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Here’s Sapphire explaining how the book became the Oscar-nominated movie:

In recent months, my professional life has led me to spend more than a little time contemplating the life choices of one Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods.

Yes, I’m serious. And yes, I really wish I could tell you I was kidding. He lives in Orlando, so any and every little thing related to him is big news here.

Anyway, when Woods was rumored to have skedaddled to a sex-addiction clinic after the embarrassing revelations about his penchant for cocktail-waitress skanketry, I was intrigued. You see, I didn’t think such a thing as sex addiction really existed. I figured “sex addict” was therapist-speak for “unrepentant, cheating jerk.”

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a reference to Benoit Denizet-Lewis’s 2009 book America Anonymous, in which Denizet-Lewis, who describes himself as a recovering sex addict, follows eight sex, drug and alcohol addicts. I soon made an effort to find the book.

I expected to be moved by these folks’ tales — Denizet-Lewis is no slouch at finding dazzling unfamiliar stories in familiar places. His subjects are mostly characters with moving stories, from the oldest, a middle-aged crack-addict grandmother, to the youngest, a college-aged kid who doesn’t think he can control his sexual appetites. Even the creepazoid bodybuilder with the steroid and meth problem was fascinating. They tell their stories candidly when they have the self-awareness to do so, and Denizet-Lewis recounts the stories in a crisp, unaffected, clear prose that matches the seriousness of the subject matter.

But I wasn’t entirely convinced that all these folks were in the grips of crippling addictions. Some, yes. But not all (shoplifting, seriously?).

Where his work is most useful is in drawing back the curtains on what happens in rehabilitation and recovery (call me a naif, but I don’t think I was aware of how much relapses are accepted and expected in the culture of recovery).

I’m impressed by the work Denizet-Lewis did, but you know what?

I still don’t believe sex addiction exists.

It’s the true story of a young black woman in the south who had cervical cancer. Doctors took some cells from her body without her knowledge as she was dying circa 1950, and it turns out that those cells, as well as others from her family members, have been used in countless medical studies since then.

Bought and sold and shipped around the world for decades, HeLa cells are famous to science students everywhere. But little has been known, until now, about the unwitting donor of these cells. Mrs. Lacks’s own family did not know that her cells had become famous (and that people had grown wealthy from marketing them) until more than two decades after her death, after scientists had begun to take blood from her surviving family members, without their informed consent, in order to better study HeLa.

I want to read.

Also, does this remind anybody else of Tananarive Due’s Immortals series, about the east Africans with immortal cells/blood?

I’m calling it Not A Black Author But That’s OK (NABABTOK).

I feel the need to make this announcement because I started this site as a way to highlight work by black authors — especially underappreciated ones — but since my personal library comprises more than just black authors, I don’t often get a chance to talk about everything I’m reading.

This will continue to be a site highlighting works by black authors, but I want to broaden the scope a bit.

Fair warning.

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See this Gizmodo post for more details.

That iBooks store (#SteveJobsruleseverythingaroundme) looks pretty fly.

Are Amazon and Sony quaking in their boots? Probably not, but I’m sure they’re not happy about this.

In just a few weeks (Feb. 21 at 8 p.m. ET), the TV movie Sins of the Mother will air on Lifetime. It stars Jill Scott.

Haven’t heard of Sins of the Mother? Well, maybe you remember it as Orange Mint and Honey, by kick-butt novelist (and friend of this blog) Carleen Brice.

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Motherhood is kicking my tail, as you can imagine.

But today’s earthquake (and the nearly 20 aftershocks) in beautiful Haiti made me want to do something. I’m really just sick about all the destruction in a country that has suffered quite enough already.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can do for the people in Haiti from my little house in Florida — except donate a little cash to the people who know what to do to help.

If you can, would you donate too, please?

Some suggested beneficiaries:

AmeriCares

International Committee of the Red Cross

Disaster Relief International

Mission Manna

Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group

Catholic Relief Services

Yele Haiti

Afrobella has some thoughts on the matter, too.