Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad by Tamara J. Walker

 

Hello my lovely readers! This book reinvigorated my love for travel. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS
Part historical exploration, part travel memoir, Beyond the Shores reveals poignant histories of a diverse group of African Americans who have left the United States over the course of the past century. Tying these tales together is Dr. Tamara J. Walker’s personal account of her family’s–and her own–experiences abroad, in France, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, and beyond. Together, the interwoven stories highlight African Americans’ complicated relationship to the United States and world at large.

Beyond the Shores is not just about where African Americans stayed or where they ate when they traveled, but about why they left in the first place and how they were treated once they reached their destinations. Drawing on years of research, Walker chronicles their experiences in atmospheric detail, taking readers from well-known capital cities to more unusual destinations like Yangiyol, Uzbekistan and Kabondo, Kenya. She follows Florence Mills, the would-be Josephine Baker of her day, in Paris, and Richard Wright, the author-turned-actor and filmmaker, in Buenos Aires. She relays tender stories of adventurous travelers, including a group of gifted Black crop scientists in the 1930s, a housewife searching for purpose in the 1950s, a Peace Corps volunteer discovering his identity in the 1970s, and her own grandfather who, after losing his eye fighting in World War II and returning to a country that showed no signs of honoring his sacrifice, set out with his wife and children on a circuitous journey that sent them back and forth across the Atlantic.

By sharing the histories of those who escaped the racism of the United States to try their hands at life abroad, Beyond the Shores shines a light on the meaning of home and the search for a better life.

The Talk of the Party by Foluso Agbaje

Hello my lovely readers! I'm just chugging along on these reviews lately! Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
In a family built on lies, what happens when the truth comes out?

Bukola Obanile’s 60th birthday party is the hottest ticket in town. But champagne isn’t all that is being served…

The Obaniles picture-perfect life is the envy of all Lagos society, and everyone wants a piece. So, when renowned matriarch Bukola’s birthday approaches there are no expenses spared, five hundred guests are invited, and her four children all in attendance. Everything will be perfect, just as planned.

Except living the dream comes at a price and, as the party draws closer each of the Obanile children find themselves embroiled in scandals that could shatter the flawless reputation their mother has carefully built.

As the music builds and chandeliers glitter, this one perfect night could be all it takes to destroy a family built on deception…

QUICK REVIEWS pt. XII

Hello my lovely readers! This collection of quick reviews were all audiobooks and surprisingly diverse! We have Thailand, South Korea, USA and South Africa all in the mix. Let's get into it.

Days of Feasting and Rejoice
Esther Maile, is an expat American living in Thailand in a house rented by the richer, more popular Christine. While on holiday in Bali, Christine is caught by an ocean wave and drowns. Esther rushes to save her, but in the chaos that ensues, the police arrive and confuse Esther for Christine. For someone who would prefer to be anyone but herself, this is the perfect solution — no matter the consequences.

*This was a decent book. A short, tight, crime novel, but nothing to write home about. 3 out of 5 stars.

The Summer Girlfriend by Kristina Forest
A stand-in girlfriend and a handsome business heir find that their fake summer fling is feeling way too real.

*This was cute, but I wish it would've had a bit more drama. They were immediately attracted to each other so there's no tension there. I would've liked to see Noel deal with her business as a hired bridesmaid longer before she takes this gig. I also would've liked to see more family tension with Noel. Jeremiah's family immediately accepts Noel with no hesitation. If I'm part of a family business conglomerate, I'm side eyeing anyone who just pops up as a significant other, simply because I want to make sure they're here for the right reasons. 3 out of 5 stars.

Black Folk Could Fly by Randall Kenan

Hello my lovely readers! Another day, another Randall Kenan book! Let's get into it. 

SYNOPSIS
"Rich in identity," as he described himself, Randall Kenan wrote widely and profoundly about what it meant to be Black, gay, and Southern. He confessed himself "elusive"--yet revealed himself in astonishing prose--memories of his three mothers (especially Mama, his great-aunt); recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapture in books; his sensual evocations of tobacco picking and hogkilling, butterbeans and scuppernongs, of the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up. Here too is his intellectual coming-of-age: his passion for science fiction; his informed and ecstatic appreciations of James Baldwin, Ingmar Bergman, Gordon Parks, and Eartha Kitt; his grappling with the politics and meaning of race (a fiction) and home (an inescapable, visceral reality).

This powerful collection is a testament to a polymathic mind, a wise soul, and a sublimely gifted writer from whom readers will always wish to have more to read.

The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture by Courtney Thorsson

Hello my lovely readers! Another day, another book. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group--which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others--would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation.

The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers by Carlos Barragán

 

Hello my lovely readers! Back at it again with another review! Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
Ikotun, one of Lagos’s poorest neighborhoods, lies ten miles and a world away from the towers and beaches at the heart of Nigeria’s megacity. By day, the market vibrates with the sound of traders hawking their wares. By night, thousands of workers of another kind begin their shifts in bars and crumbling apartments: these are the Yahoo Boys.

Mostly men in their teens and twenties, many turning to drugs to stay awake as they chat with “clients” overseas, the Yahoo Boys are online romance scammers. Whether impersonating male celebrities or anonymous young women, each year they catfish millions of dollars from victims. Some have attained the status of folk heroes, while thousands more “cash out” only to lose it all.

Inspired by his mother’s own brush with a scammer, the journalist Carlos Barragán takes us on a journey to understand the lives of the Yahoo Boys of Ikotun. We meet Biggy and Chibuike, each struggling with the temptations of fast money; Azeez, a tailor’s apprentice caught between the lure of crime and Nigeria’s economic crisis; and Richie, who is convinced that he’s responsible for the death of a woman in Kentucky he manipulated online for years.

Edo's Souls by Stella Gaitano

Hello my lovely readers! I originally wanted to read this for Read Africa month, but time got away from me. Better late than never! Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
When a young Lucy-Eghino, who is coming of age in a 1970s village in southern Sudan, is beset by rumours of approaching violence, she has no choice but to flee - first to Juba, then northwards to Khartoum. Marco, a gentle young father, wages a daily battle to keep his family together while avoiding friction with any northerners. Peter, a soldier unsure of where his loyalties lie, is forced to carry out night raids searching for bands of rebels.

Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery by Heather Andrea Williams

Hello my lovely readers! This has been on my shelf FOREVER and I finally got to it. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
After the Civil War, African Americans placed poignant information wanted advertisements in newspapers, searching for missing family members. Inspired by the power of these ads, Heather Andrea Williams uses slave narratives, letters, interviews, public records, and diaries to guide readers back to devastating moments of family separation during slavery when people were sold away from parents, siblings, spouses, and children. Williams explores the heartbreaking stories of separation and the long, usually unsuccessful journeys toward reunification. Examining the interior lives of the enslaved and freedpeople as they tried to come to terms with great loss, Williams grounds their grief, fear, anger, longing, frustration, and hope in the history of American slavery and the domestic slave trade.

Williams follows those who were separated, chronicles their searches, and documents the rare experience of reunion. She also explores the sympathy, indifference, hostility, or empathy expressed by whites about sundered black families. Williams shows how searches for family members in the post-Civil War era continue to reverberate in African American culture in the ongoing search for family history and connection across generations.