Category Archives: Book Notes

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Hallelujah Anyhow!

Camp Creek Writers Group

Camp Creek Writers Group

Hello World!!!

It’s my birthday month, and I’m feeling blessed to be here – albeit a year older (in a few days, you know a post is coming  🙂 )…But when I think of the alternative, I have to say “Hallelujah Anyhow!”

Today’s post won’t be long, but it is still important. On Sunday, I went to a book launch party for Deborah Hall-Branch. I met Deborah when we were part of a now defunct writers group that met at a local Barnes & Noble.  I felt so proud of her as she read the prologue to her book “Through the Eyes of Abuse.” I plan to do a review of the book later this month after I read the book, but I can already tell it’s a compelling story. Although you would have never guessed it if you met her, Deborah is a survivor of sexual abuse and domestic violence. And she has lived to tell about it and triumph over it!  Hallelujah Anyhow!

Deborah reading the prologue to her book.

Deborah reading the prologue to her book.

Deborah’s launch party was also a reunion of sorts of my writers group. And I think seeing each other again after several months and years, in some cases, provided the fuel to reignite our writer dreams!  Some of us have continued to plod on that harrowing journey to publication. The leader and founder of our group was Denise aka Chicki Brown. She don’t stop! She is working with an agent and has written several books that she hopes will get published. In just a few years, she has become an expert in book publishing. With her persistence, I am sure she will be published. 

Mike Fuller, one of the few guys from the writers group, has compiled his captivating short stories in his book “Chronicles of a Nappi Head.” His testerone-driven stories, at least the ones that I have read, are reminiscent of that movie, “Cooley High.” Brent McKibben, another member, admitted at the party that he hasn’t been writing much lately but decided that he would begin again. Some of his work is featured here.  And his book “Liquid Fiction Volume One: Have You Experienced?” is available on Amazon! Another writer, affectionately known as Jessy, is embarking on grad school while she continues to hone her sci-fi/fantasy writing. As for me, I guess I will stop all the whining and will begun searching for agent again. (Yikes!)

It’s September, the beginning of a new season. It’s time to begin again. Hallelujah Anyhow! I heard this statement in a sermon recently. (My statement is paraphrased.) Every open door is not God’s will and every closed door isn’t closed forever…sometimes you just have to wait….

Just us writers...

Just us writers...

Blessings!

Any thought?

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What’s on Your Summer Reading List?

Up until I was in the sixth grade or so, I thought I wanted to be a librarian. Although I knew about the typical negative stereotypes  of librarians (old, white, spinster, donning cat-eye shaped glasses, hair tightly fashioned in a bun, etc.),  I was convinced that I wanted to become one. 

At the beginning of every summer during my childhood, my father brought the three of us to the public library in downtown College Park to get us enrolled in the summer library reading contest. Each of us received a sheet in which we had to write down the names of the books that we read throughout the summer. If you read a certain amount of books, you would receive prizes at the end of the summer. Although my brothers had to be cajoled into participating in these contests, I relished writing each and every title on my list. So when people asked me what I wanted to become as an adult, I thought the natural response was a librarian since reading was my absolute favorite thing to do. (Eating was a close second, ha, ha.) I wanted to be a writer too, but I didn’t know any writers so becoming a librarian seemed a more attainable choice.

Also, there was this one librarian at College Park Library who was so nice plus she didn’t look like the librarians I read about. She was tall, slender and black with long hair. She didn’t wear glasses, and she was reasonably fashionable. I figured if she could do it then I could do it. In fact, one summer just after I finished the fifth or sixth grade I volunteered to be her assistant at College Park Library. For a few hours each week, I helped her shelve books according to the Dewey Decimal System, read stories to little kids, haul books to various locations, organize the card catalogue system, etc. After that summer, I realized that the job of a librarian was a bit monotonous for me plus my new found discovery of boys didn’t help.

Since those days, I haven’t made an effort to have a “summer reading list” although reading is still my favorite pastime. A new study in the journal Psychological Science demonstrates that people’s brains actually process the actions in a book much like their brains process real life events. In other words, the same brain activity that occurs when one is in love is much like the brain activity that occurs when one is reading about being in love…it’s no wonder that romance novels are so popular with some people. (They are getting off on that stuff!) Anyway, this study just proves what I have experienced since I was a very young child. When I want to go somewhere, I just read a book.

In homage to the infamous “summer reading list,” I have decided to list some of my favorite books from my childhood. I wonder if some of these books are still popular.

1. Ludell and Willie by Brenda Scott Wilkinson. I think I must have read this book during my pre-teens. It is a tender romance story about two black teenagers in Waycross, Georgia in the 1950s. In this book, you can experience segregation and learn about big, thick juicy pickles that make you want to suck the juice out of them before chomping them. This book also made me want to marry a country boy. In fact, I often thought of this book when I dated this guy who is from Vidalia.

2. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret? by Judy Blume. I think Judy Blume books helped raise me. This is a must read for any young girl who has yet to experience her first period. Goodness, those days were so confusing, but books like this help out a lot…

3. The Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. I don’t remember what these books were about exactly. I just remember the heroine of these books was this little girl with a brown bob who was always getting in trouble.  It seemed like there was a ton of these books…

4. The Friends by Rosa Guy. This book is about a friendship between a black girl from the West Indies and a black girl from New York. It reminded me of my friendship with a girl who had just moved to Georgia from Jamaica.  In those days, my quest to find a best friend was as troublesome as my quest to find a mate is now. Maybe it will be resolved as it was then. All of a sudden, she just showed up, and she wasn’t like the best friend I had pictured in my mind. She was a couple of grades ahead of me and had an accent, but I felt I had known her forever…

5. Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly. This book is about a summer romance between a girl that is about to go to college and a high school star athlete who had once seemed unattainable. Apparently, Daly was in college when she wrote the story! If I ever visit Wisconsin, I must visit Fond du Lac where this story takes place.

6. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank. This book is a heartbreaking story of a young Jewish girl and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was forced to hide out in an attic for about two years. This precocious young woman recorded her insights during this unbelievably horrific crime against humanity. Anne ultimately died in a concentration camp.

7. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene. Reading the above mentioned book gave me perspective on this book. This is  a story about a young girl’s crush on a German soldier, who escaped a POW camp. It is an unlikely story as the main character is Jewish. This girl ends up hiding the German soldier who ultimately slips away before their relationship is revealed.

So what are some of your favorite childhood books? Why? Do you have a “summer reading list” now? How is it going? Any suggestions for good reads?

Any thoughts?

P.S. I ran into that librarian in my early 20s. She was working at the public library in Buckhead. Surely, she must have retired by now…

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Book Notes #1 – Blue Like Jazz

Hello World!!!

July has been the busiest month I’ve had all year. Now that I’ve got those deadlines and activities behind me, I can blog again! Yay! I’m sure it’s no surprise  to you that I adore books. In fact, my very first post, which was almost a year ago (Wow!), was about a book that I read.

As a service on this blog, I plan to write book reviews and highlight interesting books periodically that you (my readers – hopefully I have some 🙂 ) may find interesting and helpful. When I rededicated my life to Christ in 1996 and thus tried to remember that I was a Christian on a daily basis, I was at a loss at how to conduct myself. I knew some of the basic commandments – 1. You should probably not get drunk –  at least in front of other Christians. 2. You should probably not have sex unless you  are married. 3. You probably shouldn’t gossip – unless you are praying for someone in a prayer group and you’ve just got to tell their business. 🙂 4.  You should stop listening to any music unless it features a choir – preferably a gospel one with a ridiculously loud soloist. 5. You should probably wear shorts that come to your knees instead of booty-tight short shorts….and on and on. Anyway, I wanted to live as as a Christian but NONE of the basic commandments I knew about appealed to me.

I realized that I could talk to pastors, deacons , Bible study leaders and other people in positions of authority to get some perspective, but they would probably reinforce the commandments that I knew about and add others. So I decided to talk to other regular ole Christians and read books about the Christian experience from other people. My rationale was that God would speak to me through regular people, books and my own life experiences. And He has…but along the way, I have lost my fear of many pastors, deacons, Bible study leaders and other people in positions of authority.  And most times, I no longer mind all of the commandments although I can’t say that I obey all of them…teehee…seriously though, God has spoken to me in a variety of ways about how to live the Christian life…And even today, one of my favorite ways to know more is read the experiences of others…so after my long intro, below is my review of the book Blue Like Jazz – Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller.

I first discovered this book when DKW and I were perusing a Barnes & Noble store in downtown Atlanta. This book jumped out at me because of the title. Although I identify as a Christian, I often feel I don’t fit in with the religious crowd – particularly the crowd I’ve come across in the A. First of all, I prefer smaller churches…I want to feel like I could personally get to know the pastor if I want to…I don’t want to feel like the pastor of the church is as difficult to access as the president probably is…And with so many pastors who use their position as a way to exploit their people for cash, I’ve got to know that a pastor is real…now I’m not saying that if a church is large, some trickery is going on. I know that’s not true…there are some excellent large churches out there, but I just want to feel like I could get to know the pastor personally and that’s hard to do in a large churches. I could say more but let me move on with this review…

So this book is a about a Christian who has unusual ideas about his faith….And by the way, this is going to be an unconventional review…I just plan to recount some of the interesting passages of this book and give my thoughts…I don’t necessarily plan to break the book down sequentially or anything.  In the chapter Faith : Penguin Sex, the author decribes his faith in God…

The goofy thing about Christian faith is that you believe it and don’t believe it at the same time. It isn’t unlike having an imaginary friend. I believe in Jesus; I believe He is the Son of God, but every time I sit down to explain this to somebody I feel like a palm reader, like somebody who works at a circus or a kid who is always making things up or somebody at a Star Trek convention who hasn’t figured out the show isn’t real.

Until.

When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens every ten years because I am such a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric. I see in their eyes the trueness of the story.

I feel the same way…when you decide to become a Christian and you tell others, it kind of feels like you’re saying that you believe in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus or something. (I think I read a similar line somewhere in some book…Ha,ha a similar line is in this book p. 55) It does sound a little silly to say that you believe in a God that you can’t see and that you even pray out loud to a God that has never spoken back audibly- at least to me…And so, it’s hard to to tell others even though that is what Christians are supposed to do – spread the good news aka gospel of Jesus Christ…I remember in my early ’20s, I used to hang around this dude Reggie…I met him through a column he wrote in Essence magazine (it’s a long story — ask me if you are interested…it is a pretty interesting story)

Anyway, me and this dude were obsessed with celebrities, and we would go to various celebrity events around town and compare notes…back in the day, I even met a few (Diddy, Faith, Usher, Andre 3000, Jeru the Damaja etc.) Anyway, Reggie desperately wanted to work at LaFace Records back when it was headquarted in the A…every other word out his mouth was how he made a contact with someone who worked at the record label, and it was only a matter of time before he would be working there…Simultaneously, I was trying to live my life as a newly rededicated Christian, and I wanted to tell Reggie about it…But I couldn’t figure out how to slip in the Good News in between his high octane rants about bum rushing folk until they let him work at LaFace. All of a sudden, we were talking one day about something off the wall I’m sure, and he announces that he has decided to become a Christian and that he believes in Jesus Christ. I was so surprised I wanted to curse, but I’m reasonably sure that wouldn’t have been the right response just then. As he talked, I wondered who got to him before I did…I felt like I was a recruiter for Christ and someone had infringed on my territory. I invited him to my church after that, but it felt really anticlimactic at that point…He even came too…I don’t know what happened to Reggie…I hope he’s doing okay and is still a believer…I’ve gotten a little better about sharing my faith but not much…y’all pray for me…

Here is another interesting passage from the book:

I had become a Christian so why did I still struggle with lust, greed or envy? Why did I want to get drunk at parties or cheat on tests?

When I first rededicated my life to Jesus Christ, I stopped going to clubs for a while…I felt like God wanted me to do that…but after a while, I began going to clubs again with my friends…not on a regular basis but just to hang out every once in a while…some of the time, I decided to have drink…I would say to myself as I was drinking that first drink, this will be it…but another drink or two later, I would find myself laughing hysterically in some dude’s face and trying to coerce him to give me a piggy back ride in the club…not cool…The next day, I would wonder what my friends and God thought of my behavior…

Here is the author’s solution to this dilemma:

Our “behavior” will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible. The laziest of men will swim the English channel to win his woman. I think what Rick said is worth repeating that by accepting God’s love for us, we fall in love with Him, and only then do we have the fuel  we need to obey.

That’s true…but it also helps that I’m getting older…being tipsy in the club at 35 ain’t cute…

Here is the another great line from the book that  describes me I think:

So much of me believes strongly in letting everybody live their own lives, and when I share my faith, I feel like a network marketing guy trying to build my own down line.

Here’s another great passage from the book. This passage comes from the chapter Church: How I Go Without Getting Angry:

The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agreed with them, only they wouldn’t clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the powers of darkness. They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world…The truth is we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important that ourselves. Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus.

I really despise that us against them mentality in Christianity that is highlighted every presidential election. It seems like some Republicans believe that they are the only ones qualified to call themselves Christian and if you don’t agree with all of their views, you are a sinner doomed to hell…

Anywho, I could say more about this book, but I feel like this post is long enough…If you’re looking for an incredibly insightful and humorous book about Christian faith, read Blue Like Jazz…

I’m out….

Any thoughts?