All about the Carltons
Dr. Barbara Carlton will autograph copies of her book, This Nearly Was Mine: A Journey Through Carlton Country at 2…
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Storytime with puppets
Jackson County resident Josie Williams will be guest storyteller at a special children’s storytime at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July…
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A grim look at Appalachia
Authors often dig into their childhood to mine for the coal and diamonds of their books. Sometimes they use the…
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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…
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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.…
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“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…
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An irresistible adventure
Some novels ask for a close reading. Entranced by the author’s language, intrigued by an intricate plot, and in some…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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A fascinating murder story
On a hot July night in 1935, a young Wise County, Virginia, school teacher named Edith Maxwell came home late.…
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New “Blue Ridge” Anthology features local authors
A reading and book signing for the new anthology Echoes Across the Blue Ridge will take place from 1 to…
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Coffee with poet Bill Everett
Poet Bill Everett, author of Red Clay Blood River, will appear at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 19, as this month’s…
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Authors release photographic history of Waynesville
Michael Beadle and Peter Yurko have published a new photographic history of Waynesville in honor of the town’s bicentennial this…
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Authors of two new mountain memoirs speak
Jean Boone Benfield, of Asheville, will read from her new book, Mountain Born: A Recollection of Life and Language in…
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‘Moonshiner’s Daughter’ author at Blue Ridge Books
Mary J. Messer, author of the newly published Appalachian memoir Moonshiner’s Daughter, will be at Blue Ridge Books at 3…
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Memoir project a mixed bag
The design of this book’s cover, in addition to being visually attractive, quite possibly serves as an inadvertent assessment of…
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Searching for God and the self
Home. The word is as twisted with complications and mystery as all those other household words we use every day:…
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Free writers workshops in Waynesville
Upcoming free workshops at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville will offer writers behind-the-scenes tips on getting published and provide guidance…
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Tales of alienation and horror
For the past few years, internet literary critics of fantasy/supernatural novels have been raving about about a writer of “punk…
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Shakespeare still valuable in space
Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons. Subterranean Press, 2008. 105 page In recent years, it has become fashionable for writers…
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Piecing together a picture of home
Although Americans are known for their wandering ways, traveling to California in Conestoga wagons, taking the train to find a…
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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…
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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…
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Slow corruption
The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell. Plume/Penguin Group, 2008. 196 pages. Several years ago, I read an amazing…
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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…
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Yearning for ancient ties
The Memory of Gills by Catherine Carter. Louisiana State University Press, 2006. 59 pages. Recently, when Catherine Carter was asked…
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Juggling through books
In Spite of Myself: A Memoir by Christopher Plummer. Knopf, 2008. 656 pages. Like most readers, I usually have a…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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 —…
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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…
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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,…
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Obsessing over grammar
Twelve years ago, while teaching Latin at a local high school, I was discussing a point of grammar — I…
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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…
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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…
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A requiem for Cataloochee
Requiem by Fire by Wayne Caldwell. Random House, 2009. 335 pages Dear readers, if you have some slight respect for…
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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.…
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