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Is this how you write a review, when you don't want to like a book, but end up liking it anyway? I think the review was cool, had a witty tone (Slangin in the rain, that's funny). But my own bias got the best of me when reading it--Gangsta rapper pens lucid autobiography. Give me a break! Just because he floods the radio with his mediocrity (and millions celebrate it) doesn't me he deserves props because his book is "decent."

The LA Times did a profile of Denise Nicholas. As a young woman she toured with the Free Southern Theatre during the civil rights movement. This was one of her experiences:

"One day, she had the barrel of a gun jabbed at her temple by a New Orleans
police officer as she stepped out of her French Quarter apartment. She was
looking for visiting photojournalists who hadn't returned from a trip across the
street to buy cigarettes. The photographers lay prostrate on the ground while
the police ripped out their film documenting the strife they had seen while in
Mississippi. She was 20 years old."

Glad to see her getting some nice exposure. Her novel is very next on my reading list.

Just finished reading John Crow's Devil by Marlon James (I thought I should read it before Saturday's event). One word: FYAH! I'm not kidding. This should be a B&N Discover New Writers (one of the few programs where publishers don't have to pay to be selected). As a first novel, it is incredibly strong and confident, while being unique, a little disturbing at times and surprising. There's a cover quote from Kaylie Jones that compares it to early Marquez. And I could see that, it did make me think of Chronicle of a Death Foretold. But I also thought of Patrick Chamosieau (School Days) and Ama Ata Aidoo because John Crow's Devil has this indigenous, patois narration that is at times a call and response, it varies, but it distinctly mimics oral storytelling, a notable device in some Caribbean and African texts. But then he'll switch to a traditional third-person omniscient. Not easy to do. It's not constructed like your "normal" novel, the characterization can be subtle at times, he tells you things when he's ready, although it does add to its suspense but it works for me.

I tend to like books that other folks think are "strange."