Mountain Passages: Natural and Cultural History of Western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains by George Ellison. History Press, 2005. $18.99 — 160 pp.

Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods by Thomas Rain Crowe. University of Georgia Press, 2005. $27.95 — 221 pp.

Whenever some of my friends ask me how it is to write for The Smoky Mountain News, I take great delight in telling them why I enjoy writing for a weekly paper whose view of the world does not necessarily correspond to my own. I tell them about the editor, a man with certain principles who nonetheless gives voice to opposing ideas. I tell them about the two young reporters in the office, who wrote one of the finest articles on last fall’s election and the politics of the press that I saw anywhere. I tell them about the two young men whose computer skills help keep the whole place running smoothly, and about the man who works heroically selling ad copy so that everyone else can be paid, and about the front desk receptionist who helps keep all the rest of the crew organized enough to do their jobs.

Publishing events of this spring have given me another reason to tell people why I am proud to write for The Smoky Mountain News. In the last few months, three columnists for this paper have seen their books published. Of these three writers — George Ellison, Thomas Rain Crowe, and Marshall Frank — two based their books, at least in part, on columns that first appeared in these pages.

George Ellison’s Mountain Passages: Natural and Cultural History of Western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains is a fine collection of essays dealing with the natural history of our region and its peoples, particularly the Cherokee and the mountaineers. What is outstanding about Ellison’s writing is his ability to give us information and facts, but always with a personal voice and always with the sense that he is at our elbow, pointing out those facts rather than lecturing to us.

In this collection he includes a wealth of information about the Cherokees, their history and their customs; one piece that I particularly enjoyed was his article regarding a plan for possibly moving Apaches into this area in 1893. After all the rain of this summer, and after last summer’s dreary rains that culminated in major flooding, I felt a good deal of appreciation on reading that General Cook believed that the Apaches might do better in a drier climate. Another article that proved particularly intriguing was “Stark Love: Karl Brown’s 1927 Mountain Movie,” in which Ellison describes the making of one of the earliest and most realistic of Appalachian movies.

Whether writing about fly fishing, courthouses, or Indian caves, Ellison gives us prose that is as clear and refreshing as a mountain spring. Here, in fact, is Ellison introducing his chapter on springs and springhouses:

Old-time mountaineers picked house sites according to the location and purity of springs. They were connoisseurs of water. Taste was the prime consideration, followed by coolness, clarity and reliability.

Not a wasted word in prose as strong as a mountaineer’s fist.

•••

Thomas Rain Crowe’s Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods tells the story of the four years of Crowe’s life when, as a younger man, he lived in a cabin near Saluda without electricity, plumbing, or a regular income. His neighbor, Zoro Guice, an old man who had lived in the mountains all his life, acted as teacher and guide to Crowe, giving him advice on everything from bee-keeping to plowing and telling him that, “The best way to learn about life, nature, and these mountains is just to go out into the woods and set down in one spot and let the nature and the teachings come to you.” For four years, Crowe followed that advice, with the end result being Zoro’s Field.

Regular readers of The Smoky Mountain News are aware that this book first appeared in monthly installments in the paper. What makes this book so special, as opposed to reading it in column form, is that the reader is given the big-picture view of Crowe’s efforts and love of the land that is often impossible to convey in a column, particularly in one that appeared only monthly.

We also see in this book Crowe’s love of words, his passion for language. That he began his writing as a poet becomes apparent on nearly every page of his book. Here, for instance, he describes a fire in wintertime.

Sitting there, I was mesmerized by the sound of the popping wood and the way the light would flicker on the walls and ceiling creating designs and illusion — the woodstove acting as surrogate campfire within the haven of my cabin walls. To my eye, everything inside the cabin looked better in that light. The old chair, the rustic table I used as a desk, the rough-cut oak bookshelves, even the glass jars of canned beans and applesauce on the larder shelf looked elegant, rich, and refined in the firelight...

Collectors of Appalachian literature, environmentalists, visitors to our region, and anyone who treasures good writing and a good story will want to pick up copies of Mountain Passages and Zoro’s Field.

(A review of Marshall Frank’s latest book will appear in the next column by Jeff Minick. Minick can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com.)