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https://www.blackenterprise.com/5-empowering-books-summer-reading-list/
Originally Published Aug. 18, 2015.
The end of the summer should remind us of one thing—the countdown to the New Year starts now. So, if you’re behind in your career goals or need some motivation to launch that idea you’ve been sitting on for several months, check out these awesome books on career and creativity.
Strategize to Win by Carla Harris
Recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of “The Most Powerful Black Executives in Corporate,” and Black Enterprise magazine’s “Top 75 African Americans on Wall Street” and “Top 75 Most Powerful Women in Business, “Harris is more than qualified in the career strategies and tools necessary to “start out, step up, or start over in your career.
Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
When Austin Kleon was asked to speak to students at Broome Community College, he wrote his speech based on “ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out at their age.” “Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you.” This message serves as the foundation for Steal Like an Artist—transformative principles that help people discover their artistic side.
And you don’t have to be an “artist” to benefit from this short, yet powerful read about tapping into your creative side. The book includes empowering messages, graphic illustrations, and Kleon’s personal experiences.
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
If there is anyone who can teach you something about holding out for “hope,” it’s our very own former President of the United States, Barack Obama. According to the book description on Amazon, The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama’s call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America’s place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward.”
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
If you’re one of the millions of people who dream about escaping the corporate rat race, the 4-hour workweek is recognized by many “career switchers” as the “blueprint.” The book includes 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled their incomes, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point.”
Leave Your Mark: Land Your Dream Job. Kill It in Your Career. Rock Social Media by Aliza Licht
Leave Your Mark: Land Your Dream Job is described as “mentorship in 288 pages.” Highlights from the book include communication and personal branding tips as well Licht’s invaluable lessons learned from her career as well as advice and inspiration.
RELATED CONTENT: These Books On Black Motherhood Are Right On Time For Mother’s Day!
Photo by Marleen Moise/WireImage By Okla Jones ·Updated May 29, 2024
The 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture is back in New Orleans to kick off the summer season in an atmosphere of Black joy, beautiful music, and food selections that are second-to-none. With this year marking its 30th anniversary, attendees can experience the festival’s rich history, all while creating new memories that will last a lifetime.
To celebrate three decades of the ESSENCE Festival of Culture presented by Coca-Cola®, the Evening Concert Series at Caesar’s Superdome will feature an array of amazing performers, including the Nigerian sensation Ayra Starr.
Born Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe, Starr has become one of the hottest musicians in the world. After posting covers of songs by notable artists in 2019, she uploaded an original song called “Damage,” which ultimately led to her signing with Mavin Records the following year. In 2021, the singer hit mainstream with the hit track “Away,” building anticipation for her first solo release 19 & Dangerous. The project was met with critical acclaim, achieving two Top 40 hits in her homeland. The lead single “Bloody Samaritan” became the first solo song by a female artist to reach the number-one spot.
Photo by Joseph Okpako 2024 has been a huge year for Starr. It started on a high note as she was recognized by the Recording Academy, being nominated for Best African Music Performance at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. She also was announced as one of the opening acts for Chris Brown’s arena tour, and became the first female Nigerian artist to reach a peak of 20 million monthly listeners on Spotify. With today’s news of her joining ESSENCE’s Evening Concert Series, Starr’s career trajectory is trending upwards.
The ESSENCE Festival of Culture is a celebration of Black music, and the Nigerian sensation embodies that perfectly with an amazing skill set and vibrant spirit. In the time since its inception in 1995, the festival has risen to become the must-attend event of the summer. With a legendary music lineup, an atmosphere of Black joy, and the backdrop of the Big Easy, the 2024 edition is one that you won’t want to miss.
The ESSENCE Festival of Culture
presented by Coca-Cola® will take place July 4-7. For more information and updates on the festival, visit our website and follow us on social media @ESSENCEFest on X, Facebook, and Instagram.
The post 2024 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture Performer: Ayra Starr appeared first on Essence.
On the surface, traveling with the Doctor seems like a dream. As the Fifteenth Doctor said, you don’t have to worry about a job, boss, bills, or anything else that stresses the average human. You can fill your life with adventures and go practically anywhere in the TARDIS. But, as fans of the show know, life as a companion can get really complicated and downright sad. In the show’s more recent seasons, we’ve seen several companions go through the wringer in different ways. Sometimes, it is permanent, like Bill Potts’ sad ending. But even when it doesn’t last, seeing bad things happen to the Doctor’s friends is distressing.
The Doctor’s current companion, Ruby Sunday, went through a timeline where she lost everyone she loved and spent 65 years being stalked by an older version of herself. We watched her go through an entire lifetime trying to solve a mystery without the Doctor. The worst part is, this isn’t the first time that a Doctor Who companion got left (or separated) from the Doctor and got older while waiting for their return. Here are a couple other companions who went through a similar experience.
Amy Pond – “The Girl Who Waited”
Eleventh Doctor companion Amy Pond has a rather unique relationship with the Doctor. She met him as a child and grew up talking about her imaginary friend in the blue box who promised to come back soon. He did return, but it was years later when she was an adult and preparing to marry Rory Williams (who became a companion, too), and they began to travel.
Later on, in “The Girl Who Waited,” she got separated from the Doctor and Rory in a quarantine facility on a foreign planet. Time passed much quicker there, leading to her being there for 36 years. We meet an older Amy and the Doctor has to leave her behind to save younger Amy to avoid a paradox. Once again, Amy (or at least a version of her) had to wait a long time for the Doctor’s return.
Amy and Rory eventually leave the TARDIS after a Weeping Angel sends them back in time. The Doctor cannot reach them and we learn that they die of old age, together. What a wild journey.
Rory Williams – “The Doctor’s Wife” and “The Angels Take Manhattan”
Speaking of Rory and those Weeping Angels, we do get to see an older Rory in “The Angels Take Manhattan.” Before it all ends, Rory ends up in Winter Quay, a hotel full of aging people who are being used by the Weeping Angels to zap their time energy. Amy and Rory go through extreme measures to free Rory from this imprisonment but we do see him in there in old age.
Before all of this, “The Doctor’s Wife” shows poor Rory getting trapped in a TARDIS maze where his timeline speeds up quickly while trying to escape. Amy finds him and he is older and hysterical. Thankfully, this time conundrum works itself out as the episode progresses.
Clara Oswald – “Last Christmas”
We love a weird Christmas episode. “Last Christmas” is a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream type of story. It is, well, about crabs that latch onto your face and force you into dreams while they devour your brain. Fantastic. This happens to the Twelfth Doctor’s companion Clara Oswald, who ends up with a crab on her face so long that she appears elderly. She says 62 years have passed. Of course, the Doctor gets Clara back as a young person and she decides to continue traveling with him.
Sarah Jane Smith – “School Reunion”
Now this one is quite different. Instead of everything happening in an episode or two, this legitimately takes decades. Sarah Jane Smith is one of the most beloved Classic Who companions who spent time with the Third and Fourth Doctors. In the 1976 serial “The Hand of Fear,” The Fourth Doctor is summoned to his home planet of Gallifrey and says she cannot go with him. He drops her off on Earth (in the wrong place) and goes off in the TARDIS. Sarah makes an appearance in an anniversary story in 1983. But, because of timey wimey things, Sarah ends up going back to her life investigating weird things on Earth with K9, a robot dog.
Thirty years after her initial exit, Sarah Jane crosses paths with the Tenth Doctor. It is a reunion that causes tension between her and his current companion Rose Tyler. Sarah Jane is upset that he never came back for her all those years. Rose is upset that the Doctor could be so close to someone and just leave them. And the Doctor is stuck in the middle. For Sarah Jane, there was no timeline reversal or different versions of her. It was simply having to wait and wonder for years and years while getting older.
Sometimes, traveling with the Doctor can lead to years of heartbreak, pain, and longing, indeed.
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This is a mostly spoiler-free review of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION. This review covers EPISODE 0 which premiered Thursday, May 23 at 8:00 PM PT. Thank you Crunchyroll for the advanced screener of the English Dub!
“I wish the world would end so I won’t have to deal with this”
Raise your hand if you thought that Inio Asano’s first animated work would be DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION? Was a manga with a premise of a world forever changed a little on the nose to watch right now? Are aliens ever off the table in pop culture and the media we consume? This is an Asano manga series I hadn’t got around to reading so I have been hyped that the anime adaptation was coming out. Episode 0 of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION opens to perpetually tired and sleepy voiced Nobuo Koyama (Giles Panton) working away his life. For a moment, he sees his daughter, the unimpressed Kadode (Elyse Maloway) who not so gently tells him he stinks and that she’s home that day, August 31 because it is summer break. In a taxicab, Nobuo, looking out the window along with other Japanese people across the city witnesses the alien mother-ship touch down.
The first five minutes of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION throws the audience for a ride and then a father wakes up—years later with a found family, a sea of exposition and history, and a need to find his family: his daughter Kadode. The world has changed, he himself has changed, and the place of refuge he’s been at is at first glance a safe place yet also a breeding ground for power struggles and inequality forcing some to seek other options on the outside–present with new dangers.
The longer he stays out in the outside world the more dangers present themselves, man-made and extra-terrestrial created. The closer Nobuo gets to the location where he is supposed to escort and see off his traveling companions–those younger than him that have been like family in a way, the more the audience is clued in that something is not quite right, after all. In this new world, DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION reminds the viewers that tragedies are still happening, new organizations and groups have risen up further dividing humanity’s survivors, and this one man’s journey is only starting…
Verdict
DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION does a great job in its outing in Episode 0 by setting up the world building of a ruined Japan and those affected. The first five minutes lures the audience in and sucker punches them square in the jaw with a time skip and a lot of backstory that eventually is fed to along the way. Seeing the trailer, I figured that the main protagonists and mainstays in the cast would be Kadode and friends–the students and young adults figuring out how aliens further complicate their adolescence. Seeing Kadode’s father Nobuo take center stage in this Episode 0 reveals not only a Japan much worse off but whatever organisms that have come to Earth much more advanced–my interest is piqued for sure.
DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION is filled with a general sense of unease throughout watching Episode 0. Nobuo waking up and having a new (found) family, a new place and way of living is startling as the minutes drag on. He’s determined to see his daughter again as well as look after the two companions, young adults he finds himself with who have told him he’s protected them as if they were his own. It is a haunting feeling to watch him embark on this journey back to home, back to his daughter knowing that something insidious is waiting for him, and there is no way any of us watching can warn him.
I love that in Episode 0 of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION we, the audience, are treated to an post-apocalyptic world of a father trying to reunite with his remaining family. The world may be ending (or beginning again), but he’s going to find his kin and do all he can to be a family again, no matter what it takes. Earlier in the episode, we saw that Nobuo was not the most present father, being swamped with work and the doldrums of everyday life as an adult. Later, upon waking, he calls out for her and verbally tells his companions that he’s going looking for him, despite the odds. Episode 0 ends on a hopeful note with Nobuo being told even more depressing news but with a clue and a ride on where to go next. This gives the series some emotional weight that will carry with audiences for sure when we all get to see the alien mothership touch down from the point of view of the true protagonists of the series: Kadode and friends.
DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION
As the world is threatened by the sudden appearance of a mysterious alien mothership, best friends Kadode Koyama and Oran “Ontan” Nakagawa carry on about their high school life. But as they grow up, they face existential questions, learning adulthood’s complexities, and that the true threat may not be from above.
Premiering on Crunchyroll
Premieres Thursday, May 24 at 8:00 PM PT
PRODUCTION STAFF
Based on the Original Graphic Novel Created by
Inio Asano
Directed by
Tomoyuki Kurokawa
Series Composition and Screenplay Written by
Reiko Yoshida
World Setting by
Takaaki Suzuki
Character Design and Chief Animation Direction by
Nobutake Ito
Color Design by
Satoshi Takezawa
Art Direction by
Mika Nishimura
CG Direction by
Satoi Inami
Cinematography by
Takuma Morooka
Editing by
Masayuki Kurosawa
Sound Direction by
Takeshi Takadera
Music Composed by
Taro Umebayashi
Animation Production by
Production +h.
SONGS
Opening Theme Song “Shinsekai Yori” Performed by
ano and Lisa Ikuta
JAPANESE VOICE CAST
Lilas Ikuta as Kadode Koyama
ano as Oran “Ontan” Nakagawa
Atsumi Tanezaki as Kiho Kurihara
Miyuri Shimabukuro as Ai Demoto
Saeko Oki as Rin Hirama
Azumi Waki as Futaba Takemoto
Ryoko Shiraishi as Makoto Tainuma
Miyu Irino as Keita Oba
Koki Uchiyama as Kenichi Kohiruimaki
Taito Ban as Watarase
Junichi Suwabe as Hiroshi Nakagawa
Kenjiro Tsuda as Nobuo Koyama
Naoto Takenaka as Chairman
TARAKO as Debeko
Tomokazu Sugita as Isobeyan
ENGLISH DUB STAFF
English ADR Voice Direction by
Karl Willem
Scripts Adapted by
Jack Cox
English Translation by
Paul Baldwin
Recording Engineering by
Konrad Piaseczny
Dialogue editing by
Marc Matsumoto
Brian Gamblin
Joshua Stevenson
Taylor Gervais
Re-Recording Mixed by
Keith Goddard
Derek Simpson
ENGLISH VOICE CAST EPISODE 0
Giles Panton as Nobuo Koyama
Michelle Creber as Kimika
Lexi Ly as Hako
Elyse Maloway as Kadode Koyama
Graham Hamilton as Kenichi Kohiruimaki
Chelsea Miller as Futaba Takemoto
Travis Turner as Makoto Tainuma
Bill Newton as Hanazawa
Michael Dobson as Editor
Inio Asano began publishing DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits magazine from 2014-2022, for a total of 12 volumes. VIZ Media releases an English version of the manga. Read more about the series up on the Crunchyroll site here.
Cover image: © Inio Asano/Shogakukan/DeDeDeDe Committee
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The post REVIEW: ‘DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION’ Brings Post-Apocalyptic Dread and Hope in Episode 0 appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.