Tag: Penguin Random House

Books, NonFiction

Dapper Dan by Daniel Day

RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 304
Quick Review Daniel Day grew up in Harlem. He learned business and people throwing dice, but his passion for fashion made him into an icon. 

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I tried to be dapper… but it’s quarantine, so I just threw on the nicest clothes I had with me, but also my feet were cold. Knight just looks like he’s sending out an S.O.S. with his eyes.
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Dapper Dan by Daniel Day. | Dress | Blazer | Fascinator | Slippers | Sports Bra | Lipstick

Daniel Day had never crossed my radar until I read Dapper Dan. That shouldn’t be surprising, my knowledge of anything remotely hip-hop is pathetic at best. After reading the book, I know more than I did; so that’s something.

Harlem has been home to a Renaissance, poverty, racism, violence, drugs, gangs, police brutality, art, culture, music, activism, change, and so much more. It’s a small and incredibly controversial area. Day has lived in one of the most interesting places during some of the most interesting years of recent history. Born in 1944, he grew up in the aftermath of the Renaissance, just in time to watch his home change and his family change along with it. From an early age, his life was grounded in education and hustling. A poor kid in a poor area, he hit the streets to make his money throwing dice because that’s where the money was then. He was a promising writer with journalistic aspirations, but it’s hard to dream distant dreams when money’s right in front of you and you’re hungry. Looking “fly” was important in Harlem, and Day did what he could to be the flyest. In his late thirties, he had children to support and wanted to hustle in a less legally gray way. He channeled his love for fashion into a high end boutique centered in and made for Harlem, catering to the hustlers he knew. It wasn’t long before word of his reputation spread throughout the country. Dapper Dan dressed hip-hop stars, rap up-and-comers, hustlers, and anyone who could afford his pieces. He tore down walls marking Harlem as a destination where people could and wanted to shop. 

From the beginning, Day makes it clear this is more than a memoir, it’s a story of systemic injustice. By page four, “It was understood, literally from birth, that the system didn’t really care about keeping our information correctly, that it didn’t really care about us.” His story cannot be told without also telling the story of Harlem, the people surrounding him, and the politics confining them. Day is a product of his environment. A bright kid, he grew up surrounded by hustlers and legends, like Langston Hughes, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Patti LaBelle, Sugar Ray and more. They were all brilliant with a knowledge of the world and no access to it because of racism, prejudice, laws, and stupidity. Day showed a great deal of promise as a student, especially as a writer, having won many local competitions. All that promise didn’t keep him from dropping out of school during his sophomore year to throw dice and hustle like those who came before him, “The long-term benefits of getting an education seemed abstract at best and a lie at worst.” He wouldn’t earn his GED until he was 24; later attending Iona College before dropping out to support his children. Heroin infiltrated Harlem, ruining lives and destroying potential; Day was not immune nor was his family. He went to jail twice for drugs and spent nine months in an Aruban prison for credit card fraud.

No topic is off limits in Dapper Dan. From religion to drugs to jail time to marital affairs, Day does not shy away from telling the ugly truths of his story. In those hard truths, a man exists of unwavering loyalty, hard work, intelligence, and the ability to consciously analyze the root of his failings in order to be a better business owner, husband, father, and man. 

Each part begins with a quote from a black writer or poet. Dapper Dan is sprinkled with literary, societal, political, and historical references spanning centuries and cultures – I had to look up several – from song lyrics to wars to a chapter titled “Raisin in the Sun.” Day is showing off his knowledge base in an endearingly confident manner. He wants the reader to not-so-subtly know he is more than his faults, he’s learned. 

Dapper Dan named his boutique after his moniker. He earned it on the street from the original Dapper Dan, and it stuck with him his entire life. If you google Daniel Day, Daniel Day-Lewis immediately autofills and pops up even if you correct it, but type in Dapper Dan and the fashion revolutionary is the first hit. There was a vacuum in the fashion industry. A lack of partnerships with white owned companies and the lack of black owned companies to partner with made it difficult to start his boutique. He didn’t let those obstacles stop him. Day found a way. He wanted and succeeded in creating a haven for people to purchase quality fashion without feeling unwelcome or the stares or being followed by security guards in stores, like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. When he opened his boutique, he took his skills of reading people and improving what already exists and brought them into his clothing. He started out by selling furs and moved into creating looks inspired by haute couture looks, “I blackenized them.” They weren’t Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, or anything else. They were Dapper Dan’s couture pieces. It took years for the fashion houses to realize what was happening in Harlem, and when they did, shit hit the fan. “They had to see that I had taken these brands and pushed them into new territory,” but they didn’t see it that way. 

Day overcame obstacles only to find more in his way at every turn. Dapper Dan is the story of a man navigating a world ruled by systemic racism. At 75 years old, he is still conquering the fashion world, creating trends, dressing some of the most influential artists, and expanding his mind. I enjoyed the book immensely.  

Memorable Quotes
“After heroin and cruel law enforcement turned neighborhoods like Harlem and South Bronx into ghettos, crack and AIDS arrived to turn our lives into waking nightmares.”
“I started reading and experimenting and sciencing it out.”
“I had never really bought into organized religion, but I was fascinated by the historical need for it.”
“Sometimes a thing happens, and you think that it happened to knock you down, but it turns out the experience really knocked you up.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Dapper Dan; Made in Harlem
Author: Daniel R. Day
With: Mikael Awake
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 978-525510512

Books, NonFiction

A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar

RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 135
Quick Review It has been Matar’s dream to see Sienese art in person, and he documents that dream in this minute memoir.

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Finding ways to enjoy art while quarantined. | A Month in Siena 

If you have a love for art and a desire to not be trapped inside your own home anymore, A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar is a great little book to read. It’s beautiful, inspiring, and consumable in an afternoon. 

Matar was drawn to Siena because of the art. After his father died, he found himself immersed in the Sienese School of painting in museums around the world. Over the years, it became a comforting obsession for him. He looked for it everywhere and had a burning desire to explore it more in its home city of Siena, Italy. After publishing The Return, he wanted to center himself and relax, so he made his way to Siena for a month, where he dove head first into the art world and focused on eight significant pieces. 

One of my favorite things about reading is the tactility of it. A Month in Siena is a beautiful book with glossy pages and images of some of the notable paintings he mentions within the pages. When talking about art, it’s important to see what is being discussed, and Matar wants the reader to visual immerse themselves in the art as much as he did.  

It is more than a memoir or a book about art, it’s a love letter to Siena, to Sienese art, and art history. Matar writes with the confidence of a seasoned writer but with the excitement of a toddler reaching for a favorite sweet. It is evident, he has found himself in the middle of his own personal heaven in Siena. He speaks about getting lost and falling in love with the tangible city instead of the dream he had built up in his mind throughout his life. He fell in love with the city which inspired his beloved art, but he also fell in love with meeting people and unlocking a deeper part of his soul.

The book is beautiful, but you have to have an appreciation and love for art and art history because that is what A Month in Siena is about: Matar’s love for art and the history of the Sienese School of painting. He has a beautiful way of crafting insightful passages, “With every step I pressed deeper into it and, as though in response, it made room.” The sentences create a picture of who he is as a writer but also as a person. He gives meaning to things and the interconnection of everything, “that cities are there in part to render us more intelligent and more intelligible to each other.”

Matar lets the reader into a part of his soul with this tiny memoir. His reverence for art and history come across in every line. I liked reading A Month in Siena, but it’s definitely for a specific demographic of reader. 

Memorable Quotes
“I remember thinking I did not mind dying – that it would have to come at some point – but that I was not quite ready yet, that dying now would be a waste, given how much time I had s not learning how to live.”
“And it must surely follow that what lies behind our longing and nostalgia is exactly this need to be accounted for.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: A Month in Siena
Author: Hisham Matar
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780593129135  

Books, NonFiction

Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer

RaeAnna

Worth a Read Yes
Length 291
Quick Review The closest thing to porn I’ve ever read for a word-nerd.

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Posing with my friend’s flowers in a very writer like pose with  Dreyer’s English. | Dress | Fascinator | Earrings | Lipstick |

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I love everything about language. How it functions. How it changes. How it’s used. How it can be manipulated. I think it’s fascinating on every level. Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer is my version of porn. It’s an amazing book for language lovers, seasoned writers, author hopefuls, and everyone in between. We’re all writers; we do it every day in emails, text messages, proposals, and more. 

Dreyer’s English is my favorite style guide I’ve encountered. It’s not as thick, all-encompassing, or menacing as the MLA, AP, or any other style guide because it’s for writers who want to write. Dreyer writes with a sense of humor. He simultaneously says his way is the best and also allows for every other writer/copyeditor/reader/editor/person to have their own preferences — outside of the Oxford comma — because, if we’re being honest, writing and language are an art and inherently subjective. Do not glaze over the footnotes; they are amazing, full of wit, side remarks, random tidbits, and even mentions notes his copyeditor jotted to him. Gold. Amazing quotes and excerpts from books and media of all genres and eras are used as good and bad examples throughout. Unsurprisingly, Dreyer’s vast vocabulary makes the book even more entertaining to read. It’s unusual I come across a word I don’t know, but I came across a handful I had to look up. 

One of the first sections of the book speaks to breaking rules because that is exactly what artists do, and great writers are artists, “…Great Nonrules of the English Language. You’ve encountered all of these; likely you were taught them in school. I’d like you to free yourself of them.”. Dreyer wants writers to know the rules and break them. He also wants writers to know the stupid rules, which should have never been rules to begin with because there are a great many of those. I was lucky to have brilliant professors who told me a lot of the rules were archaic and stupid, and many of the other rules are breakable. The few things they didn’t teach me, I learned through trial and error as a writer typing, reading, editing, deleting, and retyping my work. One of the best pieces of advice I learned, Dreyer pointed out more than once, “One of the best ways to determine whether your prose is well-constructed is to read it aloud.” Learning is done through visuals, and Dreyer’s English is littered with bad versions and  good versions of sentences. My particular favorite is the correction from: “A mother’s responsibilities are to cook, clean, and the raising of the children” to the much better grammatically and societally: “A father’s responsibilities are to cook, to clean, and to raise the children.” Another fun example mentions my home-state’s capital, “I think of the Internet as a real place, as real as or realer than Des Moines.” It may not be a totally fabulous nod in Iowa’s direction, but it is a nod.

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There’s one thing I always look for in grammar guides: The writer’s opinion on the series comma, or Oxford comma. I’m a groupie of the comma, and anyone who disagrees is an idiot. Luckily, Dreyer is not an idiot and had my vote of confidence when he said, “I don’t want to belabor the point; neither am I willing to negotiate it. Only godless savages eschew the series comma.” Not only does he advocate for the appropriate way to write a series, his advice is spot on, in my humble opinion. I have told every. single. writer. I have ever worked with the same. exact. advice. found in Chapter 1 — and to delete “that” from 98% of their writing. The only thing I disagree with Dreyer on is using an apostrophe s to show possession after words ending in s. (I argue “Jesus’ fish” not “Jesus’s fish” looks better, Mr. Dreyer.)

Language and grammar are political. I took an entire college class on the subject. Dreyer does not come out and say so in Dreyer’s English, but through his footnotes, writing, side comments, and examples, it is clear grammar and language are political.

By the way… GET RID OF THE DOUBLE SPACE AFTER THE PERIOD. It’s been out for a very long time, but some people still do it. It drives me crazy. Benjamin Dreyer is copy chief of Random House. He is literally in charge of grammar at the publishing house. If you don’t want to listen to little old me, listen to him. Also use the Oxford comma. Benjamin Dreyer, the big boss, says so.

I loved reading Dreyer’s English. It’s my kind of porn, or as other people would call it, an accessible and entertaining guide to using the English language. Benjamin Dreyer is funny and smart, while also being relatable. He doesn’t mind letting his inner nerd shine through, which makes him even more relatable to me because I also do this: “Sometimes I’ll read old books as much for the pleasure of their old-fashioned stylistic oddities as for their actual content. We all have our own fun.”

Memorable Quotes
“Copyediting is a knack. It requires a good ear for how language sounds and a good eye for how it manifests itself on the page; it demands an ability to listen to what writers are attempting to do and, hopefully and helpfully, the means to augment it.”
“As much as I like a good rule, I’m an enthusiastic subscriber to the notion of “rules are meant to be broken” — once you’ve learned them, I hasten to add.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Dreyer’s English; An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
Author: Benjamin Dreyer
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780812995701

Books, NonFiction

Becoming by Michelle Obama

RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 426
Quick Review Becoming is the story of how Michelle Obama grew from a little girl on the South Side Chicago to an icon, a role model. 

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Reading Becoming by Michelle Obama in Houston, Texas. | Skirt | Chambray Shirt | Polka Dot Top | Head Band | Watch | Shoes | Glasses | Earrings |

I read this during Black History Month, but life wouldn’t let me sit in one place long enough to sit and write. It is the first book review of Women’s History Month. Apropos since she has done so much for women and women of color in this country and around the world. 

Michelle Obama is funny, complex, intelligent, thoughtful, realistic, loyal, hopefully, and more. It’s so easy to water down a person to the image presented by the media; more often than not, she was left to be the woman standing behind the man in the white house. Up until Becoming, I knew very little about her life outside of the basics. I loved her as the symbol of hope and change she has been for myself and others. As a human, I didn’t really know who she was. As I turned each page, I saw a great deal of my own qualities in her. Type-A, reader, observer, sense of humor, and not wanting to veer from the path but needing to. Michelle Obama is relatable; someone just about anyone could sit down and have tea with. 

For those wanting a book about Barack Obama, he’s written his own. This is about Michelle. Barack shows up because he is a part of her story, but he is a supporting character. She does not let him over take her story, nor does she speak for him. She is telling her story, and she is a force. 

Michelle Obama grew up on the South Side Chicago, watching the neighborhood change from diverse to predominantly black. From a young age, seh was filled with a drive to reach and garner approval from those around her. She studied vigorously and “miserably at my desk, in my puke-green chair – puke green being the official color of the 1970s…” not only proving her sense of humor but her strength of will to withstand such visual torture. After reaching her entire childhood with the support of her parents, she attended Princeton before Harvard Law to become a lawyer in a law firm in downtown Chicago, where she would mentor and fall in love with her husband. 

There is a vulnerability and strength in her story. Struggle was a part of her life from an early age. Growing up black in a city not known for its kindness towards the black population. Her father battled MS. She was a minority in the Ivy League universities she attended and battled discrimination and low expectations her entire life. Michelle Obama spoke about the decision to leave the law after working so hard to get there. It’s a conversation people don’t often have, but I don’t know anyone who hasn’t fought that battle internally. There were so many moments of humanity, vulnerability, and relatability throughout whether it was miscarriage, in vitro, marriage, family, and career. It’s hard not to feel like you know this woman. Very few people can relate or even know the first thing about being on a presidential campaign trail. What most people can relate to is the stress careers can place on a relationship and family. The struggle to support a significant other when it means letting go of hopes and dreams to create new ones. Michelle Obama makes the unrelatable universally relatable.

This story isn’t just hers, though. Through herself, Obama is telling the story of people of color and more specifically women of color. The problem and cyclic nature of the angry black woman, “The easiest way to disregard a woman’s voice is to package her as a scold.” How hatred is incessant and often unfounded, but through acts of kindness and listening, “I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.” The fact that creating minor change is difficult, but creating large scale change to affect a great number of people, “It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.” The Obamas were reaching to make the world a better place for everyone because they understood the struggle intimately. 

When you’re a public figure, it can be hard to be honest and vulnerable, but Michelle Obama does it with sincerity and an open heart. She tackles the struggles women and minorities face, the problems in society and policy, racism and hatred, and more with kindness and honesty. It was a sad day when she and her husband left the white house for many reasons. I love and admire her honesty about the awfullness of Trump and what his presence in the White House means, especially following her husband’s presidency. 

Throughout Becoming, Michelle Obama reveals herself to be a strong, resilient, intelligent, driven woman with kindness, empathy, and tenderness flowing through her every action. Though she may have not had the same big picture change in mind her husband did, the ripples she created in society have been felt as strongly if not more strongly because of her character, compassion, and willingness to be human, accessibly so.

Memorable Quotes
“I just wanted to achieve. Or maybe I didn’t want to be dismissed as incapable of achieving.”
School counselor telling her she wasn’t Princeton material, “Had I decided to believe her, her pronouncement would have toppled my confidence all over again, reviving the old thrum of not enough, not enough.”
About men: “Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.”
On the pain of miscarrying and speaking with friends, “helping me see that what I’d been through was no more than a normal biological hiccup, a fertilized egg that, for what was probably a very good reason, had needed to bail out.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Becoming
Author: Michelle Obama
Publisher: Crown
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9781524763138

Books, NonFiction

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 320
Quick Review “Not Racist” is inherently racist. We’re all racist, but some of us are actively fighting against racism in the world and within ourselves, and that’s called antiracism.

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Reading How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi in Houston, Texas. | Dress  | Headband |

 

I didn’t know who Ibram X. Kendi was until this book. Now I’m a fan. I would love to go to coffee with him and discuss racism, history, and the meaning of life. He seems like the kind of guy who will point out how you’re being an asshole and let you grow from it because he spends How to Be an Antiracist pointing out the times he was a racist and grew from it. These are my favorite people; the people who acknowledge their growth by admitting the reality of their pasts. If only all of history could do the same, the world would be in a much better place. Books like this one are a step in that direction. It calls attention to history at large and personal to demonstrate and juxtapose how the two intertwine and affect each other. History is an amalgam of individual’s choices for good or bad, and all of those choices converge to create society, thought, and policy, which in turn influence individual choice for good or bad. 

Kendi doesn’t state anything revolutionary. If you’re tuned into policy, psychology, history, anthropology, sexuality, philology, African/African-American studies, sociology, gender studies, feminism, ethnic studies, etc., you’ll be aware of most of the topics and ideas in How to Be an Antiracist. The difference is in the wording. Kendi writes clearly and effectively, saying what he means even, especially, when it makes people uncomfortable. I had to stop taking notes and writing down quotes because there were so many poignant moments of blatant honesty. He names things as they are instead of finding a polite way of identifying racism, “Only racists shy away from the R-word – racism is steeped in denial.” As a writer, linguist, and reader, I’m a words person. I like them to be exact, and Kendi is the same. I love that Kendi does not like the word “microaggression” because of its inexactness. As an advocate, I have always used the exact words to describe things because anything else gives room for people to make excuses and shirk personal responsibility. Kendi calls racism racism, especially when it makes people uncomfortable. I’ve always believed people are uncomfortable because they can see themselves in it. 

How to Be an Antiracist is told through personal anecdotes, world history, policy, and culture. Kendi points out what’s wrong with society, policy, and everything by pointing out the ways he has had to face and overcome his own racism while breaking stereotypes, destroying myths, and shedding light on the truth. 

The book is pretty much summed up in the quote, “We know how to be racist. We know how to pretend to be not racist. Now let’s know how to be antiracist.” For more clarification on the term antiracist and the title, this quote speaks for itself,

“The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “antiracist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the  of racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no inbetween safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism.”

How to Be an Antiracist is intellectually stimulating and emotionally draining. Racism is rampant, systemic, cyclical, institutional, and ingrained in culture, history, religion, and policy. So many lines felt like a punch to the chest. I will never have to live in a world where my skin is viewed as a crime and a threat. I will never be able to comprehend that kind of pain, but Kendi’s words cut, making me ache to hug the pain away for every person who has been wronged, forgotten, abused, and left behind. I was also left to question, ‘What would I have done in that White person’s shoes. Would I make those same racist choices? Or would I have been better, done better?’  

Not only is Kendi a brilliant writer and scholar, he is a role model. Everyone has internal biases, which is a nice way of saying: we’re all racists. It’s hard to confront the ugly parts of ourselves, but society can’t move forward until we do so. Kendi is setting an example and a new standard for the way allies, advocates, and activists create change. He does so from the very first page in his introduction where he calls himself out for his racist ideas and misconceptions about the community he belongs to.

People often think books about racism or Black culture are antiwhite, but that, in and of itself, is a racist idea. As How to Be an Antiracist states, “The only thing wrong with White people is when they embrace racist ideas and policies and then deny their ideas and policies are racist.” Calling attention to racism is just that: calling attention to racism. It doesn’t matter your background, ethnicity, education, intelligence, skin color, we are all capable of being racist, but we are all capable of combating that and being antiracist. 

Memorable Quotes
“Internalized racism is the real Black on Black crime.”
“Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic.”
“The Black child is ill-treated like an adult, and the Black adult is ill-treated like a child.”
“Racist ideas make people of color think less of themselves, which makes them more vulnerable to racist ideas. Racist ideas make White people think more of themselves, which further attracts them to racist ideas.”
“The use of standardized tests to measure aptitude and intelligence is one of the most effective racist policies ever devised to degrade Black minds and legally exclude Black bodies.”
“Racist ideas love believers, not thinkers.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: How to Be An Antiracist
Author: Ibram X. Kendi
Publisher: One World (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525509288

Books, NonFiction

The Black Book

RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 224
Quick Review A heartbreaking history of Africans’ struggle to gain humanity, recognition, rights, and the hope for equality in America from 1619 through the 1940s. 

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The Black Book is a devastating history lesson. | Dress | Sweater | Purse | Glasses | Shoes |

The Black Book is absolutely soul crushing and devastating. I read it through tears and fought back bouts of nausea. It is incredibly affecting. I have too many feelings and a lot of guilt during and after reading. I can’t get the words or the images out of my mind. 

Tony Morrison prefaces the book with an incredibly powerful piece. It took my breath away, and I was only on page one. 

History is white-washed more often than not. We have a tendency to romanticize and paint a much prettier picture than the realities people endured. This is particularly atrocious throughout American history and the treatment of the black community. The Black Book is dedicated to an honest history and depiction of life and society. Though it’s not a happy picture, it’s a picture deserving to be told and heard and taught. If history is not learned, it’s doomed to be repeated. We cannot repeat the history contained within these pages. 

The book contains first pictures, news articles, poems, songs, advertisements, excerpts, laws, myths, patents, facts, sports, legends, religion, and so much more. History is being told through the lens of the time period. There is no explanation. The editors give the reader the information and allow them to take away what they will. Although, it would be hard to read it without having a horrible view on history. The editors do not edit or politically correctisize (it’s a word now) the word usage. Racist words and expressions are kept to reflect the times and the hatred the black community faced. 

Death is better than slavery was a recurring theme throughout. There are stories of men and women fighting back, running away, supporting one another, and standing up for themselves and their community. For all the awfulness throughout The Black Book, there is more time spent highlighting the successes and brilliance of the black community than the nightmares imposed by the white people who dictated society. 

There is no part of society that has not been touched and improved by a black person. Throughout history they have fought for the basic right to exist and fought their way into every sphere of culture. Not only were they a part of these spheres, they excelled when everyone told them they couldn’t and weren’t allowed. The Black Book is a testament to black excellence in the face of oppression, violence, and subjugation. For the few who found success, changed culture, opened minds, and affected the law, there are thousands upon millions more who never received the chance. History is a horror, but it can teach us to learn from the mistakes already made. 

I have no doubt, you will be haunted by The Black Book if you take the time to read it, and I highly suggest you do. I finished it with tears in my eyes and hope in my heart. The world is changing. Not as fast as it should, but it is changing. Maybe someday, The Black Book will be a distant memory, but that day is not today. We can still feel the echoes of history loudly in our culture.  

Memorable Quotes
“Steal away, steal away, steal away home. I ain’t got long to stay here.”
“They failed to ask my name and called me negro.” Henry Dumas

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Black Book
Editor: Middleton A. Harris, Morris Levitt, Roger Furman
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9781400068487