Random House, 2010 Gripping. Engaging. Rich characterization. Sensory detail. These aren't words commonly associated with reading non-fiction. Every one of them is an accurate description of Isabel Wilkerson's chronicle of "the biggest underreported story of the twentieth century". It's "The Epic Story of America's Great Migration", as the
After I finished reading the fourteenth story in All Aunt Hagar's Children, I thought how about steadily impressed I'd been with the crafting of these stories. Each of them seemed to possess that kind of "I could tell you stories all day" attitude, like the stories were just a collection of
"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I’ve always thought it meant to be a writer." So says Edwidge Danticat, in the early pages of the work inspired by Albert Camus' essay and, also, inspired by countless tales of courageous reading and writing and living.
In the mid-90s, the Lairds were used to publishing 36-page comic books; they were all about entertainment, not about a one-stop volume of African American history. It was quite a challenge for Roland and Taneshia Nash Laird to move from that kind of production, to a full-length book, and
It's been a long time since a book inspired me to create a Spelling It Out.* Generally speaking, it coincides with an author's shifting onto my MRE lists (Must Read Everything). Consider it official: Z.Z. Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere makes her a MRE author for me, and now I'll
