Blacks and Books

The New York Times has an article about Black Issues Book Review's new initiative, Blacks and Books: "a monthly insert focusing on books by or of interest to readers of African descent." It will be inserted in African American newspapers like The Baltimore Times, Amsterdam News, and Philadelphia Tribune.

I think it's a great idea which was apparently conceived by Ken Smikle, the new owner of BIBR. One of the main reasons is the lack of media coverage for books of interest to the AA community.

Check out the response from Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review, about this lack of coverage:

“Nothing is sufficiently covered.We get so many books, and space is so limited,” he said, “and we tend to concentrate on serious fiction and nonfiction. So we’re more likely to do a big takeout on Edward P. Jones, as we did, and we published Skip Gates’s introduction to ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ ” he said, referring to Henry Louis Gates Jr. “Our books tend to be a small, select group, but that’s across the board,” he added.

Hmm, based on the fact that the NYT hardly reviews books by black people, is he implying that we don't write much serious stuff?

Anywho, it will be interesting to see how things work out for Blacks and Books.