The Trials of Phillis Wheatley by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

 

THE TRIALS OF PHILLIS WHEATLEY: AMERICA'S FIRST BLACK POET AND HER ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS
By Henry Louis Gates Jr. 

While telling the astonishing and ultimately tragic story of Phillis Wheatley, he includes an equally compelling meditation on how the questions of race and equality that haunted our Founders 250 years ago are considerably changed from how we think about race today.
With a good flair for storytelling, Mr. Gates jump-starts us ahead to a day in October 1772 when 18-year-old Phillis is brought before a panel of the most powerful government and cultural officials of the Bay Colony to decide a momentous issue that had become an international cause celebre: Was it possible that an African slave - and a female slave at that - had the intellectual capacity to write classical poetry in English?
This was not an idle question of literary quibbling, as Mr. Gates emphasizes. The issue at root was whether Africans were, according to many of the leading thinkers of the day - such as Francis Bacon, David Hume, Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - descendants of another "species of men," related more to apes than Europeans. The fundamental question of the basic humanity of African slaves underpinned the moral juggling that most found necessary to justify the forcible enslavement of fellow creatures.
That underpinning was already starting to crack. That same year, the British high courts ruled in the famed Somerset case that a slave brought into Britain could not be taken against his will out of the country and back to slavery. It was a long time before Britain outlawed slavery inside its borders, but the fact that anti-slavery advocates could bring such a legal action and win it was truly earthshaking.
As Mr. Gates tells it, the questioning of Phillis about her literary gifts was another such tremor that shook the moralistic justification for slavery. The incident also marked the seminal moment in the development of black American literature and, with irony, another of the trials she would undergo. As it turns out, the panel of Boston's great and good - most of them slave owners - came away convinced that the poems they examined had in fact been written by her.
It seems Phillis had been something of a prodigy from the start. John Wheatley testified that within 16 months of her arrival from Africa, Phillis had learned to speak and read English. Her first poem was written by the time she was 11, and at 13, she had her first poem published in a local newspaper. By 1772, Phillis was in correspondence with well-known literary figures in England and her owners were busy arranging for a London printer to publish a collection of her poetry, which became the first book ever to be published in English by a person of African descent. Its release in 1773 on both sides of the Atlantic made her a true international celebrity.MORE

Dreaming of Dior by Charlotte Smith

Charlotte Smith had already had more than her fair share of fabulous dresses and adventures. She lived life to the fullest in London, Paris and New York before falling in love with Australia and making it her home.

Then she discovered that she had inherited a priceless vintage clothing collection from her American Quaker godmother, Doris Darnell.

When the boxes started arriving, they were filled with more than three thousand pieces dating from 1790 to 1995, from Dior and Chanel originals to a dainty pioneer dress.

But when she unearthed her godmother’s book of stories, the true value of what she had been given hit home. This wasn’t merely a collection of beautiful things; it was a collection of lives. Women’s lives. Tiny snapshots of our joys and disappointments, our entrances and exits, triumphant and tragic.

This is a book for any woman who knows a dress can hold a lifetime of memories.MORE

The Aloha Quilt An Elm Creek Quilts Novel By Jennifer Chiaverini

Another season of Elm Creek Quilt Camp has come to a close, and Bonnie Markham faces a bleak and lonely winter ahead, with her quilt shop out of business and her divorce looming. A welcome escape comes when Claire, a beloved college friend, unexpectedly invites her to Maui to help launch an exciting new business: a quilter’s retreat set at a bed and breakfast amid the vibrant colors and balmy breezes of the Hawaiian Islands. Soon Bonnie finds herself looking out on sparkling waters and banyan trees, planning quilting courses, and learning the history and intricacies of Hawaiian quilting, all the while helping Claire run the inn.
As Bonnie’s adventure unfolds, it quickly becomes clear that Claire’s new business isn’t the only excitement in store for her. Her cheating, soon-to-be ex-husband decides he wants her stake in Elm Creek Quilts, which threatens not only her financial well-being but her dearest friendships as well. Luckily she has the artistic challenge of creating her own unique Hawaiian quilt pattern to distract her—and new friends like Hinano Paoa, owner of the Nä Mele Hawai‘i Music Shop, who introduces Bonnie to the fascinating traditions of Hawaiian culture and reminds her that love can be found when and where you least expect it.MORE

In new book, Molly Ringwald is bringing 'Pretty Back' as adult

Molly Ringwald, 42, isn't quite ready to write her autobiography.

"I'm just halfway through my life. If I write it now, I'll just have to write it again later," she says.

Instead, the redheaded Brat Packer has written Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family and Finding the Perfect Lipstick (It Books, $25.99), out today.

The book is part style guide ("A black blazer can make you look more finished"), part entertaining bible ("Make sure you have enough wine to last"), part mommy handbook ("Don't feel guilty about spending time with your significant other") and, yes, part memoir.

Not that she's writing her life story or anything.

"There is a lot of me in the book, but it's about women in general — about me and my friends, all women," she explains. "There are so many people who have grown up with me that are sort of in this similar situation. That inspired me."

In her acting career, she now finds herself in a situation similar to that of the teen mother she played in 1988's For Keeps but on the other side of the story: as the mother of a teenager.

"The last thing I did that was really big in people's minds were the John Hughes movies where I was playing a teenager, so it seemed like it happened all of a sudden," Ringwald says of her role on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which returns for a third season June 7. "There was no sexy aunt thrown in there. I don't even think I've played the mother of a toddler. So it's odd in that way."MORE

Award-Winning Author Beverly Cleary

Monday April 26, 2010

I'm visiting Portland, Oregon, this week, and signs of beloved children's author Beverly Cleary are everywhere, from the Beverly Cleary children's room in the downtown library to the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden for Children in Portland's Grant Park. Beverly Cleary grew up in Portland and the Klickitat Street neighborhood featured in 14 of her children's books is based on her childhood neighborhood. For several generations, Beverly Cleary has delighted young readers, particularly 8-12 year olds, with her humorous, yet realistic, stories about the ordinary lives of children. She has won numerous awards, including the Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw. Two of her books about Ramona Quimby were designated Newbery Honor Books. Her most recent Ramona book is Ramona's World, published in 1999. Ramona and Beezus, the first movie based on the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, is scheduled for release on July 23, 2010.

The Coretta Scott King Book Awards

Tuesday April 27, 2010

Since today is the anniversary of the birth of Coretta Scott King, it seems like a good time to highlight the Coretta Scott King Book Awards. According to the American Library Association, the purpose of the Coretta Scott King Book Awards is "encourage the artistic expression of the African American experience via literature and the graphic arts, including biographical, historical and social history treatments by African American authors and illustrators." I was pleased to learn that Charles R. Smith Jr. is the recipient of the 2010 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for his sepia-toned photographs that illustrate My People by Langston Hughes. See my review of My People. The 2010 Coretta Scott King Author Award winner is Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, author of Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal. The 2010 Coretta Scott King Book Awards also include two Honor Books and the John Steptoe New Talent Award. See my article about the Coretta Scott King Book Awards for more about the awards and previous winners.

Elizabeth Post Dead: Etiquette Writer And Emily Post Institute Spokeswoman Dies At 89

Elizabeth Post, an etiquette expert known for writing books and magazine columns on manners, has died. She was 89. Post died Saturday in the southwest Florida city of Naples, her family said. Post was the granddaughter-in-law of the country's foremost etiquette expert, Emily Post. In 1965, five years after the elder Post died, Elizabeth took the helm of the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.
To Elizabeth Post, known by family and friends as "Libby," good manners meant having a kind attitude toward everyone.
"Libby was very open minded, fair and flexible," said daughter-in-law Peggy Post on Tuesday. "She was full of common sense and kindness. Not at all pretentious and not at all stuffy."
Born in Englewood, N.J. in 1920, Post married William Goadby Post in 1944. He was the only grandchild of Emily Post, who wrote the seminal book "Emily Post's Etiquette" in 1922. MORE

In Monroe’s Own Handwriting, New Book Documents Search for ‘The Real Marilyn’

Some of the most personal correspondence that Marilyn Monroe wrote in her life, as well as the messages, both intimate and trivial, that she jotted for herself will be published for the first time in a book planned for the fall.
On Tuesday, the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux said that it would release the book, called “Fragments,” in October, containing rare photographs of Monroe as well as reproductions of her typewritten and handwritten letters.
Courtney Hodell, an executive editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, said Monroe’s writing covered a wide range of subjects, including notes on the roles she was working on; exhortations to herself to become a better actress and lists of resolutions on how to do so; notes from her readings about Italian Renaissance art and how to decorate her apartment; and a recipe for stuffing. MORE

George Bush to publish memoir

A memoir by George W. Bush is due out on November 9, announced Crown Publishers on April 26. In Decision Points, President Bush will talk about the 14 most critical and historic decisions in his life and his service as the 43rd US President, according to the press release. Crown Publishers calls the book "a strikingly personal and candid account" that President Bush "has spent almost every day writing" since leaving the Oval Office.
The book will include accounts from the Texas Governor's Mansion on the night of the contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One in the hours following the 9/11 attacks; inside the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq; and in the Oval Office for discussions about the financial crisis and Hurricane Katrina. The former President also writes about his decision to quit drinking, his thoughts on faith, and his relationships with family members.
Decision Points will be priced at $35. A cloth-bound, signed limited edition -1,000 copies total - will sell for $350.

Leaked Copies of Laura Bush's New Book

8:19 AM Wed, Apr 28, 2010 | Permalink Lori Stahl/Reporter    Bio |  E-mail  |  News tips

Former First Lady Laura Bush's new book, Spoken from the Heart, will go on sale next week. But leaked copies that describe her early life and White House years are already making the rounds at New York Times and Politico.
Huffington Post started in with snarky comments about the cover photo earlier this month.
Bush will be a guest on Oprah next week, followed by a media blitz and a cross-country book tour.

Carrie Diaries': Bradshaw before she moved to the 'City'

Ever wonder what Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw was like as a teenager? How she evolved into the smart, sophisticated writer and fashionista so many adore?

Carrie's creator, Candace Bushnell, tells all in The Carrie Diaries (Balzer + Bray, $18.99, on sale Tuesday), a young-adult novel about Carrie's life as a high school senior in a small town in Connecticut.

PHOTOS: See SJP's 'Sex'-y style

Carrie's evolving fashion sense — she's wearing vintage go-go boots in the first chapter — her romantic relationships, her musings on teen culture and her dreams of becoming a writer are all revealed in this first-person narrative Bushnell hopes will attract young and not-so-young readers.

The Carrie Diaries is a coming-of-age story and Bushnell's first book for teens. It's her sixth novel, preceded by a bevy of best sellers including the iconic Sex and the City (1996) and Lipstick Jungle (2005), both of which were TV series. Her last novel, One Fifth Avenue, was published in 2008.MORE

A Strong Woman Behind the Men of DreamWorks

They won’t be disappointed.
Ms. Press is the fiery marketing executive who, among other things, ran the no-holds-barred Oscar campaigns for DreamWorks movies like “American Beauty” and “Dreamgirls.”
Anyone familiar with Ms. Press and her take-charge style will not be surprised to find her occupying a large chunk of Ms. LaPorte’s story. In fact, Ms. Press shows up in more than 50 pages of the book, which is set for publication on May 4 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
That is considerably more than the space devoted to Paul Allen, the billionaire who invested $700 million in DreamWorks after it was founded in 1994.
MORE

Meyer grants Twilight saga's Bree Tanner a 'Second Life'

Brace yourself, Twilight fans. A new book from Stephenie Meyer is on the horizon.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella will be released at 12:01 a.m. June 5.

The 192-page story, an offshoot of the third novel in Meyer's best-selling teen vampire Twilight saga, has a first printing of 1.5 million. It's the first new Twilight title since Breaking Dawn, Book 4, was published two years ago.

The new novella is told in the voice of the teenage Bree, a "newborn vampire" whom we meet on page 569 in Eclipse. Ten pages later, she's dead.

"I started writing this a long time ago," Meyer said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. "It was when I was editing Eclipse. It was more of just an exercise so I could be clear about what was going on in the story." MORE

Shoo, Jimmy Choo by Catey Hill

Title: “SHOO, Jimmy Choo!” The Modern Girl’s Guide to Spending Less and Saving More

Author: Catey Hill

Publisher: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Price: $14.95

Pages: 248

Summary: This book provides fundamental principles that help the average young woman plan for financial success. From analyzing your current financial status, to tackling those credit card debts and student loans to investing in retirement savings, author Catey Hill gives practical advice that will get you on your way to truly “spending less and saving more.” MORE