One of my favorite thirty-second pastimes is to click on major websites for books and find out which titles customers are purchasing in addition to a specific book of my own. I was particularly curious about what the results might be in regard to ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love , my newly published gift book of art, essays, and poetry with internationally acclaimed artist Luther E. Vann.

I visited Barnes and Noble to find out what kind of company ELEMENTAL was keeping and smiled at the surprise waiting for me. Customers who’d bought ELEMENTAL had also purchased Wall and Piece by Banksy, described as “Britain’s most wanted artist.” This association in particular raised my eyebrows because I just learned about the “notorious” Banksy, a very public artist whose actual identity is unknown, a few months ago when the news program 60 Minutes featured a profile of his work. Huh, wasn’t that something?

The four other titles listed among those picked up by readers of ELEMENTAL included: A Flair for Living, by Charlotte Moss; Beautiful Evidence, by Edward Tufte; How to Draw What You See, by Rudy De Reyna; and Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer. All of these titles made me grateful to see mine in their company but I was especially tickled to see it hanging out with a book flagging the name of Marcel Proust, one of the increasingly great figures of French and world literature.

The synopsis of Proust Was A Neuroscientist describes the book as one that boldly examines parallels between the artistic and scientific personality, illustrating how “willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect.” Obviously, the author has caught my attention and this is a book I look forward to reading.

Considering that it took all of seventeen years for the idea of ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love, to develop into a complete and published book, it’s inspiring to see it simultaneously keeping company with a modern maverick visual artist like Banksy and a classic literary artist like Proust.  

ELEMENTAL may be purchased at the following locations:

Barnes and Noble

Black Books Plus

The Diaspora Market Place  (912-232-2626)      

The Jepson Center Gift Shop (912-790-8831)

The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum (912-231-8900)

by Aberjhani

author of  ELEMENTAL The Power of Illuminated Love

and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance