Archived Reading Room

Wednesday, 27 May 2009 17:33

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 conclusions regarding this massive, painstakingly researched novel: First, the writing in The Terror is masterful; it reeks of atmosphere, intrigue…

Thursday, 20 May 2010 17:06

Bringing poetry back to life

Once upon a time the queen of literature, poetry finds itself nowadays, like the tale of Cinderella run in reverse, a poor stepchild of pen and paper, pale-limbed, gray ashes on ashen cheeks, seated on a broken stool off in…

Wednesday, 13 May 2009 16:52

Remembering Popcorn

To tell you the truth, when I read that some woman claiming to be Popcorn Sutton’s daughter was publishing a book about her legendary father, I was openly skeptical. Following Popcorn’s suicide on March 16, 2009, I surfed thorough a…

Wednesday, 06 May 2009 16:19

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 English writers of the 20th century, differentiated his novels from what he regarded as his lesser works by calling the…

Wednesday, 24 June 2009 16:00

Humanizing literature

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Dial Press. 277 pages For readers who love epistolary novels, T.G.L.A.P.P.P.S. will prove to be a delight. In addition to containing bright and witty letters…

Wednesday, 17 June 2009 19:18

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 to occupy a place in the highest echelon of American poets. In anthologies and textbooks, poems like “Stopping by Woods…

Wednesday, 10 June 2009 19:16

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 the past with affection, nostalgia and humor. To me, reading any of her books (I’ve located six of them) is…

Wednesday, 10 June 2009 19:08

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 book is a stunning compilation of photos from Alaska where Wilson went with wife, Kathy, to serve as missionaries to…

Wednesday, 03 June 2009 18:44

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 American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day (ISBN 978-0-316-0679-3, $15.99) tells the extraordinary story of a man…

Wednesday, 29 July 2009 19:11

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 pages. What makes a fighter? In his mid-forties, a time of life when the last thing most men look for…

Wednesday, 22 July 2009 18:49

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 (circa 1957), I met Don West in the Townhouse Restaurant in Cullowhee. He was visiting his daughter, Hedy (a student…

Thursday, 04 November 2010 03:48

Charles White to read from new historical fiction

Charles White, formerly of Cullowhee, will be at City Lights at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 5, to read from his new novel, Lambs of Men. The book is set in Western North Carolina during World War I. Marine Sergeant…

Thursday, 04 November 2010 03:48

Photos, oral histories of Madison

Award-winning photographer and writer Rob Amberg’s multimedia presentation “The New Road and Today’s Mountaineers” — set for 7 p.m. on Nov. 4 in the Waynesville branch — is the first installment of the Haywood County Library’s Roads Across America series.…

Thursday, 04 November 2010 03:46

The Swain Library will host an afternoon author talk with local author

Author Jane SpottedBird will discuss her new book, Still Here: Dancing to the Beat of My Own Drum on Saturday, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 6, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. In May 2008, SpottedBird was…

Thursday, 04 November 2010 03:46

McCrumb gets sidetracked in book about famous trial

Several months ago, I reviewed a marvelous non-fiction work by Sharon Hatfield titled Never Seen the Moon: The Trials of Edith Maxwell. Hatfield’s book is a comprehensive account of a 1935 West Virginia murder which became a “cause celebre” that…

Wednesday, 27 October 2010 20:45

Secret Life of Bees to be discussed

Sally Salyards will lead a discussion of The Secret Life of Bees at 7 p.m. on Nov. 4 in the Jackson County library as part of the library discussion group Bookends. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk…

Wednesday, 27 October 2010 20:44

City Lights book group meet and greet

Are you in a book group? Do you want to be in one? Is your book group looking for good suggestions of books that bring out lively discussion? Come to City Lights in Sylva from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on…

Wednesday, 27 October 2010 20:43

Taking readers to a warm and colorful place

As cooler weather plucks leaves from the trees, stripping the branches bare as a freshly-barbered poodle, as that wonderful green grass of summer now takes on a sheen of frost at dawn, as fall in the mountains deepens into the…

Wednesday, 20 October 2010 20:12

‘Waynesville’ authors to make store appearance

Authors Michael Beadle and Peter Yurko will discuss and sign copies of their new pictorial history book, Waynesville, from noon to 2 p.m. on Oct. 22 at Cackleberry Mountain Gift Shop. This is Beadle’s second Images of America book and…

Wednesday, 20 October 2010 20:11

Library’s “Puppy Tales” offers remedy for shy readers

If you’ve got a young reader who has difficulty reading to parents or teachers, the Haywood County Public Library may have a new approach to consider — reading to a friendly, non-judgmental canine. Puppy Tales, a program designed to encourage…

Wednesday, 20 October 2010 20:11

Local author to hold book signing

Author Barbara Dumas Ballew will be signing copies of her novel, George’s Creek to Georgia, on Oct. 23 at PumpkinFest in Franklin. Ballew, an accomplished genealogist and storyteller from Franklin, takes readers back to a simpler time in her novel,…

Wednesday, 20 October 2010 20:08

Unwieldy story still packs a punch

Reading So Cold the River may give many readers a weird sense of déjà vu — a feeling that they have been here before. When the protagonist, Eric Shaw, travels to a remote part of southern Indiana to film a…

Wednesday, 15 July 2009 19:47

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 days that they might nearly constitute their own genre. The DaVinci Code is the best-selling of these works, but anyone…

Wednesday, 08 July 2009 18:19

Take a chance on Ravens

When a friend sent me an advanced reading copy of Ravens with a note that said, “There is no one to like in this one,” I prepared myself for a dark and bleak journey through South Georgia grunge. That is…

Wednesday, 01 July 2009 17:30

Freaks and morality

Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch. Little, Brown and Company, 2009. 464 pages. “Whenever I am asked why Southern writers particularly have this penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able…

Wednesday, 13 October 2010 20:35

Young writers win recognition

Western North Carolina students captured most of the prizes in the Student Laureate Awards sponsored by the North Carolina English Teachers Association this year. The annual awards, begun by the family of former Laureate Kathryn Byre, are established to…

Wednesday, 13 October 2010 20:34

Upcoming events at City Lights in Sylva

David Watkins of Cullowhee will offer a free personal budgeting workshop at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 16. The program is based on his book, Little is Much: Learn How to Live Within Your…

Wednesday, 13 October 2010 20:32

A new collection of mountain writers

Many of us have attended a Methodist or Baptist “dinner on the grounds.” At these events, once popular across the South but now fading somewhat, church families gathered after the Sunday service for fellowship and a feast of pot-luck dishes:…

Wednesday, 06 October 2010 20:24

Art and authors at Blue Ridge Books

Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville is offering a full lineup of special events this month. For more information on any of these events call 828.456.6000. • 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9: Vicki Lane, the popular regional author of the Elizabeth…

Wednesday, 06 October 2010 20:19

REACH gets help from local book author

Mary J. Messer, author of Moonshiner’s Daughter, the recently published Haywood County based Appalachian memoir, presented a check to REACH of Haywood at their annual board meeting Sept. 20. Messer’s donation will to help REACH in its effort to prevent…

Wednesday, 06 October 2010 20:17

Crews’ world is full of blood and bone

Getting Naked with Harry Crews, edited by Erik Bledsoe. University of Florida Press, 1998. The first time I ever heard of Harry Crews — some 30 years ago now — was when a friend gave me a copy of The…

Wednesday, 26 August 2009 14:57

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 uttered by children: Tom Sawyer, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ree Dolly in Daniel Woodrell’s Winter Bone —…

Wednesday, 19 August 2009 14:15

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 a reputation as a skilled novelist whose themes and characters are often focused on the study of Latin and Greek,…

Wednesday, 12 August 2009 13:47

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 Oxford American which is “proudly published by the University of Central Arkansas.” I’ve stuck with them through bankruptcy, inept leadership,…

Wednesday, 12 August 2009 13:28

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 Beck in the Mountain Town of Whittier, NC at 7 p.m. Aug. 14 at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.Baker met…

Wednesday, 05 August 2009 20:14

Particular parables and perverse ponderings

Willful Creatures Stories by Aimee Bender. Doubleday & Company. 208 pages. Recently, Garrison Keilor mentioned a new writer, Aimee Bender on his daily post, “The Writer’s Almanac.” Garrison noted that Bender’s quirky and enigmatic books were causing quite a stir…

Wednesday, 30 September 2009 19:09

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. G.P Putnam’s Sons, 2008. Politics is not a game for sissies. It is not even necessarily a game for the…

Wednesday, 23 September 2009 18:17

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 Spirit of Asheville” is an unabashed siren call to the rest of the world: “Come to Asheville! This is the…

Wednesday, 16 September 2009 15:51

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 story of a terrorist plot following on the heels of the death of John Paul II in which the terrorists…

Wednesday, 09 September 2009 15:01

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. Back in the 1950’s, when I was an English major, I frequently found myself moribund with boredom as I suffered…

Wednesday, 02 September 2009 14:46

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 978-0-385-41305-3, $29.95), Pat Conroy writes with his usual sure touch of subjects and places familiar to his fans: Charleston and…

Wednesday, 29 September 2010 12:33

Fiction author to appear at Sylva

Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, will read from her new novel, The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove, at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 1, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. In the novel,…

Wednesday, 29 September 2010 12:32

Twenty regional authors at Blue Ridge Book Fest

Blue Ridge Book Fest: A Regional Author Festival will take place from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 2, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville. Twenty authors from the region will be in the store to meet readers…

Wednesday, 29 September 2010 12:31

“Therapy Dog” sales to support animal shelters

Dianna K. Klingel will be signing her book, Just for the Moment: The Remarkable Gift of the Therapy Dog, from 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 7, at Chapter 2 Books in Cashiers. Ten percent of the sales will…

Wednesday, 29 September 2010 12:29

An irresistible adventure

Some novels ask for a close reading. Entranced by the author’s language, intrigued by an intricate plot, and in some rare fortunate circumstances captivated by both, we slowly digest such a book, feasting on a banquet of sentences and paragraphs,…

Wednesday, 28 October 2009 20:24

A peculiar angst

Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker Percy. Picador, 2000. 272 pages. Walker Percy not only wrote these lines (see below), but he also lived them. He recognized early on that he was indeed a peculiar bird.…

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 19:53

Whimsical tales defy explanation

Willful Creatures Stories by Aimee Bender. Doubleday & Company, 2005. 208 pages Recently, Garrison Keilor mentioned a new writer, Aimee Bender on his daily post, “The Writer’s Almanac.” Garrison noted that Bender’s quirky and enigmatic books were causing quite a…

Wednesday, 14 October 2009 16:04

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 and children of alcoholics — and often the twain do meet — have long occupied a special niche in the…

Wednesday, 07 October 2009 15:27

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 Park this year was the verification of the existence of an unpublished novel by Hoarace Kephart. Until this discovery, Kephart’s…

Wednesday, 25 November 2009 14:55

Judgment day arrives

The Cleansing by Ben Eller. Fireside Publications, 2009. 292 pages In Ben Eller’s science fiction novel, The Cleansing, (2020), progress in the next decade is a mixed blessing. Although significant advances have been made in areas such as astronomy, weapons…

Wednesday, 18 November 2009 14:10

Eli Book takes us back to a nostalgic time

Eli the Good by Silas House. Candlewick Press, 2009. 295 pages Eli Book, the 10-year-old narrator/protagonist of Silas House’s new novel, Eli the Good, dreams of being a writer. As he secretly records the pains and joys of living in…

Wednesday, 11 November 2009 13:37

Typical Zombie fare

If you are a fan of the apocalypse movies that are currently common fare in American theaters, you will immediately recognize the landscape of Season of Rot. From Cormac McCarthy’s classic, The Road to the endless clones of the “Mad…

Wednesday, 22 September 2010 19:44

Jackson County Public Library observes twenty-ninth annual Banned Books Week

The twenty-ninth Banned Books Week Sept. 25 through Oct. 2 celebrates not only the freedom to choose what to read but also the freedom to select from a full array of possibilities. This year’s theme is “Think for Yourself and…

Wednesday, 22 September 2010 19:37

Southern stories don’t disappoint

The publication of New Stories from the South 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of this prestigious series. Obviously, the folks down at Algonquin Books in Chapel Hill know how to put together an appealing anthology. In the introduction to this…

Wednesday, 15 September 2010 19:19

Words speak louder than actions

A Postcard From The Volcano: A Novel of Pre-War Germany by Lucy Beckett. Ignatius Press, 2009. 520 pages World War II has long provided Americans with literary meat and drink. The combat novels of men like James Jones, Norman Mailer,…

Wednesday, 04 November 2009 20:00

Ivey’s ‘Up River’ offers valuable lessons

Up River: A Novel of Attempted Restoration by George Ivey. Dog Year, 2009. 304 Pages. George Ivey’s Up River: A Novel of Attempted Restoration (Dog Year Publishing, ISBN 978-160844-164-8, $16.95) tells the story of Peter Bailey, a young man who,…

Wednesday, 30 December 2009 15:54

Dickens’ backstabbing best friend explores London’s underworld

Drood by Dan Simmons. Little, Brown & Company, 2009. 775 pages. I must admit, I’ve never been much of a Charles Dickens fan. Other than watching those wonderful film adaptations (“Oliver” and “A Christmas Carol”), I have only read A…

Wednesday, 23 December 2009 13:45

Love and sonnets meet in Shakespeare’s Italy

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), Carol Goodman takes her readers on yet another exploration into worlds literary and classical. Known for works relating to the…

Wednesday, 16 December 2009 12:59

Savagery taints classic town in King’s new novel

Under the Dome by Stephen King. Scribner, 2009. 1,074 pages Before I had read 20 pages of Stephen King’s new opus, I found myself thinking about Thornton Wilder’s Our Town — not because the small town, Chester’s Mill in Under…

Wednesday, 09 December 2009 15:13

Of golf, relationships and life

A Son of the Game: A Story of Golf, Going Home, and Sharing Life’s Lessons by James Dodson. Algonquin Books, 2009. The way we lead our days, wrote Hollins graduate Annie Dillard, is the way we lead our lives. The…

Wednesday, 27 January 2010 17:37

A different take on a legend

The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell. Saint Martin’s Press, 1997. I was probably 10 years old when I discovered King Arthur in the local library. I never got over it. That battered copy of Bullfinch’s Mythology was filled with illustrations…

Wednesday, 20 January 2010 16:12

A tale of both despair and hope

Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath by Elizabeth and Michael Norman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. 480 pages In the summer of 1966 I worked one day a week as a volunteer…

Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:12

Suspenseful guest drives novel

For some 30 years now, Bernard Cornwell has been one of the most prolific writers in the western hemisphere. With over 40 books to his credit, he has settled comfortably into the “historic fiction” genre and has become famous for…

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 15:43

Characters mirror SMN readers

Rain Gods by James Lee Burke. Simon and Schuster, 2009. 448 pages. Readers of this column know that some authors turn up here regular as church bells, reviewed with each new book. Ann Tyler, Carol Goodman, Pat Conroy: these and…

Wednesday, 24 February 2010 17:50

One fateful night

The Turnaround by George Pelecanos. Little, Brown and Company, 2009. 320 pages On a sweltering summer night in 1972, three white teenagers in Washington, D. C., decide to cruise through a black neighborhood called Heathrow Heights. On a dare, the…

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 15:01

An American original

Devil’s Dream by Madison Smartt Bell. Pantheon, 2009. 352 pages. Although several biographies of Nathan Bedford Forrest have found publishers over the last 60 years, Civil War buffs, serious followers of fiction, and those who simply enjoy a great read…

Wednesday, 17 February 2010 17:10

A book about beer, food, and Gnometown cooking

Cooking with wine is familiar. Cajun chef Justin Wilson, one of television’s first real food celebrities, liberally tipped Chablis into his etouffe (who-wee), and Julia Child introduced America to the French style of cooking, deglazing and saucing with wine in…

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 20:22

First-ever Southeast Indian Writers Gathering lined up

Native American writers from the Southeast are invited to participate in the first-ever Southeast Indian Writers Gathering, to be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, and Friday, Sept. 17, at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian…

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 20:21

First annual “Celebration of Books” in Highlands

Twenty-eight Carolina authors will be selling and signing their books at the Celebration of Books from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11 at the Highlands Civic Center. There will also be workshops, readings, and entertainment for the…

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 20:20

Meet Lin Stepp, author of the Smoky Mountain series of novels

Lin Stepp will sign copies of Tell Me About Orchard Hollow from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 18, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville. The novel tells is second in the Smoky Mountain series and tells the story…

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 20:15

Putting the spotlight on Whittier

My Mountain Granny by Matthew Link Baker. Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, Inc., 2010. In the opening pages of My Mountain Granny, author Matthew Link Baker announces his intention of producing a book that would embody a kind of memorial…

Wednesday, 10 February 2010 17:04

Power struggle

Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell. Saint Martins Press, 1998. 397 pages Several years ago, when I was reading everything I could find about mythical figures such as King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Tristan, Iseult and Galahad, I blundered on the…

Wednesday, 03 February 2010 15:01

Fitzgerald comes to life in Asheville

The Fitzgerald Ruse by Mark De Castrique. Poisoned Pen Press, 2009. 250 pages. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and magazines like Black Mask are the great-grandfathers of the American detective novel. Readers, for example, can open a Chandler novel and from…

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 15:01

Hill recreates horror that dad Stephen King perfected

Horns by Joe Hill. William Morrow Publishers, 2010. 370 pages. Ignatius William Perrish (“Iggy” to his friends) awoke one morning to find that, in addition to a headache, he had a very tangible set of horns sprouting from his forehead.…

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 15:01

Literary journal honors contemporary literature from the Cherokee community

Readers will be in for a surprise when thumbing through the pages of the all-Cherokee issue of Appalachian Heritage literary journal, which will be celebrated at Western Carolina University next week. The issue turns on its head every generalization about…

Wednesday, 24 March 2010 19:03

Exploring the legacy of Ayn Rand

In Ayn Rand and the World She Made (ISBN 978-0-385-51399-9, Doubleday, 568 pages, $35), Anne C. Heller has given readers an intimate look at the woman who wrote such novels as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, works which had a…

Wednesday, 10 March 2010 16:12

A requiem for Cataloochee

Requiem by Fire by Wayne Caldwell. Random House, 2009. 335 pages Dear readers, if you have some slight respect for my opinions about Appalachian literature, I hope you will believe me when I say that Wayne Caldwell has written a…

Wednesday, 03 March 2010 16:12

A guidebook for raising boys

Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys by Stephen James and David Thomas. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2009. 368 pages. In Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys (13-978-1-4143-2227-8, $14.99), Stephen James and David Thomas make clever use of Maurice…

Wednesday, 28 April 2010 17:37

Taking readers down a deep spiral

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Penguin Books, 2005. 487 pagesLet’s begin with a marvelous story — one of those timeless fables that is charged with mystery and magic — the kind that provides the basis for…

Wednesday, 21 April 2010 17:37

Bring poetry to the people

“April is the cruelest of months, breeding/ lilacs out of the dead land” — so wrote T.S. Eliot in the much-cited first two lines of “The Waste Land.” April is also National Poetry Month. Had he lived today, Eliot may…

Wednesday, 14 April 2010 17:37

A modern take on Chaucer’s classic

eoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: a Retelling by Peter Ackroyd. Viking Press, 2009. 436 pages Being an old English teacher, I am aware of a literary tradition regarding classical works of literature: every generation of so, “masterpieces,” such as The…

Wednesday, 07 April 2010 17:37

Obsessing over grammar

Twelve years ago, while teaching Latin at a local high school, I was discussing a point of grammar — I think it had to do with the dative case and indirect objects — when one of the brighter students in…

Wednesday, 05 May 2010 15:14

In Next, life changes in a day

Next by James Hynes. Reagan Arthur Books, 2010. 320 pages. In The Lecturer’s Tale, previously reviewed in The Smoky Mountain News, James Hynes offered a withering satire of the academic world, in particular the Machiavellian machinations carried on in a…

Wednesday, 12 May 2010 15:18

Learning to play the Angel’s Game

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Doubleday, 2009. 470 pages.A few days after completing The Shadow of the Wind, I discovered a copy of Carlos Zafon’s new novel, The Angel’s Game. When I sampled a few pages to see…

Wednesday, 19 May 2010 13:19

Self-help without the sugar

Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness by William Spiegelman. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009. In Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-23930-5, $23), William Spiegelman, an English professor at Southern Methodist University and editor of…

Wednesday, 26 May 2010 12:34

The tannery and the Green Fly

During my first year at Western Carolina Teachers College (now Western Carolina University) in 1953, I managed to offend my grandfather so severely that he banished me. “Out of my sight!” he said, and sent me to Brevard to spend…

Wednesday, 26 May 2010 12:34

Reading Nina Simone’s tragic life

Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone, by Nadine Cohodas. Pantheon Books, 2010. 449 pages. The first time I ever heard Nina Simone sing, I was in one of those pretentious “high fi” stores in Atlanta back in the…

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 20:14

WCU Authors Hal Herzog and Anna Fariello at City Lights

Western Carolina University psychology professor Hal Herzog will celebrate his new book, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals, with an appearance at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 7, at…

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 20:11

Choice of victims makes this a disturbing read

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 his lifetime of combat, Bob Lee Swagger. As in previous novels in this series, the government entangles itself into the…

Wednesday, 30 June 2010 15:27

O’Connor’s life and characters

Two weeks ago, a friend and I traveled down into Central Georgia looking for Flannery O’Connor. My friend, whom I will dub Lucky for this piece, had never heard of Flannery O’Connor nor read anything written by her. She didn’t…

Wednesday, 30 June 2010 15:16

Government is in need of a little belt-tightening

Most Americans are surely aware our economy is still in trouble. The downswing in the last year of the Bush administration has not yet seen an equivalent upswing. Frightened by the state of the economy, the massive public debt, and…

Wednesday, 23 June 2010 14:32

Slow corruption

The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell. Plume/Penguin Group, 2008. 196 pages. Several years ago, I read an amazing novel by Daniel Woodrell entitled Winter’s Bone, and after the review was published, I found that Woodrell’s narrative style lingered…

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 14:24

Holding on to an identity

Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf. Clarion Books, 2007. 208 pages. On May 27, 1942, resistance fighters who had parachuted into Czechoslovakia attempted to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, deputy Reichsprotector of the Nazi Germany Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the…

Wednesday, 09 June 2010 13:28

Yearning for ancient ties

The Memory of Gills by Catherine Carter. Louisiana State University Press, 2006. 59 pages. Recently, when Catherine Carter was asked for a bit of biographical information that could be used to publicize her appearance as a participant in the Gilbert-Chappell…

Wednesday, 02 June 2010 20:17

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