Faithful readers are well aware of how exasperated this critic has become about the recent flood of relationship advice books aimed at the African-American demographic. The latest contribution to the burgeoning genre is this how-to tome written from the female perspective by a couple of cutie pies who have a bone or two to pick with comedian Steve Harvey's best seller on the subject.

Given all that Condoleezza Rice went on to accomplish in life, it's hard to believe that she was born in Birmingham, Alabama in the Fifties during the repressive reign of Jim Crow segregation. But somehow, despite spending her formative years in a city where state-sanctioned discrimination served to frustrate the aspirations of most other African-Americans, she miraculously managed to overachieve with the help of doting parents blessed with the sense to recognize their gifted daughter's great potential and to nourish her dreams the best they could.

Bridges was a child star and loved being on a hit show, but his success was marred by the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father and by a trusted agent's exploitation of youthful innocence. After eight years, the show ended and Bridges turned to drugs to ease his pain. Bridges quickly turned from being a teen idol to a favorite hit for tabloid writers. Now, for the first time, Todd Bridges opens up about his turbulent life

Born on Sept. 7, 1961, Michele Norris was the youngest of three sisters raised in Minneapolis, Minn. by Betty and Belvin Norris, Jr. Since studying communications at the University of Minnesota, Michele has embarked on a stellar career in journalism.

The book compiles facts and interviews covering Hendrix' childhood and the years before his breakthrough as a rock superstar, plus 25 rare photos of the music great's career .... As a father, a military veteran and a lunch-counter protester in the South, so much of Jimi Hendrix's short life has been largely overlooked until now ... The Hendrixes were extremely poor ... a teacher told Jimi's dad this child needs desperately to have an instrument, he is going through a psychological trauma, and finally Al did buy him his first guitar for $5 .

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oprah Winfrey has forgiven Jonathan Franzen.
Nine years after picking Franzen's "The Corrections" for her book club and then canceling his appearance on her show after he expressed ambivalence over her endorsement, Winfrey has chosen his new novel, "Freedom." The talk show host is not scheduled to announce her pick until Friday, but The Associated Press on Thursday purchased a copy that had a book club sticker on the front.

Painter tackles this subject in the serious, methodical and academic fashion expected of a Princeton University professor who also happens to be African-American. Weighing-in at 500+ pages, her informative, encyclopedic opus ponders whether White people even belong to a separate race: the author's examination of the history of Western Civilization from ancient Greece and Rome to the present reveals the emergence of "Whiteness" to be a relatively-recent phenomenon, having caught hold in the 1700s in Germanic propaganda

"American Frankenstein is written as a timely response to the need to revisit the history and realities of the Black existence in America… As with Dr. Frankenstein's creature, African-Americans have been aimlessly trying t find their way in society, trying to fit in

In "More Church Folk," the much anticipated follow-up to "Church Folk," it is now 1986, and the preachers of the Gospel United Church are preparing for their much-anticipated Triennial General Conference

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s "Tradition and the Black Atlantic" is both a vibrant romp down the rabbit hole of cultural studies and an examination of the discipline's roots and role in contemporary thought