Maggie Reads: April 2007

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Georgia Writers!

Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)
Born in Savannah, GA

House of Dust (1920)
Won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1930)

Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987)
Born in Moreland, GA
Tobacco Road (1932)
God's Little Acre (1933)
Georgia Boy (1943)
The Last Night of Summer (1963)
Deep South (1968) travel writing
With All My Might (1987) autobiography

Pat Conroy (1945- )
Born in Atlanta, GA
The Great Santini (1976)
The Lords of Discipline (1980)
The Prince of Tides (1986)
Beach Music (1995)
My Losing Season (2002) memoir

Harry Crews (1935- )
Born in Bacon County, GA
A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (1978) memoir

James Dickey (1923-1997)
Born in Atlanta, GA
Deliverance (1970)

Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908)
Born in Eatonton, GA
Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1881)

Joshilyn Jackson
Graduated with honors from Georgia State
gods in Alabama (2004)
Between Georgia (2006)

Sue Monk Kidd (1948- )
Grew up in Southwest Georgia
The Secret Life of Bees (2002)
The Mermaid Chair (2005)

John Oliver Killens (1916-1987)
Born in Macon, GA
Youngblood (1956)
And Then We Heard the Thunder (1963)
Black Man's Burden (1965)

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
Born in Atlanta, GA
The Measure of a Man (1959)

Sidney Lanier (1842-1881)

Born in Macon, Ga
Poems (1877)

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1790-1870)
Born in Augusta, GA
Georgia Scenes (1957)

Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
Born in Columbus, GA
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941)
The Member of the Wedding (1946)
Clock Without Hands (1961)

Caroline Miller (1903-1992)
Born in Waycross, GA
Lamb in His Bosom (1933)
Won Pulitzer Prize (1934)

Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)
Born in Atlanta, GA
Gone with the Wind (1936)
Won Pulitzer Prize (1937)

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
Born in Savannah, GA
Wise Blood (1952)
The Life You Save May Be Your Own (1953)
A Good Man Is Hard To Find (1955)
The Violent Bear It Away (1960)
Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965)

Byron Herbert Reece (1917-1958) Poet
Born near Blairsville, GA

Ferrol Sams (1922- )
Born in Fayette County, GA
Run with the Horsemen (1982)
When All the World was Young (1991)
The Whisper of the River (1984)

Cynthia Shearer (1955- )
Raised in Alapaha, GA
The Wonder Book of the Air (1996)
The Celestial Jukebox (2005)

Celestine Sibley (1914-1999)
Atlanta reporter (1941-1999)
The Malignant Heart (1957)
Peachtree Street, U.S.A. (1963)
Dear Store (1967)
A Place Called Sweet Apple (1967)
Turned Funny (1988)

Anne Rivers Siddons (1936- )
Born in Atlanta, GA
Peachtree Road (1988)
Kings Oak (1990)
Outerbanks (1991)
Colony (1992)
Low Country (1993)
Downtown (1994)
Faultlines (1995)
Up Island (1997)
Nora, Nora (2000)
Islands (2004)
Sweetwater Creek (2005)

Lillian Smith (1897-1966)
Born in Florida, died in Atlanta, GA
Strange Fruit (1944)

Alice Walker (1944)
Born in Eatonton, GA
The Color Purple (1982)
Pulitzer Prize in 1983
The Temple of My Familiar (1989)

Bailey White (1950- )
Born in Thomasville, GA
Mama Makes Up Her Mind (1994)
Sleeping at the Starlite Motel (1996)
Quite a Year for Plums (1999)

Won't You Meet My Neighbor!

Born in Jackson, TN and moved to Rich, MS as a young boy, Thomas Harris is Southern born and bred. Biographies place one of his homes in Rich, MS, (millionaires tend to have more than one home, right?) but my friends tell me he really lives in Dundee, MS; one county west of me. If I was to drop in, would he pour the iced tea or call the police to report a stalker? ;D

Mr. Harris wrote two of the most memorable suspense characters in modern history: Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. In How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, a whole chapter is dedicated to character names and their hidden meaning. Lecter sounds a lot like leech or lecher and starlings are scrappy little birds. What do you think?

Did you believe Jodie Foster's Southern accent in the movie, or for that matter Julianne Moore's? It makes my skin crawl to hear an actor hamming the drawl too much.

Black Sunday (1975)
Red Dragon (1981)
The Silence of the Lambs (1988)
Hannibal (1999)
Hannibal Rising (2006)

Friday, April 27, 2007

Listener's Southern Suggestion

Dana at So Many Books, So Little Time had this to say,
"This year for my reading I decided to try something different. I borrowed the CD recording of the book narrated by Sissy Spacek, and I discovered something. To Kill a Mockingbird, while inimitably brilliant, was never intended to be a story that was merely read. It was meant, as all grand old southern stories are, to be told. It was meant to be shared face to face, in a soft southern drawl while the tree frogs buzz and the smell of cut grass lays low over the land. In the moments when the sun has set but the light remains, it was meant to be drawn out with word pictures as we lean back against the porch railing with our eyes half shut."

Note: After reading Dana post, I was curious about Ms. Spacek's other audios. I could only find one, Carrie! :D

Class of 2007!

A little pre-graduation inspiration for our seniors! :D

(I free-handed this and he's all out of proportion.)

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Southern Sisters Mysteries

"I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, and slapped on some lipstick, the minimum I figured I could get away with if I were hit by a truck on the way to Philip's house. Every woman in the world knows you have to wear clean underwear in case you are hit by a truck, but the lipstick may be a Southern thing. You want to look pretty when the firemen unhinge your door with the jaws of life, and the paramedics rush you to the waiting helicopter for the trip to Carraway or University Hospital. The condition of your underwear might be questionable by that time but, by damn, your lips would be Shimmering Coral, and there's something to be said for that."

~ Anne George

Murder Boogies with Elvis p51

1. Murder on a Girl's Night Out (1996)

Winner 1996 Agatha Award (Best First Mystery Novel)
2. Murder on a Bad Hair Day (1996)
3. Murder Runs in the Family (1996)
4. Murder Makes Waves (1997)
5. Murder Gets a Life (1998)
6. Murder Shoots the Bull (1999)
7. Murder Carries a Torch (2000)
8. Murder Boogies with Elvis (2001)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Reader w/ Southern Suggestions!

Nymeth of Things Mean A Lot posted a list of her suggestions for other Southern Reading Challengers ~ Enjoy!

~Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
For the aforementioned reasons. I know the setting is not exclusively Southern, but Ashton is in Alabama, and Daniel Wallace is from Alabama himself, so I think this qualifies.

~The Grass Harp by Truman Capote
Capote is one of my all-time favourite writers, and this is probably my favourite of his books. It's a very tender and moving tale of both childhood and old age.

~A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
This book, which takes place in New Orleans, is most likely one of the funniest things you'll ever read in your life, but it can also be extremely sad at times, especially if you keep in mind the tragic circumstances of Toole's own life. This is one of those books everyone should read at least once in their lives.

~The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
I first read this book because of A Confederacy of Dunces - it was Percy who finally got it published after Toole's suicide. This is a wonderful southern tale of awkwardness, loneliness, estrangement and loss.

April is Library Month (copy)

The month of April provides ample reasons to visit your local library. Thanks to American lawmakers, we may celebrate National Library Week, Reading is Fun Week, and TV Turn-Off Week all within National Poetry Month.

Although, the month is almost finished, it isn’t too late to participate in reading. How? Well, stop by any library and choose books from their overflowing shelves. One might get lucky and catch a colorful display promoting these national events.

Our library is currently featuring Billy Collins’ poetry books. He is a treat to read. Listen to his voice in the poem, “Dear Reader.” “Baudelaire considers you his brother, and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs as if to make sure you have not closed the book, and now I am summoning you up again, attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing in the doorway of these words.”

Collins can induce anyone to giggle, even us serious librarians. In his poem, “Marginalia,” the reader enjoys others’ notes placed alongside the book’s text. Officially, I discourage marginalia in library books; otherwise, please enjoy this poem.

“Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.”

So, “don’t be a ninny,” visit your local library and celebrate reading.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Honorary Southerner

“A southerner talks music.”

~ Mark Twain

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867)
The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Roughing It (1872)
The Gilded Age (1873)
Old Times on the Mississippi (1876)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)
What Is Man? (1906)

Newbery Challenge 2007

Nattie over at Nattie Writes is hosting a Newbery Challenge!

The rules are as follows...

1. Pick 6 books from the Newbery list

2. Provide list of books in a comment on her blog

3. Post your picks

4. Read them between May 15th to Dec 31st

Here are my picks...

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron
Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Hilton Head Setting!

Nyssaneala at Book Haven needs our help suggesting books for her vacation to Savannah, GA and Hilton Head Island. I came up with a few ideas for Hilton Head and also suggested Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Any others? Please leave a comment.

Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank
NoveList writes, "For Big Al and Connie, their move from New Jersey to Hilton Head, South Carolina, has been fraught with complications, especially for their daughter Grace, a thirty-two-year-old single, Catholic woman struggling for independence."

Mint Julep Murder by Carolyn G. Hart
NoevList writes, "A husband and wife team of bookworm-sleuths, Annie and Max Darling, investigate a murder at a book festival on Hilton Head."

Vicky Hunnings's

Low Country Mysteries

The Bride Wore Blood (2002)

Death on a Cellular Level (2003)

Turn of Fortune (2005)

Haven by John R. Maxim
NoveList writes, "Seeking to rebuild her life and forget her past identity as the Mossad's most ruthless assassin, Elizabeth Stride settles on the island of Hilton Head, where the disappearance of a teenager forces Elizabeth to team up with an ex-lover."

Kathryn R. Wall's

Bay Tanner Mysteries

In For a Penny (2002)

And Not a Penny More (2002)

Perdition House (2003)

Judas Island (2004)

Resurrection Road (2005)

Bishop's Reach (2006)

Sanctuary Hill (May 1, 2007)

Fun Southern Sun Writer

Joshilyn Jackson says, "I read everything from contemporary lit-fic to hard boiled detective books to sci fi to classic literature to chick-lit to epic fantasy to cosies... I’m the walking definition of avid. And of course I love great Southern literature---I think Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, and Harper Lee are about perfect."

gods in Alabama (2004)
Between Georgia (2006)

Southerner Wins American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature!

We know him as the author of Gap Creek! Robert Morgan said of the award it is, "particularly thrilling to me because you're chosen by your fellow writers at the national level, so it's recognition by your peers. It's a very distinguished list."

The press release states, "Morgan's writings include The Truest Pleasure, The Hinterlands, Topsoil Road and the best-selling novel Gap Creek, a 2000 selection of Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. His first major nonfiction work, Boone: A Biography, about the frontiersman Daniel Boone, will be published in October. Morgan's poem "October Crossing" will be in an upcoming issue of Atlantic Monthly, and a short story, "The Distant Blue Hills," will appear this fall in The Southern Review."

I'm particularly overjoyed about the upcoming Daniel Boone Biography. He is one of my childhood heroes! :D

Friday, April 20, 2007

Crappie? Catfish? No Trout!

Southern author Jack Kerley explains his sense of place with, "I’m a native of Newport, Kentucky, and live here today. Newport sits on a big swooping bend of the Ohio River, and is where Dixie meets the Midwest, and both meet Appalachia. When I was a kid, Newport was called the “Sin City of the South.” It’s nice to live in a town with a colorful past, like having a stripper aunt who went straight, but tells wild stories of the day.

I also spend a good deal of time in Fairhope, Alabama, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. When first in the area, a decade or so back, I knew it would be a helluva place to set a story. There’s water in every direction, and my stories grow best in heat and humidity. When not writing, I fish. My idea of Heaven is waltzing into the Tennessee/North Carolina highlands with a pack on my back and a fly rod in my hand."

A Garden of Vipers (2006)
The Death Collectors (2005)
The Hundreth Man (2004)

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Reader Suggest Southern Book

TXMommy over at Too Many to Count said, "Our book club read Cane River by Lalita Tademy this last month. It's the story of a Southern family, focusing on the women in the family. They were slaves and became progressively "whiter" as the generations past. It is historical fiction based on the author's family. You might want to add it to your list of suggestions."

Jenclair of A Garden Carried in the Pocket adds, "I read this 5 or 6 years ago and enjoyed it. Here is a link to some information about the community, which is right outside of Natchitoches, LA. And another link to a blogger who writes about it."

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Read Any Walker Percy?

The Moviegoer (1961)
The Last Gentleman (1966)
Love in the Ruins (1971)
Lancelot (1977)
The Second Coming (1980)

The Thanatos Syndrome (1987)

"I think the day of regional Southern writing is all gone. I think that people who try to write in that style are usually repeating a phased out genre or doing Faulkner badly." ~Walker Percy

Pigeons (copy)

The book claims either you love them or you hate them. I would have to say, before my Italian trip, I was indifferent. It took a couple of days in San Marco Square to knock me off the fence. After watching them huddle around diners and rush anyone chewing, I quickly surmised they were icky. Pigeons otherwise known as rats with feathers made my skin crawl.

This weekend my whole attitude changed after reading Pigeons by Andrew D. Blechman. He has written a fascinating, I kid you not, book about these common birds. His tone is light and humorous with interesting stories to lure the reader. The introduction leads with an anonymous quote, “Some days you’re the pigeon. Some days you’re the statue.” Amen.

My heart was won after reading the story of the “Lost Battalion” of World War One. Apparently the 77th Division of the U.S. Army was trapped behind German lines in the Argonne Forest. Overnight, their division numbers dwindled to 200, and as the day began they were bombarded with friendly fire from 25 miles away.

Faced with sure death and no way to communicate with friendly forces, they brought out their rock doves. This battalion, such as the habit of Army foot soldiers, carried baskets of rock doves into battle with them. The first two feathered scouts were shot down by the Germans before ever orienting to their home base.

The third, Cher Ami, carried a desperate plea, “Our artillery is dropping a barrage on us. For Heaven’s sake, stop it!” Vulnerable to the rifle shots as the first two birds, Cher Ami headed back down to earth, but before impact he pushed out his wings and caught a gust of air. He climbed, then climbed some more, and to the amazement of the soldiers he flew out of rifle range.

Twenty minutes later, a blood covered Cher Ami lay on his back at headquarters. “One eye and part of the cranium had been blown away, and its breast had been ripped open.” He lived another year and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for his “courageous persistence.” (His mangled-stuffed body can be seen at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.)

Yes, you may not think this is a potboiler and you may think I’m a crackpot for suggesting it, but I do hope you give it a try. Oh, and if you don’t fall in love with these fine-feathered friends, Blechman includes a Pigeon Pot Pie recipe.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Southern Rock is Rockin'

I had a reference question that made me feel old, yet cool, at the same time Friday. A kid, all of 22-years, asked me if I could help him find a book.

“Sure, what ya lookin’ for?”
“You spell it L-Y-N-Y”
“Do you mean Lynyrd Skynyrd?”
“Yeah!”
“I found this book, which I can’t believe y’all got, and it’s not on the shelf.”
“Mmm, let me look at the record. Oh, it’s checked out. Would you like to try some other Southern Rock?”
“You know what Southern Rock is?”
“I think we have some Allman Brothers.”
“YOU know who the Allman Brothers are?”

This is when I say, "don't judge a book by the cover."

Now, who’s your blues, rockin' mama?

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Southerner Wins EB White Award!

First time novelist and Alabama naive, Watt Key, wins the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award for Older Readers. His book Alabama Moon is set in the wilds of Alabama and perfect for the Southern Reading Challenge.

Exert

"I could trap my own food and make my own clothes. I could find my way by the stars and make fire in the rain. Pap said he even figured I could whip somebody three times my size. He wasn’t worried about me."

DearReader's Booktalk

For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. They keep to themselves, their only contact with other human beings an occasional trip to the nearest general store. When Moon’s father dies, Moon follows his father’s last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves. But Moon is soon caught and entangled in a world he doesn’t know or understand, apparent property of the government he has been avoiding all his life. As the spirited and resourceful Moon encounters
constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (copy)

After reading a tough, thought-provoking book, such as The Road by Cormac McCarthy, it is hard to pick up another book to read. For one thing, one compares everything read after with so called uber-book. Can you imagine? I’ve picked up a total of seven books this week and none appeal to my mood. I would read two chapters and go, “Ugh!” Not because the books were bad reads; rather, they didn’t measure up to McCarthy’s style.

Does one need to follow a depressing book with another? Is this a vicious cycle that cannot be broken? Maybe this is the reason most of Oprah’s book-club selections are slightly depressing. Is one drawn into a pattern of reading from whence there is no escape?

I found one way to snap out of the cycle. Read something that is on the opposite spectrum from said book. In this case I need to fight depressing with rib-tickling humor.

It may be only 32 pages and contain 164 words, but it is so silly my next read did the trick. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems was a 2004 Caldecott Honor book. The word honor is designated for those books which do not win the award, but are considered “worthy of attention.” The actual award that year went to a book which displayed the Twin Towers as a background.

Pigeon represents the little kid in all of us, whom dies to do something, only because he is instructed not to do it. We meet the bus driver only for a brief second, but in that time frame he reminds us not to let the pigeon drive the bus. Oh, and now the pigeon really wants to drive the bus.

He begs, he pleads, he hops on one foot, but we must resist his charm. He demonstrates his capable ability, he relates how his cousin drove a bus once, and still we must say no. Yes, the pigeon has many tricks and we as readers must be the bad guys and not let him have his way. Any five-year-old can relate to this universal human trait.

This is a perfect read-aloud to any child or grand-child under the age of seven. It is so easy even an eight year old could read it to their younger siblings. All an adult needs to do is drive 10 to 20 minutes to a library. Spend five minutes hunting down the book. Spend another five minutes finding the required library card; then return home where uncontrollable giggles will spout. Timeless.

Sharyn McCrumb on the South

I find that the more I write, the more fascinated I become with the idea of the land as an intricate element in the lives of the mountain people, and of the past as prologue for any contemporary narrative. This connection to the land is personal as well as thematic.

~ Sharyn McCrumb

Elizabeth MacPherson Series

1. Sick of Shadows (1984)
2. Lovely in Her Bones (1985)
3. Highland Laddie Gone (1986)
4. Paying the Piper (1988)
5. The Windsor Knot (1990)
6. Missing Susan (1991)
7. Macpherson's Lament (1992)
8. If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him... (1995)
9. The PMS Outlaws (2000)

Bimbos of the Death Sun Series
1. Bimbos of the Death Sun (1987)
2. Zombies of the Gene Pool (1992)
Bimbos and Zombies (omnibus) (1998)

Ballad Series
1. If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O (1990)
2. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1992)
3. She Walks These Hills (1994)
4. The Rosewood Casket (1996)
5. The Ballad of Frankie Silver (1998)
6. The Song Catcher (2000)
7. Ghost Riders (2003)
8. St. Dale (2005)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

South Carolina Writers

Dorothy Allison (1949- )
Raised in Greenville, SC
Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

Ruthie Bolton (1961- ) Memoirist
Born and raised in Charleston, SC
Gal: A True Life (1994)

Pat Conroy (1945- )
Lives on Fripp Island, SC
The Great Santini (1976)
The Lords of Discipline (1980)
The Prince of Tides (1986)
Beach Music (1995)
My Losing Season (2002)

John Dunning (1942- )
Raised in Charleston, SC
Bookman Series staring Clifford "Cliff" Janeway

Percival Everett (1956- )
Professor of English at the U of SC
Sorry, Western writer!

Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830/1886) Poet
Born and raised in Charleston, SC

DuBose Heyward (1885/1940)
Born and raised in Charleston, SC
Porgy (1924).

Josephine Humphries (1945- )
Born and raised in Charleston, SC
PEN/Hemingway award for Dreams of Sleep (1985)

Sue Monk Kidd (1948- )
Writer in Residence in Charleston.
The Secret Life of Bees (2002)
The Mermaid Chair (2005)

Cassandra King (1944- )
Lives on Fripp Island, SC
The Sunday Wife (2002)
The Same Sweet Girls (2005)
Queen of Broken Hearts (2007)

Brad Land (???) Memoirist
Currently lives in SC
Goat (2004)

Ed Madden (? - Alive-n-kickin’) Poet
Artist-in-Residence for the SC State Parks

Carrie Allen McCray (???)
Freedom's Child:
Life of a Confederate General's Black Daughter (1998)

Julia Peterkin (1880-1961)
Born in Laurens County, SC
Black April (1927)
Scarlet Sister Mary (1928)
Bright Skin (1932)
Roll, Jordan, Roll (1933)
A Plantation Christmas (1934)

Sheri Reynolds (???)
Born and raised in rural SC
The Rapture of Canaan (1997)
Firefly Cloak (2006)

Dori Sanders (1934- )
Born and Raised Filbert, SC
Clover (1990)
Her Own Place (1993)

Anne Rivers Siddons (1936- )
Lives in Charleston SC
Heartbreak Hotel (1976)
Peachtree Road (1988)
Kings Oak (1990)
Outer Banks (1991)
Up Island (1997)
Low Country (1998)
Islands (2004)
Sweetwater Creek (2005)

William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870)
Born, raised and died in Charleston, SC
The Yemassee (1835)
The Lily and the Totem (1850)
Vasconselos (1853)
The Cassique of Kiawah (1859).

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Dueling Southern Authors

Among the classic Southern authors, who is the Southernest?
I’ll write their names alphabetically so as not to show my prejudices.

1. Erskine Caldwell
2. William Faulkner
3. Zora Neale Hurston
4. Harper Lee
5. Carson McCullers
6. Margaret Mitchell
7. Flannery O'Connor
8. Mark Twain
9. Alice Walker
10. Robert Penn Warren
11. Eudora Welty
12. Tennessee Williams
13. _______________

Please, leave a post so we may disagree! :D

Monday, April 09, 2007

Popular Culture's South

Ah, it is so good to see y’all getting excited about reading Southern books! *jumping for joy*

I’m going off on a limb by making this next statement. (Please, argue with me on my third choice, but don’t go there with the first and second.)

In today’s popular culture, when people think about Southern books, they think…

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
An epic Civil War tale in which the foolish/young, main character, Scarlett O’Hara, becomes a strong, independent woman through her struggles to survive. Yeah, yeah you’ve seen the movie already. Well, in the words of a highly successful reviewer i.e. me, the book is way better!

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Do I need to say anything here? Okay, possibly one thing. If you have not read this book, you MUST walk right out the front door, and cut yourself a switch! Ew, and switches are good and green this time of the year! Seriously, if you haven't read this, you don't know Boo!

3. Deliverance by James Dickey
Why? Well, I have never heard a joke so beaten to death than the “dueling banjos, squeal like a pig” joke from this book/film. For instance, I just reread Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods where he refers to this book/joke three times. Not to say Bryson is a broke record, but he also envisions another scenario in his book, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, involving a State Trooper and himself. For more info, see Jay Busbee's entry.

Agree or disagree?

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Southern Region Defined!

"In its simplest form, Southern literature consists of writing about the American South, with the South either being defined as the Deep South states of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, or the extended South which includes the border states such as Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, and Arkansas and the peripheral Southern states of Florida and Texas." Wikipedia

Summer Reading Challenge Info...

Well, I know, you need another reading challenge like you need another hole in your head. BUT, I promise this will be one you won't want to miss.

I believe one of the major reasons we have a whole genre named after our region is because "sense of place" or the setting becomes a character in most Southern books. I want to bring this to your challenge experience!

First and foremost, I will draw weekly from participants' names, and the winner will receive a Southern (Mississippi) made product. Secondly, I set up a separate blog so we can discuss our shared experiences within our readings. How? Well, I will take your post (reviews and/or notes) and copy them onto the blog and leave comments open for participation. (You will get credit w/ a link back to your original entry!) Thirdly, I will try to enhance your entries by taking pictures around my community and adding them to your posts.

Okay, I looked around at the time period for other challenges and I would like to set this challenge during the months of June, July, and August. Our most hot and humid time, dare I say, our most Southern time.

For this challenge you will need to read 3 Southern books. Having read The Road will not qualify you for the challenge. (Yes, Cormac McCarthy is a Southern author and the father/son travel to the south, but the setting is post-apocalyptic. Can you imagine me running around trying to get a picture of ashen destruction?) The books must contain a Southern setting by a Southern author!

We will begin on June 1st so be thinking of your titles. Between now and the start I will provide ideas to spark your interest in the genre. I'll give you booklists of authors and titles. I will quote Southern voices and possibly jokes. I will try to be YOUR ultimate Southern Librarian! :D

Saturday, April 07, 2007

The Captain's Wife (notes)

"...letters are nonetheless peculiar historical documents that must also be read for what is evaded or unspoken. People's lives, and the ways in which they remember and record those lives, can never be perfect reflections of one another. The act of recounting always involves the selection of observations, the editing of emotions, even omission of entire experiences. By choosing which episodes to dwell upon and which sentiments to impart..." p28-29

Did we start this evasion of truth at our first summer camp? Our letters filled with flowing "Great Times!" and "Having so much FUN!" Really, all we wanted was our own bed and neighborhood friends.

You Love Me! You Really Love Me!

Amy at The Sleepy Reader nominated me for the Thinking Blogger Award. Man, the pressure is on to actually think; add more critical analysis less book eye-candy. Thanks Amy. I'm honored! :)

I am now supposed to nominate 5 other blogs that make me think. OH, MY! Just look at my blogrolls...How can I whittle it down to five? I picked some VERY busy people to tag and each one has a reason to thumb their noses at me, but I just want y'all to know I appreciate ya!

1. Rick at Ricklibrarian
2. NonAnon at Nonfiction Readers Anonymous
3. Amanda at Amanda's Weekly Zen
4. Leslie at A Life in Books
5. Tiffany at Neurotic Fiction Mom

Rules...

1. If, and only if you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to that post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display your "Thinking Blogger Award" with a link to the post that you wrote.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Southern Reading Challenge 2007

Whet your appetite...

More To Come!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Come Sail Away...

One of the many boats my husband builds in the winter. All thanks to my Christmas shopping through Wooden Boat Magazine. My dream gift for him would be a week or two at the Wooden Boat School in Maine

Hop Over 2 the Library!

Way 2 Go Florida!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The Road (copy)

Oprah’s book club is back! Her first contemporary fiction since 2002, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, is unlike any previous club selection. The only other Oprah selection I can vaguely compare it with is She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Like author Lamb, who deprives his main character, Dolores Price, of any joy until the very last pages, McCarthy is stingy with the hope.

The Road is a bleak, post-apocalyptic quest for basic survival. The plot is simple; a father and son must journey from the cold north into the warmer south before winter. They set out on foot with a grocery cart full of canned foods, a revolver holding two bullets, a lighter, some blankets, and sturdy shoes. By the mother’s choice, she and the third bullet will not make the journey.

The reader is not privy to the apocalypse. McCarthy doesn’t add that to the story. On some arbitrary date, at 1:17 p.m., the clocks stop and the world enshrouds in a nuclear winter. The father’s memory is even less detailed with his cryptic, “dull rose glow in the windowglass.” He also briefly mentions the hoards of refugees begging along the roadside, long dead now.

Just what is a nuclear winter? The American Meteorology Society defines it as, “surface cooling that might result from the emission of extensive clouds of smoke (from burning cities, fuel sites, and forests) following the detonation of hundreds of warheads in a nuclear exchange.” In praise of McCarthy’s style, the reader will experience this gritty, wind-blown world and feel weighed down by the ash.

The Road is no Sunday cruise. The man and boy, remaining nameless throughout the book, must avoid all “bad guys.” The reader will find McCarthy’s world full of them. The “bad guys,” and this is disturbing on so many levels, are people who eat other people.

Okay, stop right there. I’m not reading any depressing book where people are eating people! What is Oprah thinking?

Please, don’t let that discourage you. McCarthy is a master and this may be his finest work. As a reader, come prepared for the desolation and inhumanity, but also be ready to join in their plight. By page 50, one will realize they have projected their own hope onto the travelers.