Synopses & Reviews
New York Times best-selling author
Cornel West is one of Americas most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the streets, the prisons, or the church, Dr. Wests penetrating brilliance has been a bright beacon shining through the darkness for decades. Yet, as he points out in this new memoir, “Ive never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of the dark precincts of my soul.”
That is, until now.
Brother West is like its Author - brilliant, unapologetic, full of passion yet cool. This poignant memoir traces Wests transformation from a schoolyard Robin Hood into a progressive cultural icon. From his youthful investigation of the “death shudder” to why he embraced his calling of teaching over preaching, from his three marriages and his two precious children to his near-fatal bout with prostate cancer, West illuminates what it means to live as “an aspiring bluesman in a world of ideas and a jazzman in the life of the mind.” Woven together with the fibers of his lifelong commitment to the prophetic Christian tradition that began in Sacramentos Shiloh Baptist Church, Brother West is a tale of a man courageous enough to be fully human, living and loving out loud.
Review
"In Big Little Man Alex Tizon fearlessly penetrates the core of not just what it means to be male and Asian in America, but what it means to be human anywhere."-Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild "Part candid memoir, part incisive cultural study, Big Little Man addresses - and explodes - the stereotypes of Asian manhood. Alex Tizon writes with acumen and courage, and the result is a book at once illuminating and, yes, liberating." -Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
Synopsis
"New York Times"-bestselling author West is one of America's most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Yet, as he points out in this new memoir, I've never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of the dark precincts of my soul. That is, until now.
Synopsis
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's memoir, in the spirit of Richard Rodriquezs
Hunger for Memory and Nathan McCalls
Makes Me Wanna Holler—an intimate look at the mythology, experience, and psyche of the Asian American male
Synopsis
An award-winning writer takes a groundbreaking look at the experience and psyche of the Asian American male. Alex Tizon landed in an America that saw Asian women as sexy and Asian men as sexless. Immigrating from the Philippines as a young boy, everything he saw and heard taught him to be ashamed of his face, his skin color, his height. His fierce and funny observations of sex and the Asian American male include his own quest for love during college in the 1980s, a tortured tutorial on stereotypes that still make it hard for Asian men to get the girl. Tizon writes: "I had to educate myself on my own worth. It was a sloppy, piecemeal education, but I had to do it because no one else was going to do it for me." And then, a transformation. First, Tizons growing understanding that shame is universal: that his own just happened to be about race. Next, seismic cultural changes - from Jerry Yangs phenomenal success with Yahoo! Inc., to actor Ken Watanabes emergence in Hollywood blockbusters, to Jeremy Lins meteoric NBA rise. Finally, Tizons deeply original, taboo-bending investigation turns outward, tracking the unheard stories of young Asian men today, in a landscape still complex but much changed for the Asian American man.
About the Author
Educator and philosopher Cornel West is the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University. Known as one of America’s most gifted, provocative, and important public intellectuals, he is the author of the contemporary classic Race Matters, which changed the course of America’s dialogue on race and justice, and the New York Times bestseller Democracy Matters. He is the recipient of the American Book Award and holds more than 20 honorary degrees.
Award-winning writer David Ritz is the co-author of the autobiographies of Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and B.B. King.
Table of Contents
Killing Magellan 1
Land of the Giants 23
Orientals 43
Seeking Hot Asian Babes 63
Babes, Continued 81
Asian Boy 93
Tiny Men on the Big Screen 111
Its Color Was Its Size 129
Getting Tall 143
Wen Wu 159
Yellow Tornado 177
“What Men Are Supposed To Do” 197
“One of Us, Not One of Us” 209
Big Little Fighter 223
Authors Note 245
Acknowledgments 249
Selected Sources 251