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.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (copy)
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.
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!
Summer Reading Challenge Info...
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!
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! :)
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
Friday, April 06, 2007
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
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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
And the Winner is...
Congratulations!
May I borrow $15,000? ;)
A Walk in the Woods (copy)
Weather this spring has been quite unseasonably warm and dry. Memphis news station, WREG, reported temperatures to be 12 degrees above normal for this time of year. I am beginning to think Punxsutawney Phil, the official weather groundhog, has a gift. Not only did he predict the early spring for 2007, but also busied himself setting out the lounge and pouring iced tea.
The last two weeks of March and the first two weeks of April are prime times to begin a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail according to Bill Bryson’s book, A Walk in the Woods.
Just what is a thru hike you ask? A thru hike means walking from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine or visa versa in one season; which is over 2,174 miles from start to finish. Most thru hikers prefer to begin their odyssey in Georgia during early spring then arrive in Maine just as fall begins. In theory, they avoid extreme weather such as freezing sleet and snow.
This is how expatriate and author Bill Bryson begins his journey. The book jacket claims he took on this daunting task, “For reasons even he didn’t understand.” Some of us in Reading Round Table suspect his purpose was solely to write the book. Not an unfounded thought, since he wrote Neither Here Nor There after a 1991 back packing trip in Europe.
A Walk in the Woods was written in 1998 after Bryson “sort of” finished the trail in 1996. The book is laugh-out-loud funny. First off, Bryson sends out Christmas cards inviting any and all to join him. Out of all the possibilities, he has one taker, Stephen Katz; a man who exercises by watching T.V. and considers dinner a twice nightly event.
The first night of camp, Bryson realizes his new mate isn’t ideal, as Katz admits to tossing all their food down a ravine before falling instantly to sleep. For penitence Katz rises early and makes coffee. Unfortunately, the brew is contaminated with pink floating specks (toilet paper), as Katz explains tossing the filters, too.
As if going off trail for a bit, Bryson fills the book with “aside” information. Along with the running narrative, readers will learn much about our state parks and woodsy forests.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Art as Story
Art is inspiration on canvas board. That said, I think Edward Hopper’s work can inspire stories. In Hopper’s Nighthawk below, all kinds of plots, conversations, and characterizations come to mind.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
So You Wanna B President? (copy)
Note: Thanks to RickLibrarian for the idea!
Jimmy Carter, our 39th President, was a little-known, democratic hopeful when he released his first book Why Not the Best? in 1975. According to Book TV’s “In Depth,” Carter used the book as an introduction to the American people when he began his presidential campaign.Did it help him win? I’m not sure, since I was 10 at the time. I thought people voted for him because of his toothy grin and Southern accent. How do you pronounce “nuclear?”
During the 2008 primaries, voters will have an opportunity to nominate a fresh candidate from both parties. Not since 1952 have voters had so many options. How will Americans vote responsibly? How will we "get to know" the candidates?
One such hopeful is following in the footsteps of former
president Carter, Barack Obama. A junior United States Senator since 2006, little was known of him before his bestseller, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Now, Americans can read his stirring autobiography and have a sense of his character.As former mayor of New York, more people are familiar with Rudolph
"Rudy" Giuliani’s name. (David Letterman has a nasty habit of using the current city’s mayors as nightly fodder.) Prior to the terrorist attack on the twin towers, outsiders to the city may have seen him as bumbling. He disproved the notion, as we saw a calm demeanor during 9/11. No autobiography, his book Leadership explains his 9/11 manner as a management skill learned during his mayoral stint.
Hillary Clinton was ready with her book Living History prior to filing for the Exploratory Committee. One can now read her take on world issues without Bill’s point of view. As with most political books, it is a safe read, void of Washington gossip. Darn it.Former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, recently released his sixth book From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness. One thing he would like to “stop” is America’s cynicism towards their government. I just love this suggestion—
turn off the talk radio and listen to more music.Leap year occurs every four years, and so to does Ralph Nader’s leap into the presidential mix. He has written many books, but his Unsafe at Any Speed, placed him in the Nation's spotlight. Today we consider this book a classic, like the Corvair and possibly Ralph Nader.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Long Live the Book!
Note: A Special Report from Forbes.com on Books edited by Michael Maiello and Michael Noer.
People still burn books. But that only means that books are still dangerous enough to destroy. And if people want to destroy them, they are valuable enough that they will endure.
