Soldiers who shaped our nation
May the memory of these men sustain us all and remind us of their sacrifice to secure our freedom. May…
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Churchill’s spirit comes through in new biography
Sometimes in a crisis it helps to take a look in the rearview mirror. In The Splendid And The Vile:…
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Back to the future
If it’s true that timing is everything, then Ben Okri’s new novel The Freedom Artist is right on time. As…
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This pandemic may bring us closer
Weird, weird, weird. Every morning until about two months ago, the online sites I visit daily offered accounts of someone…
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Poetry and pandemic: Let’s celebrate National Poetry Month?
“Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,” The Canterbury Tales begins, “the droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote….”
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Four essential reads for the Anthropocene
By Boyd Holliday • Guest Writer | Concerned about the reports of global climate change? Depressed? Confused by the competing…
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Fire, fire burning bright … the notebooks of Leonard Cohen
In some literary and music circles the debate continues as to whom is the best songwriter of the 20th and…
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The Coronavirus and The Smoky Mountain News
No book review today. But please read this column.
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Confession is good for the soul
Some bare their souls to priests and ministers. Some seek out therapists and counselors. Some look for help from friends…
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Early spring cleaning turns up some gems
Time to do some early spring cleaning and rid my desk of some books for review. Caitlin Doughty, mortician and…
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A legend re-told: the story of Crazy Horse
On Feb. 8, William B. Matson and members of the Clown/Crazy Horse family were scheduled to give a talk at…
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Rest in peace, Mary Higgins Clark
She died at the age of 92 in January 2020 in Naples, Florida. Renowned for her beauty when young, she…
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A sea journey well-told
I’m on page 289 of a 308-page book by Brian Doyle called The Plover and am having fun. The book…
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Heads up gents: last-minute tips for Valentine’s
No book review this week. Just some last minute advice for men about the Feast of Love. It’s V-Day, guys;…
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Exuberant English and forgotten riches
What kind of a nut writes a play about antiquity using blank verse, sentences as convoluted as any in Shakespeare,…
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The great and fallen artists
A New York Times Op-Ed recently asked, “Is It Time Gauguin Got Canceled?” It raised this question of banishing Gauguin…
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Keep calm, stay quiet and carry on
Stillness. Silence. For many people, stillness and silence are as unfamiliar — and terrifying — as zombies or Martians. When…
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Rich rewards: a review of The Enchanted Hour
Though I read aloud with my children and do so now with my grandchildren, I have rarely done so with…
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Beating back the January Blues
Ugh. The skies are gray, the wind’s a knife, the dank cold crawls into your very bones, and spring seems…
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Memoir of illness full of gallantry and wit
“It was crazy. The surgeon told me the tumor was the size of a pear, which is scary but also…
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The story of a Beat original
Once upon a time there was a poet named Bob Kaufman. He hadn’t spoken in anything resembling normal language in…
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Last-minute holiday ideas for the literary
You’re down to the wire. It’s only a few days until Christmas, and you have yet to get that book…
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Walking ancient pathways with a gifted writer
Growing up, one of my favorite books was H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. In Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Ways, instead…
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Children’s books and thoughts for the holidays
Time to head off to Santa’s workshop and see what Christmas books he and the elves have in mind for…
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Passionate about print: a review of A Literate South
For many years, most of us who read histories and biographies about America between 1800 and 1865 assumed the seat…
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Learning to listen: A review of Chris Arnade’s Dignity
Back in the mid-1970s, I was working as a receiving clerk at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston. I was…
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Rethinking school: book offers sage suggestions
If you have school-age children, by now they are two months or more into their routine of classes, books, extracurricular…
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A look at The Best Loved Poems of the American People
Two years ago in December, I vowed to read the 11-volume set of Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of…
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A saint among us: a new Thomas Berry biography
I was one of the lucky ones. I met and befriended Thomas Berry on Earth Day in the late 1980s…
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Another casualty: A review of A Boy Who Mattered
In January 2019, the National Institute on Drug Abuse issued an updated report on the use of opioids in the…
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‘Lost Words and Obstacles:’ a review
“When the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary — widely used in schools around the world — was…
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Learning American history through songs
In February 2019, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation released the results of a nationwide poll of 41,000 Americans testing…
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That Month In Tuscany serves up romance and adventure
At the public library that is my third home — my first home is a basement apartment, and my second…
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Ways of escape: Backlash and Game of Snipers
A recent review was of Abbi Waxman’s The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, a romantic comedy with sweet and wry…
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Humor, mystery and a wonderful menagerie of characters
Although migrations have become a significant and controversial aspect of our current history, there is another annual migration that has…
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A complicated story that’s worth reading
Ever have those days when you’re running against the wind, sprinting through the minutes and hours, arms and legs pumping…
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‘Any Other Place’ provides lessons in living
Literature at its best is a fast-track course in human nature. From Shakespeare we can, if we are attentive, learn…
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Book has important lessons, links to bygone era
In Ancient Rome, the Senate awarded a general who had won a great victory with a triumph, a parade that…
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A reminder: leave something good behind
Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly won my admiration long ago. I purchased my copy from Asheville’s…
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The Great Escape? Read a book
July had come and gone, a month filled with obligations, all of them good, but exhaustion walked hand in hand…
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A fine first novel exploring loneliness
Loneliness. Even the word, standing that way by itself, smacks of the pitifully sad and alone, forlorn.
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A stirring story of America’s push west
Sometimes we open a book, slip into its pages, and find ourselves the recipients of three wonderful gifts: information and…
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A few good books about old times
In 1960, when I was in elementary school, the pop group Dante & the Evergreens rocked my young ears with…
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Trying to define Appalachia and the South
Who speaks for Appalachia? That is the question implicit in Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy (West Virginia…
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Book examines stark example of racism
On February 12, 1946, just hours after his discharge from the Army, Sergeant Isaac Woodard got into an argument with…
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Writing to heal the wounds of war
June 2019 marks the twentieth anniversary of The Smoky Mountain News. At the party celebrating this landmark in the paper’s…
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Books helps us understand our own history
“We need to know what kind of firm ground other men, belonging to generations before us, have found to stand…
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Which way is the wilderness?
The theme of Brent Martin’s new book of essays — The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains — is “It’s a good…
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Loving every word of it, all 630,000
Let’s start with some basic mathematics. For 20 years, I have reviewed books for The Smoky Mountain News. For some…
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Sense of place is crucial to Hewson’s novels
Some novelists display a real talent for capturing a place in words and then bringing that “little postage stamp of…
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