Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings (2006)

As the heroine of Tyler Perry's two films (Madea's Family Reunion, Diary of a Mad Black Woman) and five stage plays, Mabel ''Madea'' Simmons has won fame for dishing out advice to the women in her family and threatening to pop a cap in the ass of anyone who threatens their well-being. The fictional 68-year-old matriarch doesn't hold back from filling Perry's first book with sassy musings about everything from ''The Miracle of Vaseline'' to ''Run-ins With the Po-Po.'' While early chapters of Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings may be slow going for the uninitiated, patrons of the playwright-actor-director-producer's expanding oeuvre will be tickled by Madea's wicked wisdom.