Just in case you haven't read Coretta Scott King's 1986 letter

Yesterday in an extraordinary move.  Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell used an obscure rule to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren as she attempted to read this letter from Coretta Scott King. The subject was Jefferson Sessions, a man she believed unqualified to be a judge and who now, after decades more examples of his disdain for voting rights (among other things) many believe is unqualified to be Attorney General of the United States. Later, several of Warren's male colleagues (including Sherrod Brown and Tom Udall) successfully read the letter into the record and today, you can find it online at many, many newspaper sites. Here are several.The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time Magazine.  Read the letter.

Kelley Armstrong's new series

I first encountered author Kelley Armstrong as the writer of the Otherworld urban fantasy series, which I loved. I remember reading somewhere that Angelina Jolie had optioned Bitten but I never saw any follow-up on that so I thought the project had died. And then it showed up on the Syfy network. Her first book was published in 1999 and since then she's been busy, some years publishing as many as eight books in one year, which would be a blistering pace for an indie author and is almost unheard-of for a traditionally published author (with the exception of Stephen King and James Patterson who basically create their own weather when it comes to publoishing).

I just found out she has embarked on a new series, this time of thrillers "starring" a female detective with a dark secret. When she was younger, she killed the son of a mob boss.
The series is already two books in, which means (yay) that I'll get to read two before I have to wait for the next one.
Here's the blurb for the first book in the series, City of the Lost:

Casey Duncan is a homicide detective with a secret: when she was in college, she killed a man. She was never caught, but he was the grandson of a mobster and she knows that someday this crime will catch up to her. Casey's best friend, Diana, is on the run from a violent, abusive ex-husband. When Diana's husband finds her, and Casey herself is attacked shortly after, Casey knows it's time for the two of them to disappear again.
Diana has heard of a town made for people like her, a town that takes in people on the run who want to shed their old lives. You must apply to live in Rockton and if you're accepted, it means walking away entirely from your old life, and living off the grid in the wilds of Canada: no cell phones, no Internet, no mail, no computers, very little electricity, and no way of getting in or out without the town council's approval. As a murderer, Casey isn't a good candidate, but she has something they want: She's a homicide detective, and Rockton has just had its first real murder. She and Diana are in. However, soon after arriving, Casey realizes that the identity of a murderer isn't the only secret Rockton is hiding—in fact, she starts to wonder if she and Diana might be in even more danger in Rockton than they were in their old lives.

New Cover from Christa at Paper and Sage

My urban fantasy novel Misbegotten will finally be out in late spring and I'm already working on the sequel. I was playing around with names and I saw this cover on the Paper and Sage site. The temp title was completely apt for my book, so I had the designer, Christa Holland, swap out my name for the place holder and voila. the designer also does custom work. I've already bookmarked several other covers. 

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

We all know that smart is sexy, but who knew we'd end up with a rockstar astrophysicist? Neil deGrasse Tyson is the best thing to happen to science since the apple fell on Isaac Newton's head.  He's even become the subject of memes in support of science in a time when anti-intellectualism is rampant.

 Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about how it was kind of creepy finding out he's the topic of a meme.

 This is Neil deGrasse Tyson's latest book. You can get it here.
Here he is talking about alien life.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

"It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men."--Frederick Douglass

 Thanks to Project Gutenberg, Frederick Douglass' monumental memoir--Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave--is available here.For more information about the statesman, you can start here or here. His home is a National Historic site.

Douglass is considered one of the great American orators and you can find his speech on "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery" is archived here.  Good Reads has a collection of his memorable quotes here.

"Without a struggle, there can be no progress."--Frederick Douglass

Signature has a list of the five best biographies of Frederick Douglass.

An interesting take on immigration...soon to be a movie

Sweetness in the Belly is an odd title, so it stands out when you see it turn up in "also reads" and "recommended" comments online. Camilla Gibbs' novel is about a young women raised in Africa who flees to England finds herself a stranger in a strange land. The  book is being adapted for a movie and will star the wonderful Saoirse Ronan as the protatonist.

Shakespeare, Time Travel, Macbeth

The Shakespeare Standard has an interview with Invisible Hand author James Hartley today, and his new "Shakespeare Moon" series sounds intriguing. The plot takes a contemporary kid back to Scotland and entangles him with the events of Macbeth. I think that's a fantastic idea. I never understood why high schools insisted on inflicting Julius Caesar on students as their first introduction to Shakespeare. Yes, yes, it's got "Friends, Romans, and Countrymen, lend me your ears" but it's really not one of the most riveting plays. But Macbeth?  It's got sex. It's got intrigue. It's got WITCHES. Start out with Macbeth and you might just end up with a kid who likes Shakespeare.

Here's the sales pitch:

The Invisible Hand is about a boy, Sam, who has just started life at a boarding school and finds himself able to travel back in time to medieval Scotland. There he meets a girl, Leana, who can travel to the future, and the two of them become wrapped up in events in Macbeth, the Shakespeare play, and in the daily life of the school. The book is the first part of a series called Shakespeare´s Moon. Each book is set in the same boarding school but focuses on a different Shakespeare play.