Tag author

The viewer peers through leaves at a young Black girl standing at the edge of water where ripples circle.

Meet Nyani Nkrumah, Author of Wade in the Water

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The viewer peers through leaves at a young Black girl standing at the edge of water where ripples circle.

“Stunning…The author is supremely gifted at bringing both her characters and their close-knit rural town to life. Readers will eagerly await more from this writer.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Mon, Mar 27; 7 – 8 pm
HCLS Miller Branch and online
Register at bit.ly/AuthorNyaniNkrumah

Resonant with the emotional urgency of Alice Walker’s classic Meridian and the poignant charm of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, this gripping debut novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class explores the unlikely friendship between a precocious black girl and a mysterious white woman in a small Mississippi town in the early 1980s.

More from Publisher’s Weekly:

Nkrumah’s stunning debut revolves around an unlikely friendship between an 11-year-old Black girl and a middle-aged white woman in 1982 Ricksville, Miss., and the segregated town’s fraught history. Intelligent, questioning Ella stands out in her light-skinned Black family because she is the result of her mother’s fling with a much darker-skinned man. Her ne’er-do-well stepfather Leroy is seldom home, but when he is, he takes out his rage and humiliation by sexually abusing Ella, while her mother treats her with contempt and frequent whippings. Meanwhile, a white Princeton University professor named Katherine St. James, who was raised in Mississippi, stirs things up when she moves into the Black half of town for a research project. Though it’s been almost 20 years since the killings of three voting-rights activists nearby, the case remains unsolved and racial tensions still run high. Against this backdrop, Katherine becomes a tutor and mother figure to the love-starved Ella, but as shocking revelations emerge about Katherine’s past in 1960s Mississippi, Nkrumah leads readers to reflect on the limits of the professor’s good intentions. The author is supremely gifted at bringing both her characters and their close-knit rural town to life. Readers will eagerly await more from this writer.

Nyani Nkrumah was born in Boston and grew up in Ghana, West Africa, and later Zimbabwe. Nyani graduated from Amherst College, has a Masters from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and earned a Ph.D from Cornell University. A Fulbright Fellow, she lives in the Washington, DC area with her family and works in international development.

Author Works with Kathryn Finney

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Thursday, Jan 19
6:30 – 7:30 pm
online  
Registration and more information at bit.ly/hclsfinney

Turn your passion into profit! If you have ever dreamed about starting a business, you need to know about Kathryn Finney. She encourages you to not wait for the system to let you in. Her new book, Build the D*mn Thing, is the essential guide to knowing, breaking, remaking, and building your own rules of entrepreneurship.

She explains how to build a business from the ground up, from developing a business plan to finding investors, growing a team, and refining a product.  

Finney, an investor and startup champion, is the founder and managing general partner of Genius Guild, a Chicago-based venture fund that invests in scalable businesses led by Black founders using innovation to build and promote healthy communities. Build The D*mn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business if You’re Not a Rich White Guy made the Wall Street Journal bestsellers list in its first week of release.

In partnership with Columbia Inspired magazine and The 3rd, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, co-created, community of Women of Color entrepreneurs.

The author looks straight at the camera, resting her chin between her hands. She has short, curly hair and glasses.

Meet the Author: Sheryll Cashin

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The author looks straight at the camera, resting her chin between her hands. She has short, curly hair and glasses.

Thu, Oct 13, 7 – 8 pm
Miller Branch
Register at bit.ly/hclscashin

Sheryll Cashin discusses her new book, White Space, Black Hood, which traces the history of anti-Black residential caste — boundary maintenance, opportunity hoarding, and stereotype-driven surveillance. It unpacks the current legacy so we can begin the work to dismantle the structures and policies that undermine Black lives. The iconic Black hood, like slavery and Jim Crow, is a peculiar American institution animated by the ideology of white supremacy. Politicians and people of all colors propagated “ghetto” myths to justify racist policies that concentrated poverty in the hood and created high-opportunity white spaces.

Drawing on nearly two decades of research in cities around the U.S., Cashin traces the processes of residential caste and contends that geography is now central to American caste. Poverty-free havens and poverty-dense hoods would not exist if the state had not designed, constructed, and maintained this physical racial order.

The book cover has a bright red splash painted over orange, with bold type

Cashin calls for abolition of these state-sanctioned processes. The ultimate goal is to change the lens through which society sees residents of poor Black neighborhoods from presumed thug to presumed citizen, and to transform the relationship of the state with these neighborhoods from punitive to caring.

Deeply researched and sharply written, White Space, Black Hood is a call to action for repairing what white supremacy still breaks.

Cashin is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice at Georgetown University and an active member of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Follow her at sheryllcashin.com and on Twitter @sheryllcashin.

The author, with long grey hair pulled away from her face, leans against a white birch tree. She is wearing a richly colored and patterned poncho and dangling beaded earrings.

Author Works with Robin Wall Kimmerer

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The book cover shows a single braid of yellow sweetgrass stretching horizontally below the title.

Wed, Sep 14, 7 – 8:30 pm
online
Register at bit.ly/braidingsweetgrasshcls

Acclaimed author and scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer explores the dominant themes of her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, which include cultivation of a reciprocal relationship with the living world. Consider what we might learn if we understood plants as our teachers, from both a scientific and an indigenous perspective.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.

The author, with long grey hair pulled away from her face, leans against a white birch tree. She is wearing a richly colored and patterned poncho and dangling beaded earrings.

As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a B.S. in Botany from SUNY ESF, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.

Braiding Sweetgrass is available to borrow in print, e-book, and e-audiobook, or you can purchase online from The Last Word Bookstore.

The event is part of the “Guide to Indigenous Maryland” project. This program is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Maryland State Library, as well as by the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System. Maryland Libraries Together is a collaboration of Maryland libraries to engage communities in enriching educational experiences that advance an understanding of the issues of our time. Learn more at bit.ly/indigenousmd

The cover of The Gaza Kitchen is a full cover photograph of a wide variety of food, including a whole fish, rice, and hummus.

A Conversation & Cooking Demo with Author Laila El-Haddad

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The cover of The Gaza Kitchen is a full cover photograph of a wide variety of food, including a whole fish, rice, and hummus.

by Kristen B.

Author and Journalist Laila El-Haddad discusses the history of spices and cuisine from the Middle East and demonstrates some of her recipes in this special virtual event on January 20.

Her book is extraordinary, clearly a labor of love. She talks about living and political conditions in Gaza, while also providing recipes for standard and special dishes of the region. She explains the regional pantry of ingredients and various techniques. I learned that the flavors that separate Gazan cuisine from other Palestinian cooking are hot chilies and dill. I can’t wait to try a couple of recipes (although my family has a notoriously low tolerance for heat), especially for various kebabs.

My favorite parts, though, are the abundance of photography and the personal interviews. This book is simply stuffed full of pictures: food and preparation steps, sure, but also portraits and places. It’s like taking a tour! And El-Haddad included these wonderful side-bar individual interviews, mostly with women and some local farmers. They give such a revealing glimpse into the lives of ordinary Gazan people. My favorite was with one woman, Um Sultan, who was less than happy that her routine, easy kufta recipe was to be included. Who wants to be to be singled out for their good, plain cooking as opposed to something more complicated and impressive? I learned a lot, but mostly was reminded of the power of food to cross barriers and bring people together to enjoy a good meal.

The Fertile Crescent region—the swath of land comprising a vast portion of today’s Middle East—has long been regarded as pivotal to the rise of civilization. Alongside the story of human development, innovation, and progress, there is a culinary tradition of equal richness and importance. The book includes a quote from Anthony Bourdain on the cover:

“An important book on an egregiously underappreciated, under-reported area of gastronomy. This is old school in the best possible meaning of the word.”

Laila El-Haddad is an award-winning Palestinian-American author and journalist.  She frequently speaks on the situation in Gaza, the intersection of food and politics, and contemporary Islam.  She has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, the Guardian and the International Herald Tribune and has appeared on many international broadcasting networks, including NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera, and CCTV.

She is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between and, co-author of the critically acclaimed The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, which was the recipient of the ‘Best Arab Cuisine Book’ award from Gourmand magazine, and a finalist at the 2013 MEMO Palestine Book Awards.  She is also the co-editor of the anthology Gaza Unsilenced and contributor to The Immigrant Cookbook: Recipes that Make America Great.  Her forthcoming book, Halal Tayyib: A Muslim American Culinary Journey, explores the history of Islam in America as told through food.  An avid gardener and outdoor enthusiast, she makes her home in Howard County, MD with her husband and their four children.

Thursday, January 20 at 7 pm, online. Please register here.

Sponsored by Muslim Family Center – Howard County, MD and RIVUS Consulting, Howard County, MD

Cover of We Are Water Protectors" featuring a Native American girl with long hair and four color earrings holding a feather, standing in a wave. Behind her is the moon and behind the moon are silhouettes of people holding hands.

Celebrate Native American Heritage

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Four pictures in a row picture a storyteller, singer, hoop dancer, and cover of We Are Water Protectors.

Join the celebration of Native American Culture and Resilience on Saturday, Nov 6 from 11 am to 3 pm at HCLS East Columbia Branch.

In an interview with Ani Begay Auld, member of the Navajo Nation and owner of Navabedine.com, she wants you to know, “We are still here. A lot of people put Native Americans into this certain time frame … like we’re relics from the past.” Nearly 600 federally recognized Native Nations exist, with dozens more recognized solely by states. Here in Maryland, the Piscataway Conoy and the Accohannock Nations are recognized, and Howard County sits on land that belonged to the Susquehannock nation. At one time, at least eight nations lived in Maryland.

Auld also recommends that you, “Seek out films or books written by native authors and look at the land that you’re on.” The author of the award-winning children’s book, We Are Water Protectors, will be part of the FREE event that also features dancing, singing, drumming, storytelling, children’s crafts, vendors, Navajo Tacos, and more. The line-up includes:

  • Rose Powhatan, Storyteller
  • Lance Fisher, Singer
  • Angela Gladue, Hoop Dancer
  • Chris Eaglehawk, Traditional Dance
  • Karelle Hall, Nanticoke Toe Dance
  • Sonny Elm, Smoke Dance
  • AND
  • Carole Lindstrom, author and #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2021 Caldecott Medal, at 2 pm

This event is a collaboration between Nava Be Diné, Howard County Library System, County Executive Calvin Ball, and Howard County Office of Human Rights and Equity.

This free event will be held outside the HCLS East Columbia Branch unless inclement weather causes the event to move inside the branch. Masks are required.

Registration is optional and appreciated.

The book cover shows five people on an orange lifeboat silhouetted against a bright full moon rising against a dark blue starry sky. The moon is reflected in the ocean in front of them.

Author Works: Mitch Albom on Nov 4

Rohini G. Leave a comment

Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in.

“Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says.

“I am the Lord,” the man whispers.

So begins Mitch Albom’s most beguiling and inspiring novel yet.

The book cover shows five people on an orange lifeboat silhouetted against a bright full moon rising against a dark blue starry sky. The moon is reflected in the ocean in front of them.

New York Times bestselling author Mitch Albom has a genius for finding the sweet spot where the spiritual and the earthly collide in our lives. With such beloved books as Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, and more, Mitch has captivated the world. Now, in his captivating and thought-provoking new novel, The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom explores the essence of God on earth through a riveting story that is equal parts mystery and parable.

An explosion on a billionaire’s yacht during a gathering of some of the world’s most influential and innovative movers and shakers leaves ten disparate souls struggling to survive in a life raft. One of them writes an account of the grueling ordeal to his beloved, and those pages are later found, washed up on an island shore on the opposite side of the Atlantic. It falls to a decidedly secular and cynical police inspector to investigate what actually happened on that raft, where it seems one man, pulled from the angry sea by the others three days after the disaster, claimed to be the Lord.

The beguiling narrative alternates between sea and land, between before and after, and between skepticism and belief. What really happened to cause the explosion? Is the mysterious man really who he claims to be?

Mitch Albom has repeatedly challenged our understanding of faith and the necessity of seeking answers where we least expect them. His books have sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. Tuesdays with Morrie is the best-selling memoir of all time, with over 17 million copies sold internationally, and was adapted for the stage and as a television movie which garnered four Emmy Awards. With The Stranger in the Lifeboat, this master storyteller offers a fresh take on themes that have defined his estimable work.

Albom has founded nine charities in the metropolitan Detroit area: SAY Detroit, an umbrella organization for charities dedicated to improving the lives of the neediest, including the SAY Detroit Family Health Clinic, Detroit Dream Scholars, and A Time To Help. In January 2015, Albom announced the launch of the SAY Detroit Play Center at Lipke Park, an innovative motivational learning program equipped with state-of-the-art athletic facilities, digital learning center and tutoring program. A Hole in the Roof Foundation helps faith groups of every denomination who care for the homeless repair the spaces in which they carry out their work. 

Mitch Albom will discuss his new book and his writing on November 4 @ 7:30 pm. Per the publisher, this virtual event is ticketed and includes one copy of the book The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom, signed by the author. 

TICKETED VIRTUAL EVENT. Tickets include one copy of the book The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom, signed by the author. Tickets range from $23.99 – $27.99, plus fees. Purchase tickets HERE.

Photo of Zakiya Dalila Harris, with the book cover in the bottom right hand corner. Book features a black woman in profile, with her hair up in complex braids. The "I" in "Girl" is an afro hair-pick.

The Other Black Girl

Rohini G. 1 Comment
Photo of Zakiya Dalila Harris, with the book cover in the bottom right hand corner. Book features a black woman in profile, with her hair up in complex braids. The "I" in "Girl" is an afro hair-pick.

By Rohini G.

This book defies genre. Is it a sly satire or a hard-hitting social commentary? Is it a sharp page-turning thriller or contemporary literature at its best? A witty and playful debut or a manual for code-switching? I could not slot it into just one category. It is the book you will be discussing with your friends and neighbors. Right, Linda?

In blue round italics, "What was she going to do? Who was she going to be?"

Zakiyah Dalila Harris’s novel debuted as a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Time, The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Entertainment Weekly, Marie Claire, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Parade, Goodreads, Fortune, and the BBC. Deservedly so. The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.

Written with wit and incisive humor, this book delves into the modern corporate atmosphere with its microaggressions, isolation, and manipulations. Working at Wagner Books as the only black editorial assistant, Nella Rogers is very excited when one morning, she looks through a small crack in a cubicle and sees what she calls “the flash of a brown hand.” Enter Hazel-May McCall. Nella finds a confidante in Hazel and someone who finally gets it. But it doesn’t take long for Nella to realize there’s something off about Hazel, even if she can’t quite put her finger on it. And then, shortly after Hazel’s arrival, the first anonymous note arrives on Nella’s desk: “Leave Wagner Now.” Hazel? And if not Hazel, then who? Nella begins searching for answers—and in the process, finds herself at the center of a dangerous conspiracy that runs far deeper than she ever could have known 

I thoroughly enjoyed Zakiyah’s sparkling style of writing and her ability to paint office dynamics in nuanced shades of privilege and discrimination, while juggling an un-put-down-able mystery: a mystery that leaves your insides twisted at the end. In her review in The Washington Post, Naomi Jackson says, “One of the pleasures of “The Other Black Girl” is its unapologetic appeal to Black female readers. From references to 90s Black culture to ample servings of hair-related angst, conversations and plot points, Black girls will appreciate how their experiences, perspectives and quirks are centered in this novel.”

We are excited to host Zakiyah on June 23 at 7 pm. Listen to Zakiyah Harris and bring your questions. Register here. 

Rohini is the Adult Curriculum Specialist with HCLS. She loves literature and rainy days.