Welcome to Black Book Nook!

One thing I have always been a strong proponent of is reading.  As a child reading was my guiding light.  I read books, poems, short stories, encyclopedias, dictionaries, magazines, and almost anything that was a published work because I loved to read.

Most of the reading I did was in seclusion.  I would either read alone in a room, at the library in a spot with no one or hardly anyone around, in a park, or just about anywhere else I could escape to.

Even though math was my favorite subject and everybody called me the human calculator I loved to read and write.  On most tests that involved math and literature I often scored higher on the literary portions.  I would read from the time I got home from school until the time I went to sleep at night.  My love for reading carried over into my early adult years.  Reading was something fun for me.  It gave me an escape to and away from everything that was not happening in my life.

I enjoyed teaching children to read from an early age.  When I was pregnant I would read out loud so my baby in the womb could hear me reading.  I read at least an hour each night to my children from the time they were born until they could read for an hour daily on their own.  They were all three accelerated readers in school.  One child even was in the top 2 percentile for literature on college entrance exams.

Books were something that were very plentiful in my home.  Once things started being more online I would buy educational material for my children to keep them engaged on the computer.

The saddest day of my life was when my ex threw away my book collection that I had accumulated over many years.  He felt I paid more attention to my books than I did to him.  I was so crushed by that incident that I really gave up my passion for reading for a while.

I was one of those people who would read even the fine print on most things.  When I was in junior high school I remember reading a high school course book.  It is the way I found out I needed to be taking classes ahead so I could take advanced placement and accelerated classes once I reached high school.  By reading so much I even learned what expectations I had to meet to test out of some of my freshman year college courses.  The benefits of reading and knowing stuff as a result of reading was invaluable.

When I would go to the student centers I would always pick up literature.  My first college internship was a summer position at IBM in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.  I found out about it by reading the Black Collegian.  Most of the jobs listed in the publication required applying by February to start during the summer months.  Just doing reading not required really made a profound impact on my life.

During my freshman year in college I would stay in the library until midnight every night.  I remember how being on campus and walking off campus reminded me of the Bigger Thomas character I had read about in Richard Wright novels.  Jackson, Mississippi made Norfolk, Virginia seem like a big city town.  When I stepped off campus in Jackson it was just like I was walking through the scenes of some of the many novels I read about covering the black experience in the South.   Early on Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes were my favorite writers.  I was inspired by reading Ebony Magazine, Jet Magazine, Black Enterprise, and other publications that chronicled the successes of Black America.

I enjoyed the era where books were often converted to movies.  I would always try and read the book ahead of the movie being released.  It allowed for a contrast and comparison of how well I liked the movie over the book.  Most often I enjoyed the book most because it provided so much more detail.

One of the memorable books I enjoyed reading was "Any Way the Wind Blows" E. Lynne Harris.  His writing style was impeccable.  Yes I was one of those readers who could easily spot if the novels did not transition smoothly.  When I get caught up in a book I don't want to be like "oh no" it is now unbelievable because an earlier event cancels out something I read later on in the book.

I am very analytical by nature.  I try hard to live life easy and for the most part I do.

The reason for starting the "Black Book Nook" was to have a place to go with substantive content.  I feel the black literary experience has been one of the greatest experiences in America and I hope it lives on forever.  There are some black pieces that are literally works of art.

At fifty one I am still trying to figure things out.  As I work on this blog figuring things out I would be most appreciative of any and all feedback.