After reading about “Blacks & Books,” a new monthly insert to appear in the Baltimore Times, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Philadelphia Tribune, which will feature reviews of books by Black authors and of interest to Black readers, I felt compelled to highlight our recent features.  As Sarah Nelson of Publishers Weekly says of their coverage, it is mostly features and special sections.  One of our fiction editors, Wilda Williams, often expresses frustration at the scarcity of street-lit reviewers she has.  (So, if you’re interested, see how to apply at http://www.libraryjournal.com/document/22042.html!)

Take a look at the Collection Development article, “Streetwise Urban Fiction,” that ran in the July issue–an article that was in the issue I took home after my interview, and one that made me really excited to join the LJ staff.  Also see editor Ann Burns’s Black History Month preview, “African American Visions,” in the Nov. 1 issue.

I remember being surprised to see Tavis Smiley’s The Covenant with Black America on best sellers lists, because I knew of the editor from his show on NPR and elsewhere but hadn’t heard he had a book coming out until it hit the list.  (Wikipedia says, “it’s the first non-fiction book by a Black-owned publisher to be listed as the number-one non-fiction paperback in America by the New York Times Best-Seller List.”)  The New York Times also recently exclaimed about Obama’s “surprise best seller.”  Perhaps more reviews will keep us from being so surprised when books by Black authors or of interest to Black audiences sell well.