Friday, January 27, 2017

New Book on my TBR....

Today Vanity Fair reported that an author had received an explosive interview with one of the key people from the Emmett Till Murder.
According to the interview, Carolyn Bryant (who accused Till of whistling at her), admits to lying. Her lie led to the lynching of Till in August of 1955. Bryant'a husband and and his half brother got their day in court but where never convicted; though they did admit to the crime.
I just added this book to my TBR for next month.

Here is the synopsis:
In 2014, protesters ringed the White House, chanting, “How many black kids will you kill? Michael Brown, Emmett Till!” Why did demonstrators invoke the name of a black boy murdered six decades before?

In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional.

The national coalition organized to protest the Till lynching became the foundation of the modern civil rights movement. Only weeks later, Rosa Parks thought about young Emmett as she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, the Emmett Till generation, forever marked by the vicious killing of a boy their own age, launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle into a mass movement. “I can hear the blood of Emmett Till as it calls from the ground,” shouted a black preacher in Albany, Georgia.

But what actually happened to Emmett Till—not the icon of injustice but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, Timothy Tyson’s The Blood of Emmett Till draws on a wealth of new evidence, including the only interview ever given by Carolyn Bryant, the white woman in whose name Till was killed. Tyson’s gripping narrative upends what we thought we knew about the most notorious racial crime in American history.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

"No one ever leaves alive, The house at 7 Ocean Drive"....The Bookbabe Review of The Murder House by James Patterson & David Ellis

I have a fondness for mysteries; and it seems I also have a fondness this month for James Patterson novels. This is my fifth time reading Patterson; however, it's my third time reading him so far this year. (Yes I am aware we are only 25 days into 2017 lol) The Murder House was just the type of page turner I needed. It was dark, twisty, and fast paced. Boy, oh Boy, how it kept me guessing. In the novel we are introduced to Det. Jenna Murphy, who is resettling into a new job in Bridgehampton, NY. Jenna was forced out of a job with NYPD after turning over evidence on dirty cops to the wrong person. So disgraced and wanting to get back to the job she loves she finds herself working for her uncle; in a small town PD.
Just a few weeks after arriving Jenna finds herself trying to weasel her way onto a Murder investigation. However, her uncle (the Chief of Police) puts up road blocks and stops her from getting into deep.
This does not stop Jenna, who is only interested in the truth and finds herself ass deep in a mystery that begins to feel as if it involves the entrie town. And perhaps there is a cover up to keep some the lid on something big. Thrust into the story as well is Noah Walker, the man accused of a horrific double murder. Jenna just can not shake the fact that Noah is not a killer. She can just smell a set up. But she can not really figure out The Who, the what and the why of it all.
Noah himself is just trying to keep his head on straight - all the while trying to understand what's happening to him and how he really fits into all of it. Sooner or later, and very reluctantly, Noah and Jenna are forced to confront one another and join forces to catch a murderer.

This book was one hell of a ride, intense and dark and twisty. It lead you down the path of a sociopathic killer who paraded himself as a pillar of the community. He is the last person you would expect in the end. It also reveals a dangerous secret that about Det. Murphy that even she didn't see coming. I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.com.


Quotes I liked:
"Simpleton with violent tendencies and the empathy of a rattlesnake, but other than that a dear boy"

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

One sit reads: The Trouble with Women by Jacky Flemming

This book has been floating around the Litsy community for a while so I thought I would give it a try. And boy did I not like it. I get that it was supposed to be witty and sarcastic; poking fun at sexism. However, it over did it and was vaguely insulting and obnoxious. I mean I get it but jeez. This could have been so much better. I have this book 3/5 stars on GoodReads.

Here are some images from the book:

Monday, January 16, 2017

New Releases: Coretta Scott King Memoir

It's only fitting that on MLK Day that I find out about the release of a new Coretta Scott King memoir. I really can not wait to purchase this book and to read about her life and how the movement shaped her and her family.

Here is the synopsis of this book:

Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose. While enrolled as one of the first black scholarship students recruited to Antioch College, she became politically and socially active and committed to the peace movement. As a graduate student at the New England Conservatory of Music, determined to pursue her own career as a concert singer, she met Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister insistent that his wife stay home with the children. But in love and devoted to shared Christian beliefs as well as shared racial and economic justice goals, she married Dr. King, and events promptly thrust her into a maelstrom of history throughout which she was a strategic partner, a standard bearer, and so much more.

As a widow and single mother of four, she worked tirelessly to found and develop The King Center as a citadel for world peace, lobbied for fifteen years for the US national holiday in honor of her husband, championed for women's, workers’ and gay rights and was a powerful international voice for nonviolence, freedom and human dignity.

Coretta’s is a love story, a family saga, and the memoir of an extraordinary black woman in twentieth-century America, a brave leader who, in the face of terrorism and violent hatred, stood committed, proud, forgiving, nonviolent, and hopeful every day of her life.

Martin Luther King, Jr Day

Today the U.S. honors civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. King was a man that used his power as a minister to bring about social change. He organized marches, sit ins, and boycotts. The most famous being the Montgomery Bus Boycott - which started with Rosa Parks and lasted for while over a year. King was champion for voting rights and helped to wage war on income inequality. He was a man that was killed way to young and left so much work unfinished. Some of his dreams where realized - desegregation happened during his lifetime. And voting rights were expanded to African Americans.
Of course some of the things King fought for still need work; still gets push back. We are seeing restrictions on voting and income inequality looms larger than ever. So in King's memory I want to dedicate my year to working harder on social justice issues that mean a lot to me - voting, education and, access to healthcare. We are all better people when we are helping to uplift one another Dr. King is proof of that.

^ this last photo is probably my favorite; it is of Dr. King with minister Malcolm X.