Historical Beacon Buzz: Langston Hughes reviews James Baldwin
February 26, 2013
Fifty-Five Years Ago Today...
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
Yes, this publicity hit is from February 26, 1958, but we didn't have a blog (much less the not-to-be-missed Beacon Buzz report) back then ... The New York Times published this review of James Baldwin's Notes of a Native Son, written by Langston Hughes.
James Baldwin writes down to nobody, and he is trying very hard to write up to himself. As an essayist he is thought-provoking, tantalizing, irritating, abusing and amusing. And he uses words as the sea uses waves, to flow and beat, advance and retreat, rise and take a bow in disappearing.
Read Edward P. Jones' introduction to our new edition of Notes of a Native Son on Scribd.
You can get a copy of our new edition of Notes of a Native Son (or any other African American Studies title) for 20% off and free shipping if you order with code FEB2013. Check out the details of our Black History Month Sale at Beacon.org.
Recent Notable Mentions
Into Great Silence: A
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Q&A with Chris Stedman on BuzzFeed.
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Write-up of Burstein’s Politics and Prose event.
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Interview on The Diane Rehm Show in a panel discussion titled “What It Means to be a Millennial.”
Excerpt, “Millenials Will Save Us,” on Salon.com.
“A Very Fast Future,” online at Forbes:
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Excerpt from Shout, Sister, Shout! featured on Scribd’s homepage in their “Best of the Day” section.
Enter to win a copy of Shout, Sister, Shout! on Beacon.org
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An excerpt, “Racism and the World House” is now online at Yes! Magazine.
Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War by Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini
Featured in a Chicago Tribune column by Robert Koehler:
This remarkable book, published in 2012, takes a long, hard look at the dehumanizing effects of war, through the experiences of a number of vets from various wars (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) who share their suffering -- and bare their souls -- to the authors.
"Soul Repair" is an assault on the mythology and public relations of war, on the default setting of nationhood, that: "We sleep comfortably in our beds at night because violent men do violence on our behalf." No matter how many lies are at the foundation of a given war, no matter how disastrously unnecessary and destructive it turns out to be in retrospect -- oops -- the myth of war is ever-unsullied: This time the danger is really there. This time it's crucial that we carpet bomb civilians, then send in our boys and girls to clean out the enemy insurgents. This time it's really for democracy and the American Dream and a good night's sleep.
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Coming Soon
Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods by Christine Byl
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