Men:
Nominations are NOW OPEN for NOVELS you want to discuss in September. You may nominate TWO (2) novels from now until I go to bed on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning we’ll vote on the novels that have been nominated.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The book I’m nominating is the perfect book to read and discuss in the wake of "The Art of Manliness": David Bradley’s "The Chaneysville Incident." All of the issues of the former show up in the latter, but this time those issues are grounded in the question of black manhood: attire, self-sufficiency, the outdoors, masculine behavior in the company of men… And what’s more, all of these issues and questions play out in three generations of the Washington patrilineal line, from the antebellum period up through the early 1980s, when the book was published. In addition, it’s a terrific read; it’s absorbing and compelling, and, by the end, becomes a gripping page-turner. I can’t think of a better one-two punch, so to speak, than discussing "The Chaneysville Incident" in the context of "The Art of Manliness."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/o/asin/0060916818/mockerybird/ref=nosim
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
ReplyDeleteSet in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money.
http://www.amazon.com/Known-World-Edward-P-Jones/dp/0061159174/ref=pd_sim_b_15
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Athena College was snoozing complacently in a small New England town until Coleman Silk--formerly "Silky Silk," undefeated welterweight pro boxer--strode in and shook the place awake. This faculty dean sacked the deadwood, made lots of hot new hires, including Yale-spawned literary-theory wunderkind Delphine Roux, and pissed off so many people for so many decades that now, in 1998, they've all turned on him. He remarks of two students who never showed up for class, "Do they exist or are they spooks?" They turn out to be black, and lodge a bogus charge of racism exploited by his enemies. The flashbacks to Silk's youth in New Jersey are just as important as his turbulent forced retirement, because it turns out that for his entire adult life, Silk has been covering up the fact that he is a black man.
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Stain-Novel-Philip-Roth/dp/0375726349/ref=pd_sim_b_82
My pick is... Chickahominy Fever by Ann McMillan
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Chickahominy-Fever-Civil-War-Mystery/dp/0670031070/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273605225&sr=1-16