Monday, May 31, 2010

Book Blurb - The Book of Negroes

My latest finished book is "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill.
If you aren't familiar with this title, it was changed to "Someone Knows My Name" for US publication.

Ah, this is more like it! This is what I'm used to: reading about a book a week. Between doing this blog (a fashion entry takes me about 40 minutes from taking the picture to hitting "Publish Post") and having a life, I don't have a huge amount of time to read, but I find that when a book is grooving for me, I make time!

Stats: 470 pages. Started May 24th and finished last night, May 30th.

Blurb: This is a Book Club book (Daisy's pick), and it's the best one I've read in a while! Thank you, Daisy!
This reminded me very much of Alex Haley's "Roots", which I read when I was in my early teens (I still have the hardcover book club edition of my mom's from the 70s), in its tale of one young girl and her journey through a free African, to slave, to free woman again.

The story is well-written and I found myself zooming through it. I did find it somewhat jarring that between 1 and 4 years would be collapsed into a single sentence...just when it was getting interesting! The author did this several times, which mildly irked me. It also just sort of...ended, without a real dramatic resolution, but pretty much when I expected it to end.

I like that this book was well-researched, but not too dry in relaying historical facts. It has just enough "novelization" to make it feel like fiction. I'd recommend this. A good read!

5 comments:

  1. I LOVE to read but find that I have more time to do it in the summer. Last summer I read 28 books but I don't think I've read even half that in the past nine months. I am just starting to make my summer reading list and this book looks like something I would like to add to my list. Thanks for the review!

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  2. Hmmm...I think I will add this to my Goodreads "to-read" shelf. Thanks for the recommendation!

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  3. I think you'd like this book, MAMom. I love reading.

    LaShaune, let me know what you think of it.

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  4. I also loved this book, and J is greatly enjoying it too!

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  5. Sherylyn, I'm looking forward to our Book Club discussion - ooh, that reminds me - I'm picking the next book!

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