Monday, November 22, 2010

The Warmth of Other Suns (A PW Best Book of 2010)

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
I don't read much non fiction. Since I review it even less, I am going to do this a little differently today, linking to reviews and interviews.

When this book came out in September, many customers were looking for it on the day before it was released, because it was featured in the NYT. Henry Louis Gates interviews Wilkerson. Wilkerson for The Root and NBA Legend Bill Russell interviewed on C-Span's Last Word Selected by Publisher's as a Best Book of 2010

I took the time to include so many links because I absolutely loved The Warmth of Other Suns. It's the story of African American leaving the South during Jim Crow in hopes of better way of life in other parts of the United States. Wikerson tells the story of three people. Ida Mae Brandon Gladney from Chickasaw County, MS. She and her family left in 1937. George Swanson Starling from Wildwood, FL. He left in 1945. Dr. Robert Joseph Pershing Foster from Monroe, LA. He left in 1953.

I love that Wilkerson choose three very different people leaving at various periods during the migration. I found The Warmth of Other Suns to be very engrossing from the very beginning. It was simply very well done, so many levels. Due check out some of the provided links.

In 1994 Wilkerson was the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. The Warmth of Other Suns is her first book. An excerpt

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