February 27, 2010
A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison
by R. Dwayne Betts
Avery Trade
Available 05/04/10 in Paperback
A unique prison narrative that testifies to the power of books to transform a young man’s life
At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts-a good student from a lower- middle-class family-carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a “certifiable” offense, meaning that Betts would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, he served his nine-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state. A Question of Freedom chronicles Betts’s years in prison, reflecting back on his crime and looking ahead to how his experiences and the books he discovered while incarcerated would define him. Utterly alone, Betts confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Confined by cinder-block walls and barbed wire, he discovers the power of language through books, poetry, and his own pen. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity-one that guarantees Betts’s survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.
October 1, 2009
Role of a Lifetime: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Significant Living
by James Brown
FaithWords
Available 09/24/09
We live in a world that all too often operates under the overriding template of self-promotion, embracing a “hooray for me” attitude, and which measures success in increasingly small timeframes dotted with markers of temporal value. Millions of viewers know James Brown as a sports commentator and former athlete. With ROLE OF A LIFETIME, James reveals a different side of his character. Brown rose from a middle-class home to earn a scholarship to Harvard and a chance at a professional sports career before moving on to broadcast journalism. Part memoir and part self-help, this book draws on James’s lessons from his faith and life experiences to guide readers to find fulfillment and significance. He offers values and encouragement to others of all generations, assisting them in their search for meaning in navigating a world that increasingly promotes transient values, if any at all. His message that shortcuts and gimmicks are counterproductive to a person’s success provides hope that there is a God who cares about them and their futures.
September 11, 2009
So many have been asking: What caused you to write 8 books within the last year? Additionally, writing the screenplay for and producing a docu-drama based on my second book “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101)” – all within the same time frame? Basically, I fell in love with writing. I’ve studied many successful people and realized that they have one thing in common and that is – THEY LOVE WHAT THEY DO. Therefore they are good at it. Love is one of the most powerful forces given to man, though it is often overlooked. “For love we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, endure hardships. Without love mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, and hardships our plight in life,” writes Gary Chapman in “The Five Love Languages.”
I never envisioned myself being a writer. I moved to Hollywood in 1996 and just wanted to act. As I stated in my book “When The Dust Settles” I was forced into writing or putting it more subtly it became as a blessing in disguise. While almost going bankrupt in 2004 I stumbled into a 1970s classic film which I so badly wanted to remake. At the time I had no prior experience in film making, except that which I had picked up previously on movie sets. Nonetheless, I was determined to succeed.
For the next three weeks, I made phone calls to find out who held the rights to my intended pet project. When I finally made contact with the studio, a woman answered the phone and told me they were not interested in selling the rights to a third party.
That statement didn’t sit well with me. You see, my plane had already taken off, the fasten-your-seat-belt signs were already extinguished, and the hostess was serving the beverage of the day.
I composed myself, contacted a writer friend whose script was recently optioned by a major studio, and asked him to assist me in writing my script. He did one of the best things a person can do for another: instead of giving me a fish, he showed me how to fish by sending me guidelines for writing a screenplay. I got busy. My mantra echoed for several months, “I’ll write my own. I’ll show them. They’ll be begging for my work someday.” My imaginary airplane was swiftly gaining altitude.
I knew if it was going to be – it was up to me! So I committed my time skill and resources to writing consistently. Each book I wrote, in that process I acquired a subsequent title and embarked upon the task of writing it.
Prior to 2007 I had written two screenplays and in spring of that same year my first book “The 5 Steps to Changing Your Life” was etched. In the summer of 2008 I wrote published and released “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101).” This book has become my bestseller and as a spin off “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101) Workbook” and “Spread Some Love (Relationships 101)” Journal were etched in early 2009. “When the Dust Settles (A True Hollywood Story)” based on my ten year quest in Hollywood followed in tow. This summer saw the release of “Dare to Make A Difference (Success 101),” “Dare to Make A Difference (Success 101) For Teens,” “The 52 Weeks Goal Setting Quest” and “The SUCCESS Triangle.” The latter is a volume of three eclectic books from my inspirational series relating to my climbing up from the bottom.
Back in 2007 after the release of my first book, I had a heart to heart talk with myself and decided that I wasn’t using much of my potential. I decided that no one was going outwork me. Still not adept at using the computer’s keyboard; I had never taken a typing class. My word per minute ratio no doubt was about a few words a minute – I’ve never checked. Someone once said: When the dream is big enough the facts don’t count. It’s my belief that if my thoughts can produce it – I can write it. This fall I’ll be releasing my tenth book “Total Commitment (The Mindset of Champions).”
If writing be the air that I breathe “write on.” When God brings it he doesn’t mess around.
A 2009 Books That Will Enhance Your Life – Release. All Rights Reserved.
April 18, 2009
Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness
by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Atria Paperback
Award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction Jewell Parker Rhodes is a master of her craft, understanding how both real and imagined stories can serve as a pathway to enlightenment. Porch Stories is Rhodes’s tribute to her beloved grandmother, a real account of the love she received and the lessons she learned.
Jewell Parker Rhodes was left in the care of her father and his mother when her own mother abandoned the family. Grandmother Ernestine’s house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was home to four other grandchildren as well. And while its crumbling bricks, lack of air-conditioning, and neighborhood rodents meant that life was anything but easy, the family house was filled with love. Everyone on their street knew and loved Grandmother Ernestine; men would tip their hats and children would rush up for a hug any time she was outside.
No one loved Grandmother Ernestine more than Jewell, who would pass up a movie with her cousins to sit outside on Ernestine’s front stoop and listen to her stories and her words of comfort. Jewell would later move out West to live with her mother and father as they reattempted marriage. But that was a short-lived experience. Before long, she was back in the loving arms of her grandmother, whose wisdom and warmth gave all of her children the tools to overcome the ordinary and extraordinary challenges life brings. Porch Stories, described by Rhodes as “an intergenerational love song,” is a loving tribute that is at once candid, courageous, and reverent — a literary portrait of family love that readers from all walks of life can see in themselves.
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April 12, 2009
This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President
by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
(Harper, 04/01/09, Hardcover)
In January 2006, after the Republic of Liberia had been racked by fourteen years of brutal civil conflict, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — Africa’s “Iron Lady” — was sworn in as president, an event that marked a tremendous turning point in the history of the West African nation. In this stirring memoir, Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power, including her early childhood; her experiences with abuse, imprisonment, and exile; and her fight for democracy and social justice. This compelling tale of survival reveals Sirleaf’s determination to succeed in multiple worlds: from her studies in the United States to her work as an international bank executive to her election campaigning in some of Liberia’s most desperate and war-torn villages and neighborhoods. It is also the story of an outspoken political and social reformer who, despite danger, fought the oppression of dictators and championed change. By sharing her story, Sirleaf encourages women everywhere to pursue leadership roles at the highest levels of power, and gives us all hope that, with perseverance, we can change the world.
April 4, 2009
Triangular Road: A Memoir
by Paule Marshall
Available 03/02/09
In Triangular Road, famed novelist Paule Marshall tells the story of her years as a fledgling young writer in the 1960s. A memoir of self-discovery, it also offers an affectionate tribute to the inimitable Langston Hughes, who entered Marshall’s life during a crucial phase and introduced her to the world of European letters during a whirlwind tour of the continent funded by the State Department. In the course of her journeys to Europe, Barbados, and eventually Africa, Marshall comes to comprehend the historical enormity of the African diaspora, an understanding that fortifies her sense of purpose as a writer.
In this unflinchingly honest memoir, Paule Marshall offers an indelible portrait of a young black woman coming of age as a novelist in a literary world dominated by white men.
March 31, 2009
Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother’s Story
by Asha Bandele
Available 02/01/09
From the author of The Prisoner’s Wife, a poetic, passionate, and powerful memoir about the hard realities of single motherhood
When Asha Bandele, a young poet, fell in love with a prisoner serving a twenty-to-life sentence and became pregnant with his daughter, she had reason to hope they would live together as a family. Rashid was a model prisoner, and expected to be paroled soon. But soon after Nisa was born, Asha’s dreams were shattered. Rashid was denied parole, and told he’d be deported to his native Guyana once released. Asha became a statistic: a single, black mother in New York City.
On the outside, Asha kept it together. She had a great job at a high-profile magazine and a beautiful daughter whom she adored. But inside, she was falling apart. She began drinking and smoking and eventually stumbled into another relationship, one that opened new wounds. This lyrical, astonishingly honest memoir tells of her descent into depression when her life should have been filled with love and joy. Something Like Beautiful is not only Asha’s story, but the story of thousands of women who struggle daily with little help and much against them, and who believe they have no right to acknowledge their pain. Ultimately, drawing inspiration from her daughter, Asha takes account of her life and envisions for herself what she believes is possible for all mothers who thought there was no way out–and then discovered there was.
January 14, 2009
Life Against All Odds
by Alfred Cave
Available 11/26/08
Before he was in his teens, Alfred Cave was already an orphan, a runaway, and a homeless person on the mean streets of New York. Five decades later, he would retire after heading the nation’s largest supported work program, as well as his own successful federal contracting company. This amazing story is recounted in Against All Odds, a stirring account of Cave’s surviving and thriving despite all life could throw at him.
A wide-ranging yet intimate memoir, Against All Odds follows Cave beginning with his earliest recollections in a violently racist South. But the deep-seated attitudes there don’t disappear when he escapes to the North and, later, the U.S. Army. Cave brings readers along for the ride as he rises to a Major, commanding two battalions and receiving a Bronze Star. It’s a revealing glimpse into an ambitious African American soldier’s unique experiences navigating the military’s hesitantly integrated ranks, and the challenges of raising a family along the way. As he returns to the private sector, Cave continues to document an engrossing cast of characters – some endearing, others maddening – that readers won’t soon forget.
January 10, 2009
The Black Girl Next Door: A Memoir
by Jennifer Baszile
Available 01/13/09
A powerful, beautifully written memoir about coming of age as a black girl in an exclusive white suburb in “integrated,” post-Civil Rights California in the 1970s and 1980s.
At six years of age, after winning a foot race against a white classmate, Jennifer Baszile was humiliated to hear her classmate explain that black people “have something in their feet to make them run faster than white people.” When she asked her teacher about it, it was confirmed as true. The next morning, Jennifer’s father accompanied her to school, careful to “assert himself as an informed and concerned parent and not simply a big, black, dangerous man in a first-grade classroom.”
This was the first of many skirmishes in Jennifer’s childhood-long struggle to define herself as “the black girl next door” while living out her parents’ dreams. Success for her was being the smartest and achieving the most, with the consequence that much of her girlhood did not seem like her own but more like the “family project.” But integration took a toll on everyone in the family when strain in her parents’ marriage emerged in her teenage years, and the struggle to be the perfect black family became an unbearable burden.
A deeply personal view of a significant period of American social history, The Black Girl Next Door deftly balances childhood experiences with adult observations, creating an illuminating and poignant look at a unique time in our country’s history.
January 8, 2009
This is a 4CD, 3hrs 20min unabridged audio book (memoir) by Rosemary Kariuki Machua. It is a very captivating story of a daughters quest for justice after three decades of her father’s brutal political assassination. Rosemary Kariuki Machua tells of her memories of the father a Kenyan Independence political heavy weight.
At the time of his death, J.M Kariuki was a millionaire. It is not clear how he amassed his fortune so quickly without somehow engaging on the same vice he was very critical of. His family did not benefit from his wealth, as Kenyatta’s government conspired against them. J.M Kariuki is remembered by Kenyans as a hero as he came to represent the force against the evils that have hemmed the country to this day.
In this powerful audio book, Rosemary clearly points out the sprouting of a culture of political imperialism, impunity and abuse of fundamental human rights among others, that many African governments are grappling with today.
Most interesting, is how emotions (love, anger, jealousy, resentment, and forgiveness) play out against backdrop of social, religious and political realms.
This truly is a must listen to.
