Down Home With the Neelys (December BOM)
December 3, 2009
December 2009 Book of the Month
DOWN HOME WITH THE NEELYS: A Southern Family Cookbook by Patrick and Gina Neely
Knopf, May 2009
288 Pages, Hardcover, $27.95
ISBN-10: 0307269949
ISBN-13: 9780307269942
Buy it via Amazon.com
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Meet the Neelys: Pat and Gina, husband-and-wife team, hosts of their own television show, and proprietors of the celebrated Memphis and Nashville eateries, Neely’s Bar-B-Que.
The Neelys’ down-home approach to cooking has earned them the highest accolades from coast to coast. It has also won them millions of viewers on the Food Network. Simply put, the Neelys are all about good food and good times. In this, their eagerly awaited debut cookbook, the Neelys share the delicious food they have been cooking up for years both at home and in their restaurants.
Pat and Gina hail from families with a boundless love of cooking and bedrock traditions of sharing meals. At the Neelys’, mealtime is family time, and that means no stinting on “the sauce.” Indeed, that’s one of the Neely secrets: the liberal application of barbeque sauce to almost anything—spaghetti, nachos, salad, you name it. Of course, there are other secrets as well, and you will find them all in the pages of Down Home with the Neelys, along with more than 120 mouthwatering recipes.
Authors’ Website: http://www.neelysbbq.com
Watch the Neelys online: Down Home with the Neelys – Hulu (clips from their Food Network TV show)
On Facebook: Become a fan via their Facebook Fan Page.
Delilah’s Everyday Soul (December Alternate BOM)
December 3, 2009
December Alternate BOM
DELILAH’S EVERYDAY SOUL: Southern Cooking With Style by Delilah Winder
Running Press, November 2006
288 Pages, Hardcover, $29.95
ISBN-10: 0762426012
ISBN-13: 9780762426010
Buy It: Via Amazon.com
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Tradition meets the 21st century in this hip and colorful cookbook that shows that Soul Food doesn’t have to be “country food.”
In Delilah’s Everyday Soul, chef Delilah Winder shares the Southern-inspired recipes that helped earn her the devotion of many, including television’s Oprah Winfrey, the NFL’s Donovan McNabb, and music’s Patti LaBelle. Sharing more than 100 of her favorite recipes and the stories behind them, Delilah reaches back to her roots and forward to future generations of soul food lovers with her fun, eclectic recipes.
For Delilah, Southern food comes from the heart and touches the soul. The recipes in Delilah’s Everyday Soul are arranged by occasion and accented with special memories, tips, and suggestions for preparing and serving. They feature traditional soul food like Delilah’s delectable fried chicken and strawberry lemonade, and also include more modern renditions of the fare, plus alternative ingredients for those who want to try healthier versions of the spectacular recipes.
Publisher’s Website: http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com
Author’s Website: http://www.delilahwinder.com
Black Book Chat with Carleen Brice
November 10, 2009
If you remember, we had a book chat with Carleen Brice earlier in the year to discuss her first book, Orange Mint & Honey and we’re back for a book discussion of our October Alternate BOM, Children of the Waters. Feel free to post your questions or comments and Carleen will be in throughout the day to “chat” with us and will wrap up any open questions Wednesday morning. Now…let’s chat!
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Still reeling from divorce and feeling estranged from her teenage son, Trish Taylor is in the midst of salvaging the remnants of her life when she uncovers a shocking secret: her sister is alive. For years Trish believed that her mother and infant sister had died in a car accident. But the truth is that her mother fatally overdosed and that Trish’s grandparents put the baby girl up for adoption because her father was black.
After years of drawing on the strength of her black ancestors, Billie Cousins is shocked to discover that she was adopted. Just as surprising, after finally overcoming a series of health struggles, she is pregnant–a dream come true for Billie but a nightmare for her sweetie, Nick, and for her mother, both determined to protect Billie from anything that may disrupt her well-being.
NEWS FROM CARLEEN
Jill Scott (“No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” and singer extraordinaire) will play Nona in the Lifetime Movie Network version of Orange Mint and Honey, which is called “Sins of the Mother.” Nicole Beharie (“American Violet”) portrays Shay, and Mimi Rogers plays Nona’s sponsor Lois.
The photo is of Nicole Beharie (“Shay”), Carleen Brice, and Jill Scott (“Nona”) on the set of “Sins of the Mother.”
Also, here’s a link to an interview Carleen did with a bookseller at the Tattered Cover Book Store – http://www.tatteredcover.com/carleen-brice-interview.
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE
Black Book Chat – Mama Dearest by E. Lynn Harris
November 3, 2009
Welcome to another Black Book Chat as we discuss our October Book of the Month, MAMA DEAREST, by the late E. Lynn Harris. Readers everywhere mourned the death of E. Lynn Harris, but ran out to pick up a copy of MAMA DEAREST in hopes of seeing it hit #1 on the NYT Bestsellers List.
In case you missed it, check out our Online Tribute & Celebration.
MAMA DEAREST by E. Lynn Harris
Karen Hunter Publishing, September 2009
400 Pages, Hardcover, $25.99
ISBN-10: 1439158908
ISBN-13: 978-1439158906
Book Description
New York City, you’ve been warned: Yancey Harrington Braxton is back. The ambitious singer and actress is fired up to move past her recent professional and personal setbacks — including an explosive romance with NFL tight end John Basil Henderson — and prove her talents are stronger than ever. After being out on tour, Yancey realizes what she really wants is to star in her own reality TV series, and she’s even found a rich and well-connected lover to make it happen. There are, however, two women fierce enough to derail Yancey’s plans with ambitions of their own: Madison B., a hot new bombshell taking the music industry by storm, and Ava Middlebrooks, who happens to be Yancey’s own mama dearest. READ MORE
LET’S CHAT!
Jump in and share your thoughts as we talk about Yancey, Ava & the crew.
Push by Sapphire (November BOM)
November 1, 2009
November 2009 Book of the Month
Push by Sapphire
PUSH by Sapphire
Vintage, April 1997
192 Pages, Paperback, $13.00
ISBN-10: 0679766759
ISBN-13: 9780679766759
BOOK DESCRIPTION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sapphire was born in 1950 and spent her first twelve years on army bases in California and Texas. As a teenager she lived in South Philadelphia and Los Angeles. She graduated from City College in New York and received an MFA from Brooklyn College. From 1983 to 1993 she lived in Harlem, where she taught reading and writing to teenagers and adults. Sapphire is a performance poet and the author of a collection of poetry and prose, American Dreams. She lives in New York City.
Also check out the movie, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, in select theaters November 6th – http://www.weareallprecious.com
Also, check out Cast Interviews by Jeff Bayer at The Score Card Review
The Wedding by Dorothy West (Nov 2009 Alternate BOM)
November 1, 2009
November 2009 – Alternate Book of the Month
THE WEDDING by Dorothy West
Anchor, January 1996
265 Pages, Paperback, $13.95
ISBN-10: 0385471440
ISBN-13: 9780385471442
Book Description
On the island of Martha’s Vineyard in the 1950s there exists a proud, insular, nearly unassailable community known as the Oval, made up of the best and brightest of New York’s and Boston’s black bourgeoisie. Dr. Clark Coles and his wife Corinne, pillars of this community, are mortified that their youngest daughter Shelby is set on marrying Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York. Equally alarmed is Lute McNeil, a successful black furniture maker from Boston who is new to Oak Bluffs and desperate for social acceptance. Lute has fallen in love with Shelby Coles, or at least the way of life she represents, and he will stop at nothing to pull her away from Meade. As the day of the wedding approaches, the tension surrounding Shelby, Lute, and Meade builds, climaxing in a single tragic act that will forever change the lives of three American families.
The Wedding is a wise and heartfelt novel about the shackles of race and class we all wear and the price we pay to break them. It is also an unforgettable history of the rise of the black middle class, written by a woman who lived it. Wise, heartfelt, and shattering, The Wedding is Dorothy West’s crowning achievement.
Publisher’s Website: http://www.harpswellanchor.com
Children of the Waters by Carleen Brice
October 6, 2009
October Alternate Book of the Month
CHILDREN OF THE WATERS by Carleen Brice
One World/Ballantine, June 2009
336 Pages, Paperback, $14.00
ISBN-10: 0345499077
ISBN-13: 978-0345499073
Book Description
Still reeling from divorce and feeling estranged from her teenage son, Trish Taylor is in the midst of salvaging the remnants of her life when she uncovers a shocking secret: her sister is alive. For years Trish believed that her mother and infant sister had died in a car accident. But the truth is that her mother fatally overdosed and that Trish’s grandparents put the baby girl up for adoption because her father was black.
After years of drawing on the strength of her black ancestors, Billie Cousins is shocked to discover that she was adopted. Just as surprising, after finally overcoming a series of health struggles, she is pregnant–a dream come true for Billie but a nightmare for her sweetie, Nick, and for her mother, both determined to protect Billie from anything that may disrupt her well-being.
Publisher’s Website: www.randomhouse.com
Author’s Website: www.carleenbrice.com
Black Book Chat with Connie Briscoe
October 6, 2009
Sisters & Husbands was our September 2009 main Book of the Month (BOM) and it’s great to have Connie Briscoe here throughout the day to chat with us. So, feel free to jump in and get your discussion on!!
SHORT BIO
Connie Briscoe has been a full-time published author for more than 15 years, with six novels, one photo-essay book and one novella published to date. She’s worked with HarperCollins, Doubleday, Ballentine, Harlequin and Grand Central Publishing. Her work has hit many major best-seller lists, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today Weekend, and Essence magazine.
THE AUTHOR SPEAKS
When I wrote Sisters and Lovers, the prequel to Sisters and Husbands, I was single after a divorce
many years earlier. Many of my girlfriends were also single. I remember thinking how different life was for us than it had been for my parents’ generation. Back then, most women were married with children at an early age. My generation was less inclined to take the plunge before reaching their thirties. Many of us, whether single by choice or chance, had to learn to accept life without a mate well into our thirties and beyond. That’s how Beverly was born. When the novel opens, she’s 39, still single and struggling with her situation.
Flash forward. In Sisters and Husbands it’s ten years later and Beverly is engaged to be married. After a string of lovers, she’s about to take a husband, or so it seems. By this time Beverly has learned to accept life as a single woman and even to question the necessity of marriage since she’s seen the marriages of her sisters and girlfriends fall apart, and now she’s got cold feet. Will she got through with it?
I went through a similar phase. I first got married in my twenties. It lasted less than a year. He wasn’t the right man for me, and I got out. I couldn’t understand how I could have been so mistaken, and the experience soured me on marriage. But I’ve always liked the idea of marriage–companionship for life, a sex partner for life, raising children and growing old together. My parents had that. So 15 years later I decided to try again, and we’re going on 10 years of marriage now.
With age, wisdom and experience maybe you can succeed where before you failed.
Website: http://www.conniebriscoe.com
Mama Dearest by E. Lynn Harris
October 1, 2009
OCTOBER 2009 BOM Selection
MAMA DEAREST by E. Lynn Harris
Karen Hunter, September 2009
400 Pages, Hardcover, $25.99
ISBN-10: 1439158908
ISBN-13: 978-1439158906
Book Description
New York City, you’ve been warned: Yancey Harrington Braxton is back. The ambitious singer and actress is fired up to move past her recent professional and personal setbacks — including an explosive romance with NFL tight end John Basil Henderson — and prove her talents are stronger than ever. After being out on tour, Yancey realizes what she really wants is to star in her own reality TV series, and she’s even found a rich and well-connected lover to make it happen. There are, however, two women fierce enough to derail Yancey’s plans with ambitions of their own: Madison B., a hot new bombshell taking the music industry by storm, and Ava Middlebrooks, who happens to be Yancey’s own mama dearest.
Ava is out, about, and ready to reclaim her throne. Not even a stint in prison for attempted murder has curbed Ava’s competitive nature, and it doesn’t faze her in the least that her #1 rival is her own daughter. Ava is willing to do whatever it takes to make Yancey pay, including using Madison B. to turn Yancey’s world upside-down by forcing her to confront the past…and making her comeback dreams more exciting and dangerous than she ever imagined.
Taking readers on a wild, passion-filled tour of the entertainment world, E. Lynn Harris’s Mama Dearest delivers sensual thrills and electric plot twists — with one unforgettable woman of radiant star power, sexual magnetism, and unapologetic ambition at the heart of the action.
Publisher’s Website: www.karenhunterpublishing.com
Author’s Website: www.elynnharris.com
See Our Online Tribute & Celebration
Sisters & Husbands by Connie Briscoe
September 2, 2009
SEPTEMBER 2009 BOM Selection
SISTERS AND HUSBANDS by Connie Briscoe
Grand Central Publishing, June 2009
288 Pages, Hardcover, $24.99
ISBN-10: 0446534897
ISBN-13: 978-0446534895
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Ten years have passed since Sisters and Lovers, and Beverly, now 39, is engaged to Julian, a man her family and friends agree is the epitome of a great catch: he’s gorgeous, loyal, trustworthy, successful, and very much in love with her. Since this is Beverly’s third engagement in the past five years, after breaking off the previous two at the last moment, everyone’s happy that she’s finally settling down. For Beverly and Julian, nothing could be better than being in love and planning their wedding. That is until Beverly’s oldest sister’s marriage falls apart and dampens the mood of what should have been the happiest time in Beverly’s life. Now, second-guessing her impending nuptials, Beverly is forced to wonder if marriage really works. Will she stick it out? Or will her fears cloud her judgment once again?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connie Briscoe has been a full-time published author for more than ten years. Born with a hearing impairment, Connie never allowed that to stop her from pursuing her dreams…writing. Since she left the world of editing to become a writer, Connie has hit the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.
Publisher’s Website: http://www.hatchettbookgroup.com
Author’s Website: http://www.conniebriscoe.com
