Of war and peace: novels for Veterans Day
According to surveys and government data cited in the online article “The Changing Face of America’s Veteran Population,” 40 years ago about 18% of Americans were veterans. Today that number stands at 6%.
A proclamation about women as artists
As I peruse the shelves in the Jackson County Library’s “new releases” section, it is evident to me that there are more new titles written by women than by men. And while this may be true in literary circles in much the same way it is in politics these days, many of the storylines in these books being written by women have to do with a feminine renaissance that is going on world-wide.
Debut novel deals with opioid crisis
Rick Childers will share his debut novel, “Turkeyfoot,” in conversation with Meagan Lucas at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
Living off the grid for 40 years
In a book written in a first-person, vulnerable and intimately entertaining narrative oral storytelling voice, Ken Smith takes us through his entire life — of youthful globe-trotting adventure and hardship, to an eventual life of self-sufficiency and spiritual awareness in Scotland.
In this book, old-time means good time
Over 30 years ago, I read Helen Hooven Santmyer’s “And Ladies of the Club,” a doorstopper of a book chronicling life in a small Ohio town from the post-Civil War era to the early 1930s.
A scary, page-turner of a story
Sometimes life seems too short to read every novel and author on your list. Oftentimes, I tend towards classics and literature. After all, you only live once so why would I not go straight to the greats?
A bird’s eye view of feathered friends
In a remarkable book that combines eco-poetry, poetic prose and personal and scientific information by award-winning African-American ornithologist and professor at Clemson University, J. Drew Lanham, birds are the major focus, with Lanham even giving us a semi-humorous list of rules for birders.
Dealing with loss, grief, and the balm of love
On the first Saturday of June, my friend John and I were just leaving McKay Used Books in Manassas, Virginia, when I spotted a woman young enough to be my granddaughter seated at a table topped by a couple of piles of books.
Southern stories for summer reading
Perhaps like many people, summer is a time for me to finally read those books I’ve been wanting to get to. While this summer began with determination to dwindle the stack of my “to-read” books, that stack has ended up bigger than smaller.
Sebastian Junger on death, visits and physics
Every once in a while, I find myself engrossed in a book that suddenly delivers my ignorance to me on a silver platter.
