“Forty Acres” by Dwanye Alexander Smith

“Before You Judge Me Make Sure You Your Are Perfect”

I strongly encourage you to memorize these words before you read the Thriller Forty Acres.  Warning: Zero Tolerance For Tunnel Vision, but you can think “out the box”

Who is the author that had the “audacity” to write a novel that freezes the past and suggest “what if”. Who is this person that translates his boldness in print? I mean really! has there been a longing for the black race to stop talking about the atrocity’s of slavery and reparations? I am still trying to accept, heal, and not hold the white race hostage to the past. I was totally blind sided by this novel that came out of no-where. It’s one of those “hurts so good” emotions that wants me to have one of those in-depth conversations with me, myself and I. There is a question on the table, not the answer.

“People Who Shine From Within Don’t Need The Spotlight”

Dwayne Alexander Smith is definitely the origin of this quote.  IYBC had the honor and pleasure to have a “Diverse Dialogue With Passion” with Dwayne. The conversation was extreme, intense, and humorous which took place on my cell phone, because “Skype” was just not cooperating. No problem we just kept it moving.

There are so many challenges when I read The Thriller Forty Acres. It begs the word forgiveness to be logical. If I flip the script am I a racist?  This is strange to me. I am prepared to talk about my “conscience” you know that part of me that exist but I don’t have to take responsibility for, it just exist in my spirit. Don’t get me wrong I am a “feeling” person. I know right from wrong. Will the bitterness and hatred regurgitate, because I am obese on forgiveness.  Have I talked myself into believing if I had the opportunity for five minutes and no was looking I could make a least one white person pay for the rapes,lynchings, murders the HUMILIATION oh let me stop because society will judge me. It is 2014 get over it we Barack Obama is president. all  is well. ok

The truth of the matter is that I have never felt revenge or hatred. I was to busy feeling the pain, hurt and cries of my ancestors. I could have been born in slavery, but I had the blessing of being born in 1961. I was told I was young, gifted and black. an American.

I was born free.

When I translate the word forty in dollars is $40.00. why don’t we write the fourty which makes sense because the number 4 is spelled four. The word” for” is a preposition that precedes a noun or pronoun to show the relationship to another word in the sentence. The word preposition comes from the idea of being positioned before.

I thank Dwayne Alexander Smith for this prolific novel. It is reminds to stay on the journey that makes me responsible for my own happiness. I don’t have time to be bitter or revengeful. I can’t feel guilty of being born free when so many were not. I will give the “black rage” that I feel at times to God. I as a human being can’t carry that burden. I want to stop and thank all of people who have made a positive impact on my life. The color of their skin is not important. They were there “for” me. I can only wrap my emotions in love when I think of my ancestors and I will be the first to say for the person that “raped” their life I am sorry. I will not let your life be a “blurb” I will live mine so that your is “postioned” in purpose, respect and excellence. Only “for” you I live free.

You see at this point the color of my skin or gender is not important.

Black people are a race of people who have been in position “for”and before our time. That proves we are not a mistake. I will position myself “for” peace, love and yes forgiveness keep the change it is only  $Forty Acres”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singles 101 by A’ndrea J. Wilson Oct 16, 2014 6:00pm

Final Exam Question #4
Is a singles conference in Sin City a smart way to save souls or a set-up for a scandalous setback?What happens in Vegas . . . may not stay in Vegas.The characters you love—and love to hate—return for the fourth installment of the Wife 101 series! The Woods are up to their old tricks again, this time hosting a faith-based singles conference in the last place in the world any single person could stay out of trouble—Las Vegas, Nevada. Enticed by the excitement of the “second city that never sleeps,” Eric and Amber Hayes convince their unmarried friends and family to attend the conference in hopes of resolving the current chaos in their individual lives.

High school principal Tisha Dawson feels bamboozled when her plans for career advancement are blocked by the superintendent’s decision to place her at the worst school in the district. A trip to Las Vegas is just the distraction she needs while debating whether to wage a war against her boss and the county school board or walk away from a 15-year tenure. Nelson Hayes prides himself on being the ultimate ladies’ man. But when the one woman he’s never gotten over suddenly resurfaces in his life, it will take Vegas and a lot of prayer to pick up his broken pieces. Lena Henry is still sulking over her unfulfilled life and ring-less left hand. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, she jumps on the opportunity to experience the high stakes of Vegas, and to finally prove to her ex that he picked the wrong woman to marry

All night parties, casinos that never close, and access to any adult fantasy one could ever imagine, these unsuspecting singles have only six days to choose between the allure of Sin City and being a sinner saved by grace.

Hello IYBC

Please join IYBC and the author of Singles 101 a novel  A’ndrea J. Wilson on

October 16, 2014 at 6:00pm

The Augusta Richmond County Public Library                                                                                            823 Telfair St.    Augusta, GA 30901

Please bring a friend, this promises to be a dynamic discussion.

It’s Your Book Club-“Diverse Dialogue With Passion”

Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith

Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith is a cultural and political suspense thriller with a plot that seems unthinkable, but is yet so believable that the story could be unfolding right before our very eyes. After tasting a major professional success on a small civil rights lawsuit which he had been working on for two years, and which in turn had turned into the biggest case of his career with the client awarded $25.5 million in punitive damages, young and talented African-American lawyer Martin Grey is confident of a windfall in terms of fame and money which would firmly plant him and his friend and partner Glen Grossman in the business. Things look bright and he has no reasons to worry about the future and his chosen career.

Damon Darrell is one of the toughest attorneys and the opposing counsel in the civil rights lawsuit against Autostone Industries. He is the last person one would expect to turn up at the party to celebrate Martin’s success. But when Damon crashed into the party and invited Martin to a dinner party, it provided the opportunity for him to become acquainted with some of the most powerful, wealthy, and esteemed black men in America.

Damon and his friends invite Martin Grey for an exclusive weekend getaway. During the journey he’s drugged so that he knows nothing about its direction and location – a palatial estate deep in the woods that is built like a fortress. Something is wrong at Forty Acres that they had to hide it way out in the middle of nowhere and protect it with a private army. Headed by Dr. Kasim, all the respectable men are members of a secret racist group organization with a sinister design – to establish black supremacy and enslave the whites. Martin finds himself trapped as declining to join the group would mean death and his belief does not allow him to become one like them.

Forty Acres is deep, intense, thought-provoking and gripping, and seeps right into the pores of your skin with pace and relentlessness. It is debut novel which is fast, furious, and powerful. Author Dwayne Alexander Smith’s writing is almost flawless as far as character development and a superb storyline is concerned. His painstaking research added a semblance of reality to a fictional story, making it

believable and hard-hitting. Forty Acres is the thriller debut of the year!

We will be meeting at Augusta Richmond County Public Library 6:00 pm
823 Telfair St, Augusta, GA 30901
on September 18, 2014.

PS: The author of “Forty Acres A Thriller Dwanye Alexander Smith will be skying in with us, Please invite a friend the public is always welcome

 

“A Place At The Table” by Susan Rebecca White 21 August 2014

A rich, beautiful novel about three unlikely, complex characters who meet in a chic Manhattan café and realize they must sacrifice everything they ever knew or cared about to find authenticity, fulfillment, and love.

A Place at the Table tells the story of three richly nuanced characters whose paths converge in a chic Manhattan café: Bobby, a gay Southern boy who has been ostracized by his family; Amelia, a wealthy Connecticut woman whose life is upended when a family secret finally comes to light; and Alice, an African-American chef whose heritage is the basis of a famous cookbook but whose past is a mystery to those who know her.

As it sweeps from a freed-slave settlement in 1920s North Carolina to the Manhattan of the deadly AIDs epidemic of the 1980s to today’s wealthy suburbs, A Place at the Table celebrates the healing power of food and the magic of New York as three seekers come together in the understanding that when you embrace the thing that makes you different, you become whole.

Hello IYBC,

A Place At The Table will be facilitated by Leasher on 21 August 2014 5:30pm

Bone Fish Grill Restaurant,  Augusta, Ga

 

 

The House Girl by Tara Conklin 17 July 2014

A stunning debut novel of love, family, and justice that intertwines the stories of an escaped house slave in 1852 Virginia and ambitious young lawyer in contemporary New York

Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell.

New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit – if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her?

Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.

Hello IYBC

The House Girl by Tara Conklin will be facilitated by Malissa on July 17, 2014 5:30pm, at” California Dreaming Restaurant”
3241 Washington Road 30907
Augusta, Ga 30907

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander 19 June 2014 5:30pm Michelle Alexander June 19, 2014 6:30pm

As the United States celebrates the nation’s “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status – much like their grandparents before them.” In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community – and all of us – to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

 

Juneteenth

Celebrates the liberation of black American slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865

by Caitlin Helfrich

Related Links Text of the Emancipation Proclamation History of the Emancipation Proclamation Modern Civil Rights Movement Timeline: Slavery in America Black History Month African American History Timeline Other Content Juneteenth.com The Handbook of Texas

Origins

On June 19, 1865, the Union General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Tex., to inform inhabitants of the Civil War’s end two months earlier. Two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Granger’s General Order Number 3 finally freed the last 250,000 slaves whose bondage, due to the minimal Union presence in the region, had been essentially unaffected by Lincoln’s efforts. June 19th—which was quickly shortened to “Juneteenth” among celebrants—has become the African-American addendum to our national Independence Day, for, as Juneteenth jubilees remind us, the Emancipation Proclamation did not bring about emancipation, and the prevailing portrayal of Independence Day ignores the ignominious incidence of slavery entirely.

Evolution

Observance of Juneteenth has traditionally tended towards church-centered celebrations featuring food, fun, and a focus on self-improvement and education by guest speakers. Although initially associated with Texas and other Southern states, the Civil Rights Era and the Poor People’s March to Washington in 1968, in particular, helped spread the tradition all across America—to the extent that Milwaukee and Minneapolis now host two of the largest Juneteenth celebrations in the nation.

Juneteenth Today

The state of Texas made Juneteenth an official holiday on Jan. 1, 1980, and became the first to grant it government recognition. Several states have since issued proclamations recognizing the holiday, but the Lone Star State remains alone in granting it full state holiday status, a day when government employees have the day off. Nonetheless, supporters and celebrants of Juneteenth continue to grow in number and in diversity; today, Juneteenth is promoted not only as a commemoration of African-American freedom, but as an example and encouragement of self-development and respect for all cultures.

Read more: Juneteenth History, Info: Emancipation Day — Celebration Abolition of Slavery | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/juneteenth1.html#ixzz2uTTUWkFX

Hello IYBC,

Please show your support on 19 June 2014 5:30pm at (TBA)

Brian Mckinney will facilitate “The New Jim Crow” Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Color Blindness by Michelle Alexander. Very Ironic that we will be discussing this book on June 19, 2014 which is called “Juneteenth” Emancipation Proclamation Day in which slaves were free in the State Of Texas, this is celebrated in all states today, this is day of Independence for Black People.

Are we really free?

 

“MEXIFORNIA, A STATE OF BECOMING” by Victor Davis Hanson

*Starred Review* Classics professor Hanson is also, like generations of his family before him, a fruit farmer in California’s central valley. He has employed immigrants, seen them flood his community during the last 30 years of mass flight from Mexico, and endured the crime associated with illegal immigrants. Hanson is immensely sympathetic to poor Mexicans, however, and the most powerful chapter here outlines the harried life of the illegal alien. But he hates to see the ordered culture in which he grew up drowned by an alien inundation whose undeserving beneficiaries are Mexico’s kleptocratic rulers, for whom an open border is a safety valve expelling the potential for democratic change. The four solutions to the mess that Hanson enumerates include continuing de facto open borders but insisting on rapid acculturation; patrolling the border effectively and reducing legal immigration; imposing “sweeping restrictions on immigration” and ending Mexican chauvinism in the U.S.; and allowing present policies to make California increasingly mirror an unreformed Mexico. Hanson thinks that the U.S. “still need not do everything right” to prevent social collapse in the Southwest and that the totalitarian uniformity of valueless mass culture may soften that collapse. He also sees very clearly what has brought this crisis on: the American globalist ideology’s lust for cheap labor and emphasis on “raw inclusiveness” instead of “standards and taste.” Ray Olson

Hello IYBC,

Please show your support on May 15, 2014 5:30 pm at

“Earth Fare”

368 Fury’s Ferry Road

Martinez,  GA 30907

 

Thomas Patterson will facilitate “Mexifornia” A State Of Becoming” by Victor Davis Hanson

 

 

“CALICO JOE”, BY JOHN GRISHAM 17 April 2014 5:30pm

A surprising and moving novel of fathers and sons, forgiveness and redemption, set in the world of Major League Baseball…

Whatever happened to Calico Joe?

     It began quietly enough with a pulled hamstring. The first baseman for the Cubs AAA affiliate in Wichita went down as he rounded third and headed for home. The next day, Jim Hickman, the first baseman for the Cubs, injured his back. The team suddenly needed someone to play first, so they reached down to their AA club in Midland, Texas, and called up a twenty-one-year-old named Joe Castle. He was the hottest player in AA and creating a buzz.

In the summer of 1973 Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen.  The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records.

Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faced Calico Joe, Paul was in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his Dad. Then Warren threw a fastball that would change their lives forever…

In John Grisham’s new novel the baseball is thrilling, but it’s what happens off the field that makes CALICO JOE a classic.

Hello IYBC,

Please show your support on 17 April 2014 5:30pm

at T’S Restaurant 3416 Mike Padgett HWY, Augusta, GA 30906

Kenneth Mangel will facilitate  “Calico Joe” by John Grisham

Thank you for your support and commitment to IYBC

 

ZEALOT: ” The Life And Times Of Jesus Of Nazareth ” March 20, 2014

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Booklist • Publishers Weekly • Bookish

From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth.

Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal.

Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God.

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry—a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy.

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious “King of the Jews” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity.

Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel: a singular brilliant portrait of a man, a time, ant the birth of a religion.

Hello IYBC,

Zealot: The Life And Time Of Jesus Christ will be facilitated by Malissa Thomas

March 20, 2014  6:30pm at the Augusta Richmond County Public Library 823 Telfair St Augusta, GA 30901

This is a “BYOD” ( bring your own dinner) – We are a co-ed book club, new members are always welcome.

This will be an evening of “Diverse Dialogue With Passion”

I thank you in advance for your support and commitment to IYBC

 

” Loving Mr. Wright” by Brenda Barrett Feb 20, 2014

A man with a past.
A woman who was tired of being single.

Erica was tired of searching for the right man, she had all but resigned herself to a single life but then the mysterious Caleb Wright showed up and Erica saw one last opportunity to ditch her single life. He was perfect for her. But what was he hiding? Could his past be that bad that they could not get pass it?

Hello IYBC,

” Loving Mr. Wright” by Brenda Barrett  will be facilitated by Theodore Tutson on

February 20, 2014 at 6:30pm at the Augusta Richmond County Public Library on Telfair St. Augusta Ga 30901.

This will be a evening of ” Diverse Dialogue With Passion”

We are a co-ed book club, new members are always welcome,  and this is a

“BYOD” affair ( Bring Your Own Dinner) LOL

I thank you in advance for your support and commitment to IYBC