A memoir about misguided parents
Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones. William Morrow, 2009. 284 pages Memoirs by children of famous people…
Read More
Kephart’s novel a time capsule from bygone era
Among the varied “revelations” brought to light during the celebrations attending the 75th Anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National…
Read More
Rebellion reigns in historical novel
Devil’s Brood: The Last Days of the Tempestuous Marriage of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine by Sharon Kay Penman.…
Read More
Film highlights Asheville’s many offerings
“The Spirit of Asheville” (video) by Arthur Hancock and Katie Brugger. Time Capsule Video: Highlands. Running Time: 73 minutes. The…
Read More
Entering the mind of a terrorist
First up for review this week is Piers Paul Read’s The Death of a Pope (Ignatius Press, ISBN 978-1-58617-295-4), the…
Read More
The dark side of the Romantics
The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Dorothy and Thomas Hobbler. Little, Brown and Company. 374 pages.…
Read More
Vivid descriptions fail to save flawed book
South of Broad by Pat Conroy. Nan A. Talese, 2009. 528 pages. In his latest novel, South of Broad (ISBN…
Read More
A force of lyrical storytelling
Tender Graces by Kathryn Magendie. Bell Bridge Books, 2009. 315 pages Some of the most poignant passages in literature are…
Read More
Goodman’s second ‘classics’ story
The Night Villa by Carol Goodman. Ballantine Books, 2008. 413 pages. Over the last decade, Carol Goodman has rightly earned…
Read More
Oxford American: The best magazine ever
There aren’t many things that cause my weary heart to quicken. The local bookstore, Netflix, rain crows and, yes, the…
Read More
Mountain granny comes to life in book by former WCU student
Former WCU student Matthew Link Baker will read from his new book, My Mountain Granny: The Story of Evelyn Howell…
Read More
Particular parables and perverse ponderings
Willful Creatures Stories by Aimee Bender. Doubleday & Company. 208 pages. Recently, Garrison Keilor mentioned a new writer, Aimee Bender…
Read More
Toole explores boxing from inside the ring
Pound for Pound by F.X. Toole. HarperCollins, 2007. 416 pages. Million Dollar Baby by F.X. Toole. Harper Perennial 2005. 256…
Read More
Don West’s affinity for Appalachia
A Hard Journey by James J. Lorence. University of Illinois Press, 2009. 344 pages. Once on a warm, summer afternoon…
Read More
Chick-lit at its finest
Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo. Guideposts, 2009. 288 pages Art and literary whodunits are so plentiful these…
Read More
Freaks and morality
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch. Little, Brown and Company, 2009. 464 pages. “Whenever I am asked…
Read More
Humanizing literature
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Dial Press. 277 pages For…
Read More
Snippets from a poet’s life
Fall of Frost by Brian Hall. Penguin Group, 2008. 352 pages Since his death in 1963, Robert Frost has come…
Read More
Recreating the past with nostalgic
Remembering Henderson County by Louise Bailey. History Press, 2005. 144 pages. In Louise Bailey’s Remembering Henderson County, the author recreates…
Read More
Former Mountaineer publisher puts together Aleutian book
Photographer Ken Wilson of Waynesville recently published his first book, The Aleutian Islands of Alaska, Living on the Edge. The…
Read More
Patriot’s story is unflinching, honest
American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day by Robert Coram. Little, Brown and Company, 2007. Robert Coram’s…
Read More
Death in the arctic
The Terror by Dan Simmons. Little, Brown and Company. 2007. 769 pages. Dear readers, let’s begin by establishing two contrary…
Read More
Remembering Popcorn
To tell you the truth, when I read that some woman claiming to be Popcorn Sutton’s daughter was publishing a…
Read More
Finding distinction in literature
The Genius by Jesse Kellerman. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008. 384 pages Sixty years ago, Graham Greene, one of the great…
Read More
Dispatches from the kinky South
Surreal South: an Anthology of Short Fiction and Poetry edited by Laura Benedict & Pinckney Benedict. Winston-Salem: Press 53 $19.95…
Read More
Bradbury succeeds again with new novel
We’ll Always Have Paris by Ray Bradbury. William Morrow, 2009. 224 pages Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Ill., —…
Read More
Everyone's mother
Mother Jones by Elliott J. Gorn. Hill and Wang, 2002. 408 pages. When Mother Jones celebrated her (allegedly) 100th birthday…
Read More
Anne Rice’s spiritual journey
Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession by Anne Rice. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. 256 pages. The books are piling…
Read More
A gem of a novel
The Missing by Tim Gautreaux. Knopf Double Publishing Group, 2009. 384 pages. This is a novel that seems to vibrate…
Read More
A complex legacy
William Dudley Pelley by Scott Beckman. Syracuse University Press. 269 pages. The first time I heard the name William Dudley…
Read More
Digging up John Williams
Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams. New York Review of Books, 1960 reissued 2007. 274 pages. For those of us who…
Read More
Conservatism with a small “c”
Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Ant-Imperialism by Bill Kauffman. Metropolitan Books, 2008. 304…
Read More
Brooding obsessions
Dying Light by Donald Hays. MacAdam/Cage, 2006. 261 pages In recent years, I’m sure that the average reader feels intimidated…
Read More
The age of acting and the rapture of writing
The Age of Dreaming by Nina Revoyr. Akashic Books, 2008. 320 pages Every once in a while a novel comes…
Read More
Tales of survival from the American frontier
Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx. Simon & Schuster, 2008. 240 pages. When critics attempt to define…
Read More
WCU Cherokee studies professor wins Oklahoma book award
Robert Conley, the Sequoyah Distinguished Professor of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University, is winner of the 2009 Arrell Gibson…
Read More
Savage salvation
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. HarperCollins, 2008. 752 pages. Wally Lamb’s newest novel, The Hour I First…
Read More
A new take on murderess legend
Midwinter by Maurice Stanley. Whittler’s Bench Press, 2008. 208 pages. North Carolina’s folklore and music resonates with the pain of…
Read More
Westward Revelations
Art in America by Ron McLarty. Viking Adult, 2008. 384 pages. In Art in America (ISBN 978-0670—01895-6, $25.95), Ron McLarty…
Read More
From Here: Authors spotlight Haywood County
In an expanding spotlight of regional and national acclaim, three of Western North Carolina’s own have distinguished themselves by penning…
Read More
Beyond the rules of fiction
2666 by Roberto Bolano. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 898 pages Dear reader, it seems altogether fitting to begin the…
Read More
Today’s boys
The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators…
Read More
Music for the land
Dirt Music by Tim Winton. Scribner and Sons, 2003. 411 pages. Well, dear reader, we are about to discuss a…
Read More
Russell’s ‘dog of a book’
Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell. Random House, 2008. 272 pages. One of the great delights in browsing…
Read More
Vintage King
Just After Sunset by Stephen King. Scribner and Sons, 2008. 367 pages. Unlike the majority of his peers, Stephen King…
Read More
Bragg explores fatherhood by looking at his dad’s past
The Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. 272 pages. Biography affords the reader a rare chance…
Read More
Taking back America for Christianity
God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America by Hanna Rosin. Harcourt, 2007. 304 pages Every once…
Read More
Close encounters
Skywalker: Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Walker. Indigo Publishing, 2007. 224 pages. Bill Bryson’s account of his…
Read More
Rash's Chemistry "notable"
Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash. Picador, 2007. 230 pages This remarkable collection of short stories has already been…
Read More
Poetry dying for readers
In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus: New and Selected Poems, 1955 by X.J. Kennedy. — The Johns Hopkins University Press,…
Read More
