Big Girls Do Cry

Big Girls Do Cry
Carl Weber
Dafina Books, 2010

The ladies of the BGBC--that's the Big Girl Book Club--are back for another round of adventures in Carl Weber's Big Girls Do Cry. The only requirements for membership are a love of reading and being a size 14 or larger. The sequel to Something on the Side, Big Girls Do Cry picks up with the story of Egypt and her crazy (and I don't mean that in a good way) sister Isis. Egypt has relocated to Richmond, Virginia, from New York with her husband Rashad ... the same Rashad that Isis dated for over 10 years before her sister Egypt married him.

Egypt fears that her marriage could be coming to an end because she's not able to have children. Fortunately, Isis, who lives with Egypt and Rashad, steps up to be a surrogate mother. But between her last suicide attempt, which was spurred by her heartache over the married playboy Tony, and losing Rashad to her sister, Isis is struggling to get her life together. And for some reason, she wants Tony back.

New club member Loraine, who is also Egypt's boss, seems to have everything going for herself: She's president of her own public relations firm, and is in the running to be president of her sorority. She just has to keep her sorors from finding out about her cheating husband. Jerome, the only male member of the BGBC, is Loraine's openly gay best friend. He is proud of the way he lives his life--loving and leaving his partners--until the day he leaves the wrong one and all hell breaks loose.

Lots a'drama, but a good read. But hey the drama is not over just yet: Catch up with Loraine and Jerome and the other members of the Big Girl Book Club in part two, Torn Between Two Lovers.

And if you want even more drama, check out other books by Carl Weber, such as Up To Know Good and So You Call Yourself a Man. Or visit his website, http://www.carlweber.net/.

New Books on Disc

Check out these great new books-on-disc @ Watha T. Daniel:

That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo; read by Arthur Morey

My Sister's Ex, by Cydney Rax; read by Bahni Turpin and Adenrele Ojo

Cemetery Dance, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child; read by Scott Brick

Fatal Secrets, by Allison Brennan; read by Ann Marie Lee

Cutting Edge, by Allison Brennan; read by Ann Marie Lee

Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend, by Larry Tye; read by Dominic Hoffman

The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon; read by Dan Stevens

Daniel X: Watch the Skies, by James Patterson and Ned Rust; read by Milo Ventimiglia

Horrific Nostalgia

Paperback horror novels, especially those of Stephen King and Anne Rice, were a vital part of my introduction to independent literacy. Tommyknockers was the first Stephen King book I read, after finding a weather-beaten copy of it on a grandmother's shelf, nestled between her cookbooks and Danielle Steel romances. I read it in three days, hiding it behind my textbooks in class at school while pretending to study. Then I read it again. I was in seventh grade, and it changed my life. I followed that up with The Shining, then The Stand. Simultaneously, I found The Vampire Lestat on a different grandmother's shelf, and became hooked on Vampire Chronicles series.

Over the next few years, I found every book by Stephen King and Anne Rice that my local library owned, then moved on to Clive Barker (who is my favorite author to this day). I read voraciously: in fact, I learned words like "voracious" and "insatiable" from the very books I was consuming. As a child, then a young man, I had no interest in literary fiction, but if it was science fiction, fantasy or horror, I was hooked. Later, I read more traditional literature and mainstream popular fiction by way of the classic gothic works of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker. These days, my reading tastes are much more varied, but my roots will always be in 20th Century horror.

Imagine my happy surprise, then, when I discovered that we've been receiving a lot of new paperback editions of some of my old childhood favorites:

By Stephen King; Misery, It, The Stand and Skeleton Crew
By Anne Rice; Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned

I invite you to share my horror-heydey nostalgia, and to that end I've created a special shelf in our New Arrivals section for paperback books of all genres, horror or otherwise. Other titles on the shelf so far include Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee and The Source, by James Michener (incidentally, my great-grandmother's favorite novel). New additions to that collection will make their way to that shelf.

So what are your favorite paperbacks?