James Mcbride Popular Books

James Mcbride Biography & Facts

James McBride (born September 11, 1957) is an American writer and musician. He is the recipient of the 2013 National Book Award for fiction for his novel The Good Lord Bird. Early life McBride's father, Rev. Andrew D. McBride (August 8, 1911 – April 5, 1957) was African-American; he died of cancer at the age of 45. His mother, Ruchel Dwajra Zylska (name changed to Rachel Deborah Shilsky, and later to Ruth McBride Jordan; April 1, 1921 – January 9, 2010), was a Jewish immigrant from Poland. James was raised in Brooklyn's Red Hook housing projects until he was seven years old and was the last child Ruth had from her first marriage, the last child of Rev. Andrew McBride, and the eighth of 12 children. McBride states: I'm proud of my Jewish history....Technically I guess you could say I'm Jewish since my mother was Jewish...but she converted (to Christianity). So the question is for theologians to answer. ... I just get up in the morning happy to be living." His memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1995), describes his family history and his relationship with his mother.McBride graduated from Oberlin College in 1979, and received his journalism degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1980. Career Books and screenplays McBride is well known for his 1995 memoir, the bestselling book The Color of Water, which describes his life growing up in a large, poor American-African family led by ethnically Jewish mother. She was strict and the daughter of an Orthodox rabbi. During her first marriage, to Rev. Andrew McBride, she converted to Christianity and became a devout Christian. The memoir, which won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, spent more than two years on The New York Times bestseller list, and has become an American classic. It is read in high schools and universities across America, has been translated into 16 languages, and sold more than 2.1 million copies.In 2002, McBride published a novel, Miracle at St. Anna, drawing on the history of the overwhelmingly African-American 92nd Infantry Division in the Italian campaign from mid-1944 to April 1945. The book was adapted into the 2008 movie Miracle at St. Anna, directed by Spike Lee. In 2005, McBride published the first volume The Process, a CD-based documentary about life as lived by low-profile jazz musicians. His 2008 novel Song Yet Sung is about an enslaved woman who has dreams about the future, and a wide array of freed black people, enslaved people, and whites whose lives come together in the odyssey surrounding the last weeks of this woman's life. Harriet Tubman served as an inspiration for the book, which gives a fictional depiction of a code of communication that enslaved people used to help runaways attain freedom. The book, based on real events that occurred on Maryland's Eastern Shore, also featured notorious criminal Patty Cannon as a villain.In 2012, McBride co-wrote and co-produced Red Hook Summer (2012) with Spike Lee.In July 2013, McBride co-authored Hard Listening (2013) with the rest of the Rock Bottom Remainders (published by Coliloquy). In August 2013, his The Good Lord Bird, a novel, was released by Riverhead Books. The work details the life of notorious abolitionist John Brown. It won the 2013 National Book Award for fiction.On September 22, 2016, President Barack Obama awarded McBride the 2015 National Humanities Medal "for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America. Through writings about his own uniquely American story, and his works of fiction informed by our shared history, his moving stories of love display the character of the American family." In December 2020, Emily Temple of Literary Hub reported that his novel Deacon King Kong had made 16 lists of the best books of 2020, while in February 2021 it won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Deacon King Kong received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction and was selected for Oprah's Book Club. Saxophonist and composer McBride is the tenor saxophonist for the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of best-selling authors who are also musicians. "Hopefully", McBride says, "the group has retired for good." He also toured as a saxophonist with jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott and has his own band that plays an eclectic blend of music. He has written songs for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., Pura Fé, and Gary Burton. McBride composed the theme music for the Clint Harding Network, Jonathan Demme's New Orleans documentary Right to Return, and Ed Shockley's off-Broadway musical Bobos .McBride was awarded the American Music Theater Festival's Stephen Sondheim Award in 1993, the American Arts and Letters Richard Rodgers Award in 1996, and the inaugural ASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award in 1996. Personal life McBride is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University. He has three children with his ex-wife and lives in New York City and Lambertville, New Jersey. Bibliography The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1995) Miracle at St. Anna (2002) Song Yet Sung (2008) The Good Lord Bird (2013) Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul (2016) Five-Carat Soul (2017) Deacon King Kong (2020) The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (2023)Filmography Miracle at St. Anna (2008) Red Hook Summer (2012) The Good Lord Bird (2020)References External links Curry, Ginette. "Toubab La!": Literary Representations of Mixed-race Characters in the African Diaspora.Cambridge Scholars Pub., Newcastle, England.2007 [1]. McBride's official website James McBride at IMDb James McBride's Advice For New Writers: 'A Simple Story Is The Best Story'. Author Interviews: 29 minute audio with transcript, Fresh Air, NPR, March 5, 2021.. Discover the James Mcbride popular books. Find the top 100 most popular James Mcbride books.

Best Seller James Mcbride Books of 2024

  • The Penguin Book of English Verse synopsis, comments

    The Penguin Book of English Verse

    P J Keegan

    This ambitious and revelatory collection turns the traditional chronology of anthologies on its head, listing poems according to their first individual appearance in the language r...

  • Why We Write About Ourselves synopsis, comments

    Why We Write About Ourselves

    Meredith Maran

    In the voices of twenty landmark memoiristsincluding New York Times bestselling authors Cheryl Strayed, Sue Monk Kidd, and Pat Conroya definitive text on the craft of autobiographi...

  • The Killing Connection synopsis, comments

    The Killing Connection

    T.F. Muir

    How well do you know the person you love? A woman's body is washed up on the rocks by the castle ruins in St Andrews with evidence of strangulation, and no ID. Two days into the ca...

  • Script Tease synopsis, comments

    Script Tease

    Dylan Callaghan

    The Newest Screenwriting SecretsWhat do an erstwhile stripper, an ex–gambling addict, and a stoned Canadian teenager have in common? They wrote your favorite movies, and they're no...

  • The Extinction Agenda synopsis, comments

    The Extinction Agenda

    Michael Laurence

    An FBI agent fights to stop a conspiracy to unleash a deadly virus on the world in this propulsive, exhilarating new thriller. The discovery of a deadly virus being smuggled across...

  • Blood Torment synopsis, comments

    Blood Torment

    T.F. Muir

    When a threeyear old girl is reported missing, DCI Andy Gilchrist is assigned the case. But Gilchrist soon suspects that the child's mother Andrea Davis may be responsible for he...

  • Five-Carat Soul synopsis, comments

    Five-Carat Soul

    James McBride

    One of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2017“A pinball machine zinging with sharp dialogue, breathtaking plot twists and naughty humor... McBride at his brave and joyous ...

  • A Stranger Here Below synopsis, comments

    A Stranger Here Below

    Charles Fergus

    For fans of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series, a fabulous historical mystery series set in early America. “Deeply imagined and intricately plotted, A Stranger Here Below mar...

  • Summary of Deacon King Kong By James McBride synopsis, comments

    Summary of Deacon King Kong By James McBride

    C.B. PUBLISHERS

    A chapter by chapter highquality summary of James McBride´s book Deacon King Kong including chapter details and analysis of the main themes of the original book.About the original ...

  • Pedro and Marques Take Stock synopsis, comments

    Pedro and Marques Take Stock

    José Falero & Julia Sanches

    "[A] vibrant and punchy novel . . . Through Falero’s lovable characters, readers will meditate on violence and respectability within the deathtrap of runaway capitalism. ...

  • Robots synopsis, comments

    Robots

    Chuck Klosterman

    Originally collected in Chuck Klosterman IV and now available both as a standalone essay and in the ebook collection Chuck Klosterman on Film and Television, this essay is about I,...

  • James Mcbride, Plaintiff in Error v. the Lessee of William Hoey synopsis, comments

    James Mcbride, Plaintiff in Error v. the Lessee of William Hoey

    United States Supreme Court

    ERROR to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, for the western district. An action of ejectment was instituted by the lessee of William Hoey against James McBride, the tenant of Willi...

  • Lay This Body Down synopsis, comments

    Lay This Body Down

    Charles Fergus

    "Richly textured historical fiction with the urgency of a mystery novel. Fergus knows certain things, deep in the bone: horses, hunting, the folkways of rural places, and he weaves...

  • The Annihilation Protocol synopsis, comments

    The Annihilation Protocol

    Michael Laurence

    Michael Laurence delivers The Annihilation Protocol, the followup to The Extinction Agenda, in a series described as “Jack Reacher falling into a plot written by Dan Brown” (James ...

  • The Black Girl Next Door synopsis, comments

    The Black Girl Next Door

    Jennifer Baszile

    A powerful, beautifully written memoir about coming of age as a black girl in an exclusive white suburb in "integrated," postCivil Rights California in the 1970s and 1980s. At ...

  • Deacon King Kong by James McBride Summary synopsis, comments

    Deacon King Kong by James McBride Summary

    SmartReads

    This is not a book by James McBride, nor is it affiliated with her, but an independent publication by SmartReads, that summarizes the book in detail. This is A Summary Book. Det...

  • The Color of Water synopsis, comments

    The Color of Water

    James McBride

    The New York Times bestselling story from the author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction.Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A selfdeclared ...

  • Song Yet Sung synopsis, comments

    Song Yet Sung

    James McBride

    From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, FiveCarat Soul, and Kill 'Em and Leave,...

  • We Are a Haunting synopsis, comments

    We Are a Haunting

    Tyriek White

    "An absolute triumph." Michael Schaub, NPR "Astonishing." Kiese Laymon, MacArthur Fellow and author of Long Division "What a beautiful, haunting and hued narrative of American...

  • The Fisher King synopsis, comments

    The Fisher King

    Melissa Lenhardt

    When the dust settles in this Texas town, who will be left standing?It’s been six weeks since Jack McBride’s life went to hell: the resolution of his first case as chief sparked a ...

  • Trust No One synopsis, comments

    Trust No One

    Paul Cleave

    In this “outstanding psychological thriller” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) by the Edgarnominated author of Joe Victim, a famous crime writer struggles to differentiate betwee...

  • The Elimination Threat synopsis, comments

    The Elimination Threat

    Michael Laurence

    Michael Laurence delivers The Elimination Threat, the next installment in a series described as “Jack Reacher falling into a plot written by Dan Brown.” James Rollins, #1 New York ...