Posts in Book
Denene Millner - Black Enterprise 'Elevating Your Excellence: Denene Millner Is A GOAT In The Literary Game'

Black Enterprise | November 3, 2025

Denene Millner has consistently excelled throughout her 25-year career. The former entertainment reporter and political journalist for the New York Daily News—and former editor for Parenting and Honey Magazine, the seminal millennial women’s publication that debuted in the early 2000s—turned author of 35 books to-date, six of which are New York Times best-sellers; two that were adapted into screenplays, one for the silver screen—is currently vice president and publisher of Denene Millner Books, a Black children’s book imprint under Simon & Schuster Publishing House.

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BookDeena Warner
'What ‘Annabelle’ Can Teach Us About Race' by Lindsey Stewart - Essence

Essence | October 29, 2025

On May 15, 2025, Nottoway Plantation, one of the largest antebellum mansions in Louisiana, caught fire. The event immediately sparked an intense discussion on social media about race, slavery, and how we remember American history. While many white Americans mourned the loss of this grand historical estate, several African Americans expressed joyous relief. To us, Nottoway’s transformation in the 1980s – from a brutal site of enslavement to a luxury resort and wedding venue – represented the Southern plantation tourist industry’s tendency to whitewash our past.

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BookDeena Warner
WATER MIRROR ECHO by Jeff Chang - The Orange County Register 'Fall book preview: 34 new titles you’ll want to read in 2025'

The Orange County Register | October 10, 2025

In the following months, publishers both big and small will release some of their most anticipated titles, perfectly timed for readers who want to dig into a book in a park, their backyard, or a coffeehouse with a hot drink in hand. (We won’t judge you for ordering something pumpkin-spice flavored.)

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BookDeena Warner
WATER MIRROR ECHO by Jeff Chang - Vogue 'The Best Books of 2025 So Far'

Vogue | October 7, 2025

Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America by Jeff Chang (September)

Say “Bruce Lee,” and the name conjures up a vision, a concept, or an ideal to almost everybody in the world, along the lines of Muhummad Ali or Bob Marley. Poke a bit beneath the surface, though, and just what people know about the martial arts legend and film star often proves to be quite vague and ethereal. Enter Water Mirror Echo (Mariner), Jeff Chang’s lively and deeply researched biography of Lee that doubles as a probing exploration of Lee’s profound effect on Asian American identity. Along with telling the gripping story of Lee’s life and groundbreaking career, Chang (whose first book, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, was named one of the best American nonfiction books of the last quarter century) reframes the legend as a crucial pioneer and catalyst of assimilation, pride, and representation who, decades after his death at the age of 32, remains a powerful icon of power and resistance. This is that rare book that’s monumental in scope, ambition, and execution—and it’s both wildly fun and deeply rewarding.

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BookDeena Warner
WATER MIRROR ECHO by Jeff Chang - Slate 'Bruce Lee Was an “Anchor Baby”'

Slate | September 23, 2025

“That I should be an American-born Chinese was accidental,” Bruce Lee once mused, “or it might have been by my father’s arrangement.”

Lee, cinema’s greatest martial artist and the most famous Asian American of all time, was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Nov. 27, 1940, in the segregated Chinese Hospital. His parents, Li (also anglicized as “Lee” in the U.S.) Hoi Chuen and Grace Ho, had come from Hong Kong a year earlier, sailing across the Pacific to perform Cantonese opera for Chinese American audiences across the United States.

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BookDeena Warner
WATER MIRROR ECHO by Jeff Chang - SF Chronicle 'New book ‘Water Mirror Echo’ explores how Bruce Lee’s legacy still shapes Asian America'

SF Chronicle | September 23, 2025

In spring 2024, Berkeley author and activist Jeff Chang had just completed the first draft of his Bruce Lee biography, “Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America,” when he called in the “firing squad.”

Borrowing a tactic from San Jose-raised author Viet Thanh Nguyen, Chang assembled a group of trusted peers — Bruce Lee “Be Water” documentary filmmaker Bao Nguyen, authors Adam Mansbach (“Go the F— to Sleep”) and Cathy Park Hong (“Minor Feelings”), and East Bay comedian and self-proclaimed “No. 1 Bruce Lee Expert (Non-Asian Division)” W. Kamau Bell.

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BookDeena Warner
WATER MIRROR ECHO by Jeff Chang - Chicago Tribune 'Fall Book Preview'

Chicago Tribune | September 11, 2025

It’s been 20 years since Jeff Chang’s masterful Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, but he’s back in a big way with Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Sept. 23). Chang rejects the legend and opts for a dense portrait using rarely-seen archives, of a man whose immigration reflected the rise of Asian American communities.

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BookDeena Warner
'The Powerful Meaning of Black Mermaids in American History' by Lindsey Stewart - TIME

TIME | September 8, 2025

Lindsey Stewart, author of the critically acclaimed The Conjuring of America, has written an enlightening article for TIME titled “The Powerful Meaning of Black Mermaids in American History.” “For centuries, Black enslaved communities invoked mermaids as they organized rebellions against slavery,” she says in her detailed analysis.

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BookDeena Warner
WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE by Karin Slaughter - NPR 'For her 25th book, Karin Slaughter wanted to capture life in small-town Georgia'

NPR | August 25, 2025

Karin Slaughter’s new book opens on a hot summer night in Georgia. It’s Madison Dalrymple’s 15th birthday and she has a big night planned with her best friend. But both girls go missing and there’s no easy answer to what happened to them. We Are All Guilty Here is the crime writer’s 25th book in 25 years of writing. In today’s episode, Slaughter joins NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly for a conversation that touches on the dynamics of small Southern towns and the impact of the 1979-1981 Atlanta child murders.

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BookDeena Warner
THE HUNTING WIVES by May Cobb - Deadline 'From ‘The Hunting Wives’ To ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ Recent Book Adaptations Are Fueling An Audiobook Listening Surge On Spotify'

Deadline | August 19, 2025

The streaming service has measured some massive increases in audiobook engagement in the two weeks following the releases of The Hunting Wives, We Were Liars and more, the company tells us.

Leading the trend is May Cobb’s The Hunting Wives, which saw a 605% increase in global listening in the two weeks following its arrival on Netflix July 21, 2025. The 8-episode first season of the show stars Malin Akerman as Margo Banks, Brittany Snow as Sophie O’Neil and more.

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BookDeena Warner
WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE by Karin Slaughter - Next Avenue '25 Novels Into Her Career, Karin Slaughter Isn't Slowing Down'

Next Avenue | August 11, 2025

In Karin Slaughter's new novel We Are All Guilty Here, due out this month, Officer Emmy Clifton has to figure out who kidnapped two young girls, one of whom happens to be her best friend's stepdaughter. It is a hefty story that spans many years and unearths many secrets. The first in a new North Falls series of books, We Are All Guilty Here may just be Slaughter's most sprawling novel yet — and that's saying something, given that this is her 25th novel in 25 years.

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BookDeena Warner
WE ARE ALL GUILTY HERE by Karin Slaughter - Oprah Daily 'Karin Slaughter on Crashing The Thriller Writer Boy’s Club'

Oprah Daily | August 11, 2025

My first book, Blindsighted, published on September 4, 2001. One week later, the Twin Towers fell. It’s hard to reconcile that this was almost 25 years ago and that I’ve written 24 more books in that time. The days were long but the years were short, as the saying goes. Since then, quite a lot has changed in the world and in the world of book publishing.

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BookDeena Warner