Flack have yet to write a full-length autobiography or memoir. After all, who can tell about your personal life better than you? A ghost writer? Maybe? Here’s a quick listing of “divas” (featured in Nathan’s book) who have attempted this daring feat:
If any one performer defines the word “superstar,” it’s Diana Ross – a pop-music legend and cultural icon who has been at the top of her profession for three fabulous decades. Secrets of a Sparrow, her inspirational and intimate memoir, which takes its title from a favorite spiritual her mother sang to her, focuses on just that: the pain and pleasure of getting to number one and staying there, along with the lessons learned and the lessons taught. Diana Ross’s onstage electricity and allure are here transposed to the page. With earthiness and humor, the lady looks back – and she isn’t singing the blues. On the contrary, she’s writing in a clear, confident voice about the life she’s worked so hard to build – the early struggle followed by supreme success, the two marriages and five children, the Oscar nomination and countless music honors, the brilliant business acumen. Secrets of a Sparrow gives us the three-dimensional self-portrait of a glamorous woman who prizes her role as wife and mother every bit as much as her spectacular career, to whom love is right up there with fame.
In the tradition of Billie Holiday’s Lady Sings the Blues and Tina Turner’s I, Tina comes this thoughtful memoir from Knight, who, with her back-up group the Pips, enjoyed a string of hits (“I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” etc.) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though lacking the trauma-inspired melodrama of the accounts by Holiday and Turner (Knight’s mother was a member of Martin Luther King Sr.’s Atlanta congregation, and her family was solidly middle-class for much of her childhood), the book nevertheless chronicles a good deal of tribulation, including teenage pregnancy, attempted rape, various addictions and failed marriages. Yet it is also a story of hard work, realized dreams and the ironies of success. Pop music fans will be intrigued by the steady stream of famed figures through the book, including Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin, with whom Knight has experienced a-not-so-friendly rivalry. Knight’s description of her years as a child star on the eve of the civil rights movement resonates with the history of the period, and her recreation of Motown culture is engaging, if somewhat familiar. . .
Khan, winner of 18 Grammy Awards, recently turned 50 and now looks back on a musical career plagued by the excesses of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. She grew up in Chicago and was attracted to the entertainment scene and the radical politics of the Black Panthers. Strong-willed, Khan married early to gain independence from her mother and the freedom to pursue a career with Ask Rufus, the band that would give her her first real break. She went on to a successful solo career, a second failed marriage, several failed relationships, and virtual abandonment of her children to her mother. To escape the reality and stresses of her life, Kahn turned to alcohol and drugs. But intervention by her family sent Khan into recovery and reflection on a legendary career. Khan, whose music style has spanned rock, R & B, and jazz, recalls working with artists including Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Miles Davis. She brings the verve and vibrancy for which she is known to this memoir of her career.
From girl group sensation to hair-raising disco-diva to high-octane superstar, Patti LaBelle has reinvented her image many times over. But Patti, the woman, is the same as she has always been–funny, sassy, and down-to-earth. Now, Patti tells all–from her wild encounters with some of the biggest names in show business to overcoming her own fear of death. Most of all, she reveals how she has survived, and made her own choices, for better or for worse.
Although she is the daughter of legendary singer Nat “King” Cole, she has been no stranger to adversity, both in her career and personal life. The title of her memoir reflects the pop singer’s strong religious beliefs; she is certain that, several times in her life, it was only the intervention of angels that saved her. Frankly describing her devastating addiction to drugs, Cole assumes full responsibility for her past mistakes and could certainly serve as an inspiration to others facing the same terrible struggle. She is also open about domestic troubles including her marital problems and love-hate relationship with her mother. This substantial account of Cole’s life and Grammy Award-winning career also offers interesting glimpses into the inner workings of the pop music industry.
If you happen to order/read/purchase one of these books, you have to grab a “Best of” CD too. How can you read about the music if you can’t hear it?
No single person decides what my book group will read. Well . . . kinda. At each meeting we select one member to present three books for our upcoming read. We pick these books two months in advance to ensure that there is enough time for members to order books online (especially out-of-print) copies and/or make requests from their local library/bookstore.
Each month we select a different genre. This also means that previous genres are excluded. For example, we have already read books from the speculative and general fiction genres. Therefore, for the month of September, one of our member’s selected three books from the mystery genre. This member is also required to select a restaurant or location for the meeting. Check out the books we voted on for our September read:
Isaac Shaw, a respected African-American Alabama mortician, tries but fails to escape his sordid past. In 1967 he impregnated a white teenage girl, “adopted” the son she bore seconds before her death and stuffed her body in someone else’s casket. Moving to Detroit with his barren wife and new son, Eugene, Shaw establishes a funeral home empire and climbs the social ladder. Because Eugene looks white, he doesn’t fit into the black community. He experiences “the intraracial backlash against fair-skinned blacks,” and at the same time, a sense of guilt that he has escaped racial bigotry. In a desperate urge to claim his black heritage, he becomes an artist specializing in African-American images. He also becomes delusional, with a murderous mission. Meanwhile, Lt. “Bloody Mary” Cunningham, along with others of the Detroit Police’s Homicide Squad, investigate a string of murders with a distinctive feature. The killer is targeting conservative African-Americans, and his victims hold an Oreo cookie in their hands…
Set in Detroit, the book opens with the torture murder of a wealthy black couple, John and Lenora Baker, pillars of the city’s African-American society. The case falls to homicide detective Danny Cavanaugh, a white cop raised as the only Caucasian kid in a black neighborhood. Cavanaugh possesses a deep understanding of black culture that gives him an instinctual edge in sorting through the suspects, all of whom invested in a cash-eating Internet company that went belly up. The case, however, shifts suddenly when another member of Detroit’s black power circle is killed in the same way as the Bakers. It dawns on Cavanaugh that all the victims have been light-skinned blacks, those who often find the most favor with the white population and sometimes elicit the most scorn from blacks with darker complexions. Cavanaugh finds himself not only plowing into a politically sensitive case but one that leads down a prickly racial path.
Theresa Galloway is a professional woman with a demanding job, a husband and a family to care for…and a seventy-something mother who gets into more than her share of mischief. So when her mother calls at 3 a.m. to say there’s trouble at her elderly neighbor’s house, and she’s going over to investigate, a worried Theresa has no choice but to get involved. Before the night is over, Theresa will find herself caught up in the harsh brutality of the streets, with a drive-by shooting, a mysterious kidnapping, and a growing pile of still-warm bodies to keep her busy. It is up to her, with the able assistance of her mother, to sort the whole mess out.
We did a tie-breaker vote between Color of Justice and Somebody Else’s Child. The latter was the winner. Happy reading, y’all.
Because of my refusal to update this blog, I don’t know what’s coming out, who’s won what award, and who’s on the best-seller’s list. Shame. I guess I figured having a book group and writing short stories would be my contribution to black literature. Maybe I should consider this blog as a bonus. After all, it helps keep me in the know . . . and some of you too!
I learned on FaceBook a few days ago that E. Lynn Harris died. Interestingly enough, there were no mentions of what he died of. I’ve read a few different things. Did he die of a heart attack or a “serious health setback”? Some have suggested AIDS. Whatever the case (maybe it’s not our business), we have lost a prominent figure in African-American literature. Harris will be missed, but in the meantime, let’s take a moment to recognize his contribution to the canon. According to The New York Times:
Mr. Harris’s leap to fame was an unlikely success story. He was in his mid-30s, making his living as a computer salesman, when he began to write. His first book, “Invisible Life,” was self-published in 1991 — and he sold it himself, too, out of his car, on black college campuses, in barbershops in black neighborhoods — until it was discovered and published as a trade paperback in 1994.
After that Mr. Harris wrote 11 other books, including “Just as I Am,” “If This World Were Mine,” “A Love of My Own” and “Any Way the Wind Blows.” A memoir, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” underscoring how far and how fast Mr. Harris’s star rose, begins with his suicide attempt in August 1990. According to his publisher, Doubleday, Mr. Harris had 10 consecutive books on the New York Times best-seller list, and more than four million copies of his books are in print.
“He wasn’t considered a literary writer,” his agent, John Hawkins, said in an interview on Friday, a fact of which Mr. Harris was very conscious. “He always said he’d like to learn someday to be a good writer, and the people around him all said, ‘Keep still.’ Because his writing touched people.”
In one way, Mr. Harris owed his success to a stranger. One day in the early 1990s, he walked into a bookstore in Atlanta to try to persuade the store manager to carry his self-published book and was given some advice from a saleswoman on the floor whose name he never learned. She told him that he needed a New York agent and that the agent he needed was a man named John Hawkins.
“She mentioned me,” said Mr. Hawkins, who took on “Invisible Life” and sold it to Anchor Books.
“I have no idea who she was or how she knew of me,” Mr. Hawkins said. “But he contacted me, and I read his book, and I said ‘Sure.’ ”
Book lover. More specifically an African American literature book lover. Book club founder. Graduate degree holder. Fiction Writer. Honest opinion giver. Good joke lover. Good food cooker. Cat haver. Former College Station, Atlanta, Tallahassee, Ft. Lauderdale, and Chicago resident. Current Houston, Texas apartment dweller. Florida State University alumni. Gator (UF) hater. Texas A&M alumni. Teach for America alumni. Certified Special Educator. No kids haver. Knowledge Seeker. Research lover. But most importantly...book lover. Contact Me!
. . . filmmaker Will Packer has designs to adapt Steve Harvey’s best-selling book ‘Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man’ for the big screen. An official announcement isn’t expected to be serviced to film industry media until next week, but the mastermind behind black blockbusters such as ‘Stomp The Yard’ and ‘Obsessed’ and Screen Gems have reportedly acquired the film rights to the Amistad/Harper Collins book, which has been atop the New York Times Best Sellers list for the past six months. “It’s pretty amazing,” Harvey, a first-time author, told BlackVoices.com about the book’s meteoric success back in February. “It really has to be some amount of favor from God, because I have no experience at writing a book,” he continued. “It ain’t like I’ve been there, done that. It’s got to be favor from God. It’s gotta be something that he has planned for me bigger than I could see, because I just wanted to write a book so the women on my show could quit asking me to write a book.” (Read more)
I know, I know, I know, many of you guys would just loooove to see Flyy Girl as my first movie. The only problem is, most of the readers who love Flyy Girl so much have never bothered to read many of my other books. So if I gave them Flyy Girl first as a movie, would they even bother to see my otherfilms? Because if I can’t trust them to read the other books, then whyshould I trust them to see the other films? And they have all had PLENTY of time toread my other books. And they ALL GOOD READS!
The Lovely Bones
Between Each Line of Pain and Glory: My Life Story by Gladys Knight
Chaka! Through the Fire by Chaka Khan
Don’t Block the Blessings: Reflections of a Lifetime by Patti Labelle
ke to learn someday to be a good writer, and the people around him all said, ‘Keep still.’ Because his writing touched people.”
