Summer 1998 Releases:
Instructions: Click on the subject
category to go straight there. Click on the Author's name to see a short author biography.
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APPALACHIAN
CHILDREN'S AND YOUTH BOOKS
Picture Books
Youth Novels
Newly
Reprinted Youth Novels
HISTORY
BOOKS
MOUNTAIN FICTION
Novels
Newly Reprinted
Novels
MOUNTAIN PEOPLE AND PLACES
Autobiographical Books
Cherokee Books
Photographic Essays
NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN
APPALACHIA
RECREATION AND TRAVEL IN THE
APPALACHIANS
GUIDE BOOKS
REGIONAL STUDIES AND ISSUES
Literary Criticism
APPALACHIAN CHILDREN'S AND YOUTH
BOOKS
Picture
Books
A Sign by George Ella Lyon. New York: Orchard Books,
1998. 32 un-numbered pages, illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet.
This picture book designed to be read to
pre-schoolers is good for stimulating discussions between child and parent or other
care-taker. Lyon directs the reader's attention to three different vocational
aspirations she entertained growing up in Harlan, Kentucky--neon sign maker, tight-rope
walker, and astronaut. Then she artfully concludes her poem by explaining how being a
writer combines elements of all three childhood ambitions. "Lyon's lyrical,
autobiographical poem and Soentpiet's glowing paintings unfold quietly, articulating with
deft simplicity the complex relationship between an artist's childhood dreams and adult
achievements . . . Both Soentpiet's shimmering depiction of flickering stars in the vast
rosy darkness and Lyon's musical poem glow with beauty and a hopeful message for readers
that dreams really can come true" -- Publishers Weekly. **Click
here to order**
A Traveling Cat by George Ella Lyon. New
York: Orchard Books, 1998. 32 un-numbered pages, illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson.
Cat lovers will delight in this picture book for children.
Although the book is not explicitly set in Eastern Kentucky, the illustrator grew up in
Knott County and the author in Harlan County, and the illustrations place the story in
Eastern Kentucky in the fifties. The text indicates the author's perspective as a
mountain person who visits cities often and comfortably as her fictional family calls
their cat "Boulevard." The story is especially helpful in gently
getting across to children that even pets have wild minds of their own and are
not just playthings for humans. **Click here to order**
Choosing Up
Sides by John H. Ritter. New York:
Philomel/Putnam and Grosset, 1998. 166 pages.
Great for boys who are reluctant readers but
enthusiastic athletes, this book also serves to encourage critical thinking about the role
of religion in life. "Set during Prohibition, Ritter's debut novel features a
rural Kentucky dialect and a sympathetic hero 'stuck smack between two worlds.' Luke
Bledsoe's conflicts with his father, a volatile fundamentalist preacher, take on a new
dimension when the seventh-grade southpaw discovers his pitching power . . . Participation
in sports is strictly forbidden by his church . . . Despite its somewhat didactic tone,
this story offers enough curve balls to keep readers engaged" --Publishers Weekly.
Set in Ohio, right across the River from West Virginia. **Click
here to order**
Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads,
Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia: 1880 -1920 by Ronald L. Lewis. Chapel Hill: The University
of North Carolina Press, 1998. 348 pages with an index, bibliography and photos.
In this historical "tour de force"
Lewis carefully examines the deforestation of West Virginia by lumber companies during the
forty years on either side of the last turn of the century. This book is likely to be
remembered as one of the strongest contributions to regional scholarship of the decade.
**Click
here to order**
Cherokee Women: Gender and
Culture Change, 1700-1835 by Theda Perdue.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 252 pages with an index and
notes.
Theda Perdue is one of the leading contemporary scholarly experts on
Cherokee life, and this book illuminates an important and difficult dimension of Cherokee
history: the role of woman during the years from time that Whites began to intrude upon
Cherokee life until the Cherokees were "removed" by the U.S. Army from the
Southern Appalachians. During this time, some women whole-heartedly assimilated into
White culture, some remained total traditionalists and others created lifestyles which
combined aspects of both competing cultures. Since the current Principal Chief
of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, Joyce Dugan, and a recent Chief of the Oklahoma
Cherokee, Wilma Mankiller, are both women, this book is a timely as well as a significant
contribution to Cherokee Scholarship. **Click
here to order**
Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern
Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox. Tracy
J. Power. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. 463 pages with
photos, index and bibliography.
This book begins with an excerpt from John
Esten Cooke's 1869 novel, Mohun; or, The Last Days of Lee and His Paladins , which
mentions that the name of Victor Hugo's famous 1862 novel, Les Miserables, which
was reprinted in translation by a Richmond, Virginia, publisher, was adapted, jokingly, by
soldiers in Lee's Army to refer to themselves. Thus the title of this book accurately
reflects its emphasis--to tell the story of the last two years of Lee's Army as revealed
only by grass-roots contemporary accounts. The numerous quotations and citations in the
book are all from diaries and letters of officers and soldiers written at the time. None
come from secondary sources or even accounts from participants written later. The result
is an innovative and interesting account of the crucial end of the American Civil War.
**Click
here to order**
A New South Rebellion: The
Battle Against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1871-1896 by Karin A. Shapiro. Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1998. 333 pages with index, bibliography,
charts, maps and photos.
At last a carefully researched and articulate book is in print which
focuses on one of the very most dramatic grass-roots movements in Appalachian history.
At the very end of the nineteenth century, Tennessee coal miners rose up against
the system which leased prisoners out to mine coal. The free miners employed more
and more militant tactics until they released convicts from their stockades and even
engaged in armed battle against the Tennessee militia. Such a dramatic confrontation
demands close examination, but this struggle is particularly significant and interesting
because it took place when a populist was governor and when the labor movement was at a
crucial state of development. Further, it happened against the backdrop
of Southern segregation and involved predominantly White free miners and predominantly
Black convict mine laborers. Those who are confused or disconcerted to
find the 1990s buzz-word-- "New South"--in the title can rest assured that
this book does go beyond the jargon of contemporary historical scholarship.
This book is based on a Ph.D. dissertation at Yale, but it is
accessible to all who care about history and has already made a lasting
contribution. **Click
here to order**
An Appalachian New Deal: West Virginia in the Great
Depression. Jerry
Bruce Thomas. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. 316 pages
with an index and bibliography.
This book provides an important service and
fills a gaping hole in published West Virginia history by presenting an overview of
responses to the Great Depression from 1929 to 1941. Thomas presents a contrasting
and more positive view of the New Deal than Paul Salstrom’s Appalachia’s Path
to Dependency. While carefully tracing those aspects of President
Roosevelt’s program which were more and less effective and the forces which created
and limited the New Deal, Thomas generally evaluates it positively. "With its
excellent research and clear narration, this book will stand as the major work on the New
Deal in West Virginia for a long time to come." - Ronald L. Lewis. "An
important book that anyone interested in Appalachia’s twentieth-century history will
want to read. Thomas provides a gracefully written account of a crucial decade in
West Virginia history." - John Alexander Williams. **Click
here to order**
Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and
Chattanooga Campaigns by Steven E.
Woodworth. Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1998. 257
pages with an index, bibliographical essay, photos and maps.
After the North won the Battle of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the summer
of 1863, the Federal troops moved east to take complete control of the state of Tennessee.
Parts or all of six armies became involved: The Confederate's Army of Tennessee and
their Army of Northern Virginia engaged the Union's Army of Tennessee, their Army of the
Cumberland, their Army of Ohio and their Army of the Potomac. As these armies spread
across Middle and East Tennessee, preliminary battles took place at Tullahoma and
Knoxville leading up to the climactic campaigns at Chattanooga and Chickamauga, Georgia,
nearby. This book takes advantage of recent scholarly work, puts the military
maneuvers in the context of social, political and personal factors and presents for the
first time within the covers of a single book the Tennesse campaign in its entirety.
The result is a book which is both engaging and informative. Most
importantly, this book helps the reader to understand the war and its impact. This
is the first of a projected series of Civil War histories: Great Campaigns of the Civil
War edited by Anne J. Bailey of Georgia State University and Brooks D. Simpson of Arizona
State University. **Click
here to order**
The Silent by
Jack Dann. New York: Bantam Books,
1998. 279 pages.
This novel is told as a first-person account of the Civil War as seen
through the eyes of Mundy McDowell, a twelve-year-old who was so traumatized by the
killing of his Shenandoah Valley family by Federal soldiers that he was struck dumb and
never talked again. Instead he told his story in this book. The horrors and
even the occasional humor of the War are thus seen from the wide-open and unsentimental
eyes of a mere child. "A ferocious portrait of the Civil War's human toll . . .
Dann captures, in a way few other novelists have, the sheer bloody chaos of battle in the
Civil War . . . Dann's anger, and his portrait of combat's sheer horrors, make for a vivid
and disturbing read." - Kirkus Reviews. "This is narrative
storytelling at its best--so highly charged emotionally as to constitute a kind of poetry
from hell. Most emphatically recommended." Library Journal. **Click
here to order**
Night Whispers:
A Story of Evil by Clifford Emmett.
Nashville: Cumberland House, 1998. 429 pages.
"Buried somewhere within this overwritten
novel is a thriller about an electronically eavesdropping serial killer who leaves blue
ribbons clipped to his victim's genitalia . . . Burdened with too many southern
Appalachian stereotypes (stupid bikers, sassy belles), the thin plot generates little
excitement, despite Clifford's attempts to spice it up. . . The shame of it is that
Clifford is not a bad writer. In fact, there are some funny set pieces and more than a few
brisk one-liners scattered throughout the novel. But these strengths and some surprisingly
good action scenes don't compensate for the clutter of characters and incidents that gets
in the way of genuine suspense" -- Publishers Weekly. Set in Monroe and Knox
Counties in East Tennessee, this is the first novel by the author. **Click
here to order*
Tidewater
Blood: A Novel of Suspense by William Hoffman.
Chapel Hill, Algonquin Books, 1998. 290 pages.
William Hoffman has carved out an impressive
career as a novelist who is deeply respected by literary authorities and enjoyed by a
small following of readers. Here he brings his well-honed literary talents to a more
popular genre with excellent results. When a deadly bombing brings down--both
literally and figuratively--the house of a prominent Virginia Tidewater family, the
"black sheep" youngest son is accused. He sets off on a scary journey to
Southern West Virginia, where the family fortune was made in coal mining, to find the true
culprit, in the process uncovering many a family secret. "As a maiden voyage into the
choppy waters of suspense, this virtually seamless 11th novel from the acclaimed Hoffman
is a rousing success . . . Hoffman's honed literary skills serve him well even when he
lets plot do the driving" -- Publishers Weekly. **Click
here to order***
The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb. New York:
Dutton/Penguin/Putnam, 1998. 384 pages with a bibliography.
Sharyn McCrumb's great popularity comes
naturally from an engaging writing style, dynamic plotting and down-right enjoyable
characters. This novel ties into a well-known regional mystery to add to the appeal.
In 1832, Frankie Silver, a poor mountain woman, became the first woman hanged for
murder in North Carolina, convicted of killing her husband. Three crude stones mark the
three graves dug for Charlie Silver's dismembered body, and a photograph of them graces
the dust jacket cover. A topical ballad, composed to tell her story, has endured and
provides the title. Nevertheless, McCrumb chooses to set the novel in the 1970s and return
for a protagonist to Spencer Arrowwood, who previously served as McCrumb's lead character
for The Rosewood Casket. Arrowwood is still Sheriff of a Tennessee county on the
North Carolina line, and in this story he becomes obsessed with the Silver murder and a
vision of Frankie's innocence as he is drawn into a 1975 double murder near the
Appalachian Trail which seems to feature important parallels. The novel follows
Arrowwood's quest to understand both deeds and insure that if injustice ruled in an
earlier era it not be repeated in the 20th Century. This, McCrumb's fifteenth book, has
been made a Literary Guild Selection, and its release has been feted by a twenty-city
author tour as befits the wildly successful career of its author. **Click
here to order**
America: The Search and the
Secret: A Novel by James N. Sites. Ashland:
The Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1998. 256 pages, illustrated by Jim Marsh.
This is an autobiographical novel by the former editor of The
American Legion Magazine. It centers on his life on the banks of the Ohio
River, facing Kentucky from rural Ohio, where he was suddenly transported at the age of
ten from Pittsburgh and lived for the next seven years. The title tips off the
reader that the book may well be viewed by some as overly didactic and amateurish.
Others may well enjoy this perspective on the Ohio Valley during the depression and the
lessons its author learned. **Click here to order**
A Walk in the
Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson. New York: Broadway
Books/Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1998. 276 pages with a map and a Suggested Reading list.
A Walk in the Woods has become an
immensely popular book this summer, even making the non-fiction best-seller lists. Its
appeal stems primarily from the humorous touch of the author. Publishers Weekly notes
that Bryson, "plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical
account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance . . .[He] carries
himself in an irresistibly bewildered manner, accepting each new calamity with wonder and
hilarity." **Click
here to order**
Living
Stories of the Cherokee edited and collected by Barbara R. Duncan.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. 253 pages with photos, index and
bibliography.
This important collection contains seventy-one stories from six
contemporary members of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee who are active story-tellers. It
gives excellent background information on each and presents the stories in an innovative
way, ending each line where the teller put the emphasis so that the pages almost look like
they contain verse. The result is a very authentic grass-roots telling of the
stories. They read like contemporary Cherokee sound when telling traditional
stories to their children and grandchildren, not like scholars re-telling stories and
cleaning them up to conform to their biases. The stories vary from traditional folk
tales to topical recollections of public events to family lore utilizing a variety of
sources. An "Introduction" puts the stories in context. This is a truly
significant contribution to the field of Cherokee lore. Before this book came out,
most books of Cherokee stories were simply re-tellings of some of the favored stories
found in The Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney who transcribed them from his
informant, Swimmer, at the turn of the century. At a time when some people with tenuous claims to Cherokee ancestry and
virtually no connections to life as it is lived in Cherokee, North Carolina, offer
themselves as "experts," this book, which was created with permission of the
Tribal Council and contains only stories of people who have lived in Cherokee, is
particularly significant. People organizing Appalachian Festivals or Conferences who
wish to have the Cherokee represented can simply contact one of the storytellers
represented in this collection. **Click
here to order**
Walking on the Wind: Cherokee Teachings for Harmony
and Balance by Michael Garrett. Santa
Fe: Bear and Company, 1998. 193 pages with an index, illustrated by Debi Duke and Francene
Hart.
Those who are open to learning a view of life
truly alternative to the hassle of the American mainstream may well find Walking on
the Wind to be exactly the breath of fresh air which they have been waiting for.
As the sub-title states, this is a book of teachings about life. The advice
presented here is connected to Cherokee traditions and sayings and stories. The author
published a book entitled Medicine of the Cherokee with his dad in 1996. **Click
here to order**
Photographic
Essays
Appalachian Legacy:
Photographs by Shelby Lee Adams.
Oxford: University of Mississippi Press, 1998. 130 pages, most photographic plates.
The author's autobiographical essay and his explanation of his
rationale for creating this disturbing book are both interesting. Adams grew
up in rural Letcher County, Kentucky, and ironically Hobart Ison who shot and killed
a Canadian photographer there in 1967, when Adams was a senior in high school, was his
cousin. Adams claims he is interested in the last remnants of
traditional mountain people, but he has obviously chosen for this book a
disproportionate number of traditional people who happen to have physical and mental
abnormalities. They sometimes appear especially grotesque the way Adams has
configured the pictures. Thus, despite the title and despite the fact that several
of the pictures here are outstanding, this is not a book about Appalachia. Instead,
too much of it is simply a book which serves merely to reinforce the worst
stereotypes of the region as a whole. As part of a larger
collection of all kinds of regional photography, this book may serve an artistic or
sociological purpose. However, it will never do as a single representative
volume. **Click
here to order**
The
Height of Our Mountains: Nature Writing from Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and
Shenandoah Valley by Michael P. Branch and
Daniel J. Philippon.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1998. 421 pages with an index, Bibliographical Essay, and
numerous illustrations.
The field of nature writing is attracting
increasing attention, and this anthology provides a wonderful precedent for this
burgeoning field. It has the breath, the depth and the appeal that can only enrich
this new and vitally important publishing niche. The seventy selections of Virginia
mountain and valley nature writing in this anthology were published between the years 1607
and 1996. The authors include six U. S. Presidents, from Washington and Jefferson to the
two Roosevelts; several literary figures from Walt Whitman to Willa Cather; outstanding
naturalists, from John Bartram and Andre Michaux to John James Audubon and Bradford
Torrey; and contemporary nature writers from Christopher Camuto to Annie Dillard. Three
different introductions put this material very nicely into context. Altogether, The
Height of Our Mountains is a fabulous resource for a plethora of purposes. **Click
here to order**
Mountain Year: A Southern
Appalachian Nature Notebook by Barbara G.
Hallowell. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, Publisher, 1998. 290 pages
with 60 color photographs and an index.
This is a delightful book which presents six to eight appealing little
nature essays for each month of the year. Although the author wrote the
"Nature Notes" column for the Hendersonville, North Carolina, Times-News
during the 1980s, this book is much more than a typical compilation of newspapers columns.
It is laid out splendidly, illustrated magnificently and the essays are
fascinating. **Click
here to order**
Story Line:
Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail by Ian Marshall. Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1998. 284 pages with index, notes, map and photo.
In this unique and appealing book, the author takes the reader along
not only on his experience as a hiker, but as a reader of books which relate to particular
sections of the trail. The fiction authors considered range from Allen Ginsberg to
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the non-fiction moves from Horace Kephart to Annie Dillard.
This book is simply a fabulous idea very well implemented. The right person
will love to receive this book as a gift! **Click here to order**
Wildflowers of the Southern Mountains by Richard M. Smith. Knoxville: The University
of Tennessee Press, 1998. 262 pages with six hundred color photos and an index.
This is a truly outstanding wildflower
identification guide. First it divides regional wildflowers into 26 categories, A to Z,
according to shape, with sub-divisions provided for more precise shapes and for each color
of flower found; then this guide book offers written descriptions for about twelve hundred
flowers, and this "blurb" provides the page number of the appropriate color
photograph. The overall effect is not only comprehensive but convenient for those seeking
to identify wildflowers. The book would be more user-friendly if the pictures and
"blurbs" were on the same page, but the cost of separate color plates would
probably be prohibitive. **Click
here to order**
Exploring the Appalachian Trail: Hikes in the
Southern Appalachians, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee by Doris Gove. Mechanicsburg: Stockpole Books,
1998. 381 pages with maps, illustrations, index, and bibliographies, including an
annotated listing of relevant web sites.
This is a truly outstanding trail guide
with a great array of fine features, especially the little "maps" which show the
up-and-down of each section of the trail. The commentary is impressive with just enough
background information on all aspects of the trail. This is the Southernmost of five books
in the "Exploring the Appalachian Trail" series all edited by David Emblidge. It
is a combination guide for "through hikers" and "day hikers" which
divides this 450-mile section of the AT into 45 contiguous segments which start and end
usually where roads cross the trail, but sometimes, in remote areas, where other trails
cross the AT. **Click
here to order**
100 Secrets
of The Smokies: A Guide to the Best Undiscovered Places in the Great Smoky Mountains Area
by Randall H. Duckett and Maryellen Kennedy Duckett. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press,
1998. 262 pages with numerous photos.
This guide book does present some helpful information and
may even be appealing to some who are not turned off by gimmicks. However, the
authors have opened themselves up for some easy criticism. One problem is that
they understandably cannot resist including important places, even if they are not very
"secret," but that undercuts their title. The famous Cherokee
outdoor drama, Unto These Hills , a beautiful artistic creation and a compelling
production, seems ludicrous being described under the heading, "Top Secret."
On the other hand, Secret Number One, a Mexican restaurant in Cosby, Tennessee,
seems silly "ranked" ahead of, for example, Secret Number Two, Cades Cove, a
wonderful arena for hikes, bike rides and learning about natural and human
history. The problems sometimes go beyond poor choices and categories.
For example, a "short cut" into the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park recommended here leads simply to a windy mountain road miles from any likely
destination. Another obvious problem is limiting the book to the nifty number of one
hundred. Readers familiar with the area are sure to quibble with the selections.
For example, given the commercial nature of many of the "secrets"
written up here, Smoky Mountain Knife Works--a superlative shopping experience for
many--is an attraction that perhaps should have been included. As a result of
these problems, the book which results might be more appropriately titled: Some
Random, Mostly Commercial ,"Attractions" of the Smokies in Random Order. **Click
here to order**
A Way of
Happening: Observations of Contemporary Poetry by
Fred Chappell. New York: Picador/St. Martin's, 1998. 322 pages with indexes.
With this, his 23rd book, Fred Chappell becomes
a cross-over artist, moving into non-fiction for the first time after twelve poetry
collections, eight novels and two story collections--all well respected by critics and
beloved by readers. This book is a compilation of Chappell's poetry reviews, mostly from
the Georgia Review, plus a new essay on literary criticism, "Thanks but No
Thanks." Chappell "shows his impressive familiarity of contemporary poetry
in this volume of keenly perceptive reviews of 84 poets" -- Publishers Weekly.
**Click
here to order**
Reviews by George Brosi, Copyright 1998