The publication of New Stories from the South 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of this prestigious series. Obviously, the folks…

Under the Dome by Stephen King. Scribner, 2009. 1,074 pages Before I had read 20 pages of Stephen King’s new…

Drood by Dan Simmons. Little, Brown & Company, 2009. 775 pages. I must admit, I’ve never been much of a…

If you are a fan of the apocalypse movies that are currently common fare in American theaters, you will immediately…

Eli the Good by Silas House. Candlewick Press, 2009. 295 pages Eli Book, the 10-year-old narrator/protagonist of Silas House’s new…

The Cleansing by Ben Eller. Fireside Publications, 2009. 292 pages   In Ben Eller’s science fiction novel, The Cleansing, (2020),…

Among the varied “revelations” brought to light during the celebrations attending the 75th Anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National…

Willful Creatures Stories by Aimee Bender. Doubleday & Company, 2005. 208 pages   Recently, Garrison Keilor mentioned a new writer,…

A Son of the Game: A Story of Golf, Going Home, and Sharing Life’s Lessons by James Dodson. Algonquin Books,…

The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman. Ballantine Books, 2007. 368 pages. In The Sonnet Lover (Ballantine Books, ISBN 978-0-345-47957-0, $24.95),…

Up River: A Novel of Attempted Restoration by George Ivey. Dog Year, 2009. 304 Pages. George Ivey’s Up River: A…

Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones. William Morrow, 2009. 284 pages   Memoirs by children of famous…

Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker Percy. Picador, 2000. 272 pages.   Walker Percy not only…

Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons. Subterranean Press, 2008. 105 page In recent years, it has become fashionable for writers…

For the past few years, internet literary critics of fantasy/supernatural novels have been raving about about a writer of “punk…

The design of this book’s cover, in addition to being visually attractive, quite possibly serves as an inadvertent assessment of…

On a hot July night in 1935, a young Wise County, Virginia, school teacher named Edith Maxwell came home late.…

The Memory of Gills by Catherine Carter. Louisiana State University Press, 2006. 59 pages. Recently, when Catherine Carter was asked…

The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell. Plume/Penguin Group, 2008. 196 pages. Several years ago, I read an amazing…

Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone, by Nadine Cohodas. Pantheon Books, 2010. 449 pages. The first time I…

During my first year at Western Carolina Teachers College (now Western Carolina University) in 1953, I managed to offend my…

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Doubleday, 2009. 470 pages.A few days after completing The Shadow of the Wind,…

eoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: a Retelling by Peter Ackroyd. Viking Press, 2009. 436 pages Being an old English teacher,…

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Penguin Books, 2005. 487 pagesLet’s begin with a marvelous story —…

Requiem by Fire by Wayne Caldwell. Random House, 2009. 335 pages Dear readers, if you have some slight respect for…

Horns by Joe Hill. William Morrow Publishers, 2010. 370 pages. Ignatius William Perrish (“Iggy” to his friends) awoke one morning…

Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell. Saint Martins Press, 1998. 397 pages Several years ago, when I was reading everything…

My Mountain Granny by Matthew Link Baker. Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, Inc., 2010. In the opening pages of My…

The Turnaround by George Pelecanos. Little, Brown and Company, 2009. 320 pages   On a sweltering summer night in 1972,…

For some 30 years now, Bernard Cornwell has been one of the most prolific writers in the western hemisphere. With…

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell. Saint Martin’s Press, 1997. I was probably 10 years old when I discovered King…

Although Americans are known for their wandering ways, traveling to California in Conestoga wagons, taking the train to find a…

Home. The word is as twisted with complications and mystery as all those other household words we use every day:…

In Spite of Myself: A Memoir by Christopher Plummer. Knopf, 2008. 656 pages. Like most readers, I usually have a…

Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf. Clarion Books, 2007. 208 pages. On May 27, 1942, resistance fighters who had…

Most Americans are surely aware our economy is still in trouble. The downswing in the last year of the Bush…

Two weeks ago, a friend and I traveled down into Central Georgia looking for Flannery O’Connor. My friend, whom I…

Stephen Hunter’s I, Sniper (ISBN 978-1-4165-6515-4, $26) brings to readers once again that intrepid sniper, now old and aching from…

Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness by William Spiegelman. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009. In Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary…

Next by James Hynes. Reagan Arthur Books, 2010. 320 pages. In The Lecturer’s Tale, previously reviewed in The Smoky Mountain…

Twelve years ago, while teaching Latin at a local high school, I was discussing a point of grammar — I…

“April is the cruelest of months, breeding/ lilacs out of the dead land” — so wrote T.S. Eliot in the…

Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys by Stephen James and David Thomas. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2009. 368 pages.…

In Ayn Rand and the World She Made (ISBN 978-0-385-51399-9, Doubleday, 568 pages, $35), Anne C. Heller has given readers…

The Fitzgerald Ruse by Mark De Castrique. Poisoned Pen Press, 2009. 250 pages. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and magazines like…

Devil’s Dream by Madison Smartt Bell. Pantheon, 2009. 352 pages.   Although several biographies of Nathan Bedford Forrest have found…

Rain Gods by James Lee Burke. Simon and Schuster, 2009. 448 pages. Readers of this column know that some authors…

Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath by Elizabeth and Michael Norman. Farrar,…