Tag Archives: Roots

Reading Well: Three Memoirs (Cicely Tyson, Stuart Braithwaite, and Dessa)

Cicely Tyson, Just As I Am, with Michelle Burford, 2021; Spaceships over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem and Misspent Youth, 2022; This was not what I expected. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, as you may have noticed. When I do … Continue reading

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Reading Well: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Published in 2016, Colson Whitehead‘s The Underground Railroad is a very hot property: best seller, Oprah Book Club selection, and extraordinarily topical. It’s not quite a work of historical fiction, but it’s not far off: the novel traces the story of an … Continue reading

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Reading Well: Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange & Ifa Bayeza

Some Sing, Some Cry (2010) is a novel by Ntozake Shange and her sister (and playwright) Ifa Bayeza that belongs to a long tradition of explorations of the African-American experience through the eyes of a single family (in this case, the Mayfields). They are a … Continue reading

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