Date Read: March 17th 2024 Published: May 2023 Publisher: Masobe Books Pages: 189 The Blurb Long-standing tensions between a husband, his wife, and her best friend finally come to a breaking point in this sharp domestic comedy of manners, told brilliantly over the course of one day. What if your two favorite people hated each other with a passion? The wife has it all. A big house in a nice neighborhood, a ride-or-die snarky best friend, Temi, with whom to laugh about facile men, and a devoted husband who loves her above all else—even his distaste for Temi. On a seeming ..read more

February is a great time to indulge in the romance genre. Even though Valentine’s Day is over, I consider the whole month of February to be the month of love! Back in 2015, I highlighted The Valentine’s Day Anthology 2015 which was published by Ankara Press. Stories in this anthology are translated into Pidgin, Kpelle, Kiswahili, Yoruba, Igbo, French and Hausa. For every story in English, there is a translated version in either of the languages previously listed. Some of the writers of the stories include: Hawa Jande Golakai, Sarah Ladipo-Manyika, Chikodili Emelumadu, Edwige-Renée Dro, Abubak ..read more

Happy New Year, everyone! New year, new books to anticipate. Below is my annual collage of new books to anticipate this year. I’ve compiled 121 new African, African-American, Black-Brit and Caribbean books that look very promising. This list/collage is just a snippet of books by Black authors 2024 has to offer! Be sure to pre-order/purchase these books from your local bookstore, or you can use my affiliate link. Pharmakon by Teju Cole ..read more

Long time, no blog! (more on that at the end of the blog post) I never thought I’d ever make a blog post on books written by my own friends. Since 2014, I’ve been blogging about books written by Black authors I either have para-social relationships with online, or who are acquaintances. This year, three of my Ghanaian friends published their debuts, and I couldn’t be more proud of them! #ReadGhanaian The Kelewele Connection by Kwatemaa Tweneboah Synopsis What starts out as a quick trip to the kelewele joint on campus, leads two kelewele lovers to discover a connection like no other. Afriyie ..read more

Date Read: July 2nd 2022 Published: 2011 Publisher: Algonquin Books Pages: 368 The Blurb With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, “My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist,” author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a re ..read more

In exactly 1 week, the 2022 AKO Caine Prize winner will be announced! For those who are not familiar, the AKO Caine Prize (formerly as the Caine Prize for African Writing), which was first awarded in year 2000, is an award open to writers from anywhere in Africa for work published in English. It’s focus is on the short story, reflecting the contemporary development of the African story-telling tradition. The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing is a registered charity whose aim is to bring African writing to a wider audience using the annual literary award (source). Some notable winners of ..read more

Date Read: May 15th 2022 To be Published: July 12th 2022 Publisher: Mariner Books Pages: 312 The Blurb From the award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees and Happiness, Like Water comes a brilliant, provocative, up-to-the-minute novel about a young white man’s education and miseducation in contemporary America. Harry Sylvester Bird grows up in Edward, Pennsylvania, with his parents, Wayne and Chevy, whom he greatly dislikes. They’re racist, xenophobic, financially incompetent, and they have quite a few secrets of their own. To Harry, they represent ev ..read more

Happy New Year, everyone! New year, new books to anticipate. Below is my annual collage of new books to anticipate this year. This year I’m not doing the most by highlighting 99 books like I did last year. I’ve compiled just 69 new African, African-American, Black-Brit and Caribbean books that look very promising. Please note – this list/collage is just a snippet of books by Black authors 2022 has to offer ..read more

Long time, no blog! It’s been a while since I posted a book review or book chat… or content, in general. It’s crazy how I started this book blog when I commenced dental school in 2014 and I’m now a Dentist working at a major teaching hospital – praise God! Life is very different now – it’s mostly filled with me looking in peoples’ mouths, making diagnoses, admitting patients with head/neck injuries or infections to the hospital, in the operating room (theater) assisting in head & neck surgeries, extracting, restoring and cleaning teeth. ◊◊ When I was a dental student, I succeeded in readin ..read more

Date re-Read: 2011 & (re-read) April 22nd 2021 Published: 1979 Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books Pages: 90 The Blurb Written by award-winning African novelist Mariama Ba and translated from the original French, So Long a Letter has been recognized as one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. The brief narrative, written as an extended letter, is a sequence of reminiscences—some wistful, some bitter—recounted by recently widowed Senegalese schoolteacher Ramatoulaye Fall. Addressed to a lifelong friend, Aissatou, it is a record of Ramatoulaye’s ..read more