Also noted

In PASSPORT DIARIES (Amistad/HarperCollins, $22.95), exciting new author Tamara T. Gregory spins an interesting tale about a woman who veers off the career path to seek excitement as a globetrotter. Boy, does she find it. Before becoming a writer, Gregory enjoyed a successful career as a feature film executive in Hollywood.

In BETTER GOLF: A SKILL BUILDING APPROACH (Warde Publishers, $29.95, hardcover), longtime golfer Julius Richardson, with freelance writer Mark Gearen, provides techniques to help readers improve their game. "It has been my opinion that golf is taught the wrong way," he writes. "I'd like to show a better path to good golf than the one most golfers are taking." Richardson was the first African-American professional to be included in the Top 100 Instructors in the United States by Golf Magazine.

In HATTIE McDANIEL: BLACK AMBITION, WHITE HOLLYWOOD (Amistad/HarperCollins, $27.95, hardcover), Jill Watts highlights the strength and poise of a Hollywood legend, who has been praised by EBONY magazine as an "achiever with more firsts than anyone in Hollywood."

If you think you and your cousins invented bid whist, think again. In RISE AND FLY: TALL TALES AND MOSTLY TRUE RULES OF BID WHIST (Three Rivers Press/Crown Publishing Group, $12), Greg Morrison and Yanick Rice Lamb trace the origins of the game to the Civil War era. During that time, the writers say, it became an integral part of the African-American cultural scene on farms and at church socials throughout the Deep South.

Best-selling author Robert Greer returns with his eccentric blues-loving bail bondsman, CJ Floyd in RESURRECTING LANGSTON BLUE (North Atlantic Books/Frog Ltd., $23.95), a taut mystery intertwined with political intrigue and colorful detail. Greer lives in Denver, where he is a practicing surgical pathologist, research scientist, and a professor of medicine, pathology and surgery at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

In STEPIN FETCHIT: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF LINCOLN PERRY (Pantheon Books, $26.95) by Mel Watkins, readers get a rare view of the man who was renowned and reviled for his late 1920s and 1930s portrayals of Hollywood's stereotypical image of Blacks as lazy, shiftless and cowardly. He was one of the first Black millionaire actors. But life on the edge forced Perry into virtual obscurity and a bankruptcy filing in 1947. Still, he received recognition for his work in 1978 when he was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and in 1976 when the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP honored him with its Special Image Award.

In LIVING WITH DIABETES: A GUIDE FOR PATIENTS AND PARENTS (Hilton Publishing, $16.95), Drs. James W. Reed and Agiua Heath highlight the nature of diabetes, explaining how to recognize its symptoms, reduce risk factors and manage the disease. The book is an important reference for African-American families, given that Blacks are among the groups hit hardest by the disease.

MAKE IT HAPPEN: THE HIP HOP GENERATION GUIDE TO SUCCESS (Atria Books, $24) by Kevin Liles, executive vice president at Warner Music Group, with writer Samantha Marshall, is a primer for young people entering the workforce with "little or no idea how things really work."

COPYRIGHT 2005 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group