“Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside.” —Cicley Tyson Just As I Am is the stunning life-story of Academy, Tony, and three-time Emmy Award winning actress and trailblazer, Cicely Tyson, detailing her incredible six-decade career on and off screen. It is a personal testimony of how her experiences—some magnificent, others sorrowful, some on screen, many away from it—have given birth to the woman she is still becoming. More ? | Walter Mosley returns with a new installment in his extremely popular Easy Rawlins mystery series! Blood Grove is a crackling, moody, and thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops and grifters, both men and women. Easy will need the help of his friends—from the genius Jackson Blue to the dangerous Mouse Alexander, Fearless Jones, and Christmas Black—to make sense of a case that reveals the darkest impulses humans harbor. | A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a deep south plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony. | “His straightforward no-frills prose tells an effective story of a botched circumcision and its consequences.” —Zakes Mda A Man Who is Not a Man is an evocative story about a young Xhosa man’s trauma and lifelong shame after a rite-of-passage circumcision goes wrong. This botched circumcision is framed as a personal failure, stripping young Lumkile of his humanity, social support system, and labelling him “a failed man.” This powerful coming of age novel follows Lumkile’s journey into manhood, from petty theft and violence in Cape Town, to education and first love in the village, and finally to the harrowing isolation of a mountain hut. With language that moves from raunchy and comical, to tender and earnest, A Man Who is Not a Man challenges the code of silent suffering expected of men, and provides a subversive depiction of masculinity, in all its varied forms. | Mystery Writers of America have nominated The Missing American as for the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, which honors the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, and television. The Missing American tells the story of Accra private investigator Emma Djan’s first missing persons case, which leads her to the darkest depths of the email scams and fetish priests in Ghana, the world’s Internet capital. | The American Library Association (ALA) announced the top books, digital media, video and audio books for children and young adults — including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, and Newbery awards which we track. Below are the Black writers and illustrators who won awards or were honored. | I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Wisconsin Public Radio’s Larry Meiller who hosts a radio program and book club. I shared with him a variety of recommended reads and how I got started with AALBC. Check out the interview. | Dear Reader, As always, you are why I’ve been able to make AALBC the premier platform for books by, or about, Black people. Your paid subscription, book purchases, suggestions, spreading the word, engagement on the site (commenting and social sharing), and advertisements helps support this effort to celebrate Black books and authors. Peace and Love, Troy Johnson Founder & Webmaster, AALBC.com | This Newsletter is Sponsored by Amistad Consider sponsoring our eNewsletter or a dedicated mailing. ? AALBC.com eNewsletter — January 26, 2021 - Issue #315 | |