Alabama authors

Save the date for Genre Reading Group next month on Tuesday, October 29th at 6:30pm when we’ll be discussing humor writing, reader’s choice on fiction vs nonfiction! 

Big things happening before then:

(Ages 18+ and RSVP appreciated on the calendar at www.eolib.org) Saturday, October 12th Nightmare on Oak Street Horror Movies and Craft, 5-10pm.

Tuesday, October 15th Fall Decorating with Native Flowers & Plants with Kelly Wood from Grace Garden, 6:30pm

Thursday, October 17th UAB Neuroscience Café: Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Survivorship

Tonight, the Genre Reading Group met to discuss Alabama/Alabama-related authors!

The Most They Ever Had by Rick Bragg

(amazon) In the spring of 2001, a community of people in the Appalachian foothills of northern Alabama had come to the edge of all they had ever known. Across the South, padlocks and logging chains bound the doors of silent mills, and it seemed a miracle to blue-collar people in Jacksonville that their mill still bit, shook, and roared. The century-old hardwood floors still trembled under whirling steel, and people worked on, in a mist of white air. The mill had become almost a living thing, rewarding the hardworking and careful with the best payday they ever had, but punishing the careless and clumsy, taking a finger, a hand, more.

The mill was here before the automobile, before the flying machine, and the mill workers served it even as it filled their lungs with lint and shortened their lives. In return, it let them live in stiff-necked dignity in the hills of their fathers. So, when death did come, no one had to ship their bodies home on a train. This is a mill story—not of bricks, steel, and cotton, but of the people who suffered it to live.

Summer Crossing by Truman Capote

(amazon) Thought to be lost for over 50 years, here is the first novel by one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

Set in New York during the summer of 1945, this is the story of a young carefree socialite, Grady, who must make serious decisions about the romance she is dangerously pursuing and the effect it will have on everyone involved. Fans of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Capote’s short stories will be thrilled to read Summer Crossing.

My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South by Rick Bragg

(amazon) From the celebrated bestselling author of All Over but the Shoutin' and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Rick Bragg, comes a poignant and wryly funny collection of essays on life in the south.

Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, he explores enduring Southern truths about home, place, spirit, table, and the regions' varied geographies, including his native Alabama, Cajun country, and the Gulf Coast. Everything is explored, from regional obsessions from college football and fishing, to mayonnaise and spoonbread, to the simple beauty of a fish on the hook.

Collected from over a decade of his writing, with many never-before-published essays written specifically for this edition, My Southern Journey is an entertaining and engaging read, especially for Southerners (or feel Southern at heart) and anyone who appreciates great writing.

Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads by Paul Theroux

(amazon) Paul Theroux has spent the past fifty years roaming the globe, describing his encounters with remote people and far-flung places in ten best-selling travel books. Now, for the first time, he explores a part of America—the Deep South. Setting out on a winding road trip, Theroux discovers a region of architectural and artistic wonders, incomparable music, mouth-watering cuisine—and also some of the worst schools, medical care, housing, and unemployment rates in the nation.

Yet, no matter where he goes, Theroux meets the unsung heroes of the South, the people who, despite it all, never left, and also those who found their way home and devoted their lives to rebuilding a place they could never live without.

A Sweet Strangeness Thrills My Heart: The World of Sallie Independence Foster: 1861-1887 created and performed by Dolores Hydock

(storypower.org) Sallie Independence Foster was 12 years old and living in Florence, Alabama in 1861 when the War Between the States began. She was keeping a diary at the time, and kept on keeping a diary for 26 years. This performance, based on Sallie's diaries, papers, and letters from her brothers off at war, presents a funny, touching, and uniquely personal look at the life and times that Sallie shared with her paper "dear Companion."  

Storyteller Dolores Hydock and music historian Bobby Horton interweave Sallie’s story with camp songs, period favorites, and original tunes to create a poignant, powerful, humorous, and honest picture of a world of innocence turned upside-down.

Spit, Scarey Ann, and Sweat Bees: One Thing Leads to Another by Kathryn Tucker Windham

(amazon) With sprightly humor and a lifetime spent observing Southern culture, beloved storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham shares memories of her childhood in Thomasville, Alabama. She affectionately recounts stories about family members, friends, and favorite pastimes.

Spit, Scarey Ann, and Sweat Bees recalls small-town life in the 1920s and ’30s, garnished with ruminations about folktales and superstitions. Mrs. Windham recalls how Thurza, the family cook, tucked a wooden match in her hair to cure a headache, and how her father spit in his hat when a rabbit crossed the road. She ponders the origins of old sayings and the creativity of children’s play before television and air conditioning. One thing leads to another, Mrs. Windham says, ticking off the items she wants us not to forget. In every phrase, the reader hears her voice, almost as if our favorite storyteller was in the room.

Birmingham Food: A Magic City Menu by Emily Brown

(amazon) Birmingham began as a boomtown filled with immigrants who held on to the best recipes from their homelands. More recently, locals like Frank Stitt and Carole Griffin helped transform the modern southern city into a foodie destination with the best of national trends. Andrew Zimmern visited with his show Bizarre Foods America to tout one of the city's most popular food trucks, Shindigs. Fast casual dining is done with care, and gems like Trattoria Centrale and Bettola are dedicated to local ingredients. Join food writer and restaurant enthusiast Emily Brown as she details the delectable history of food in the Magic City.

I Travel by Night by Robert McCammon

(amazon) I Travel by Night marks Robert McCammon's triumphant return to the sort of flamboyant, go-for-broke horror fiction that has earned him an international reputation and a legion of devoted fans. The terrors of the Dark Society, the gothic sensibilities of old New Orleans, and the tortured existence of the unforgettable vampire adventurer Trevor Lawson all combine into a heady brew that will thrill McCammon s loyal readers and earn him new ones as well.

For Lawson, the horrors that stalked the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh were more than just those of war. After being forcibly given the gift of undeath by the mysterious vampire queen LaRouge, Lawson chose to cling to what remained of his humanity and fought his way free of the Dark Society's clutches. In the decades since, he has roamed late nineteenth century America, doing what good he can as he travels by night, combating evils mundane and supernatural, and always seeking the key to regaining a mortal life.

That key lies with his maker, and now Lawson hopes to find LaRouge at the heart of a Louisiana swamp with the aid of a haunted priest and an unexpected ally. In the tornado-wracked ghost town of Nocturne, Lawson must face down monstrous enemies, the rising sun, and his own nature. Readers will not want to miss this thrilling new dark novella from a master.

Weathering Life by James Spann

(jamesspannbook.com) This autobiography allows folks to ride along with James Spann on his long and winding life journey.  They will learn things they don’t know about him, experience deep details concerning the historic weather events that shaped his career, and most importantly, learn some things that just might help them in their lives and in their darkest days.  The book was written not only to document a long career in weather and the events that shaped it but to serve as an encouragement and blessing to those who read it.

GRG Recap - Alabama Authors

There’s nothing like local authors to get a spirited discussion going! In anticipation of an author luncheon hosted by Southern Magic, the Birmingham chapter of Romance Writers of America, many of our GRGers read titles from authors scheduled to attend the event, but any book by an Alabama author was eligible for discussion.

On November 29th at 6:30pm, we’ll be discussing books on the art and science of happiness. This should be a very interesting discussion, so don’t miss out! Have company in town for the Thanksgiving holiday? Bring them with you, we all love to see new faces!

On to the list:

When Light Breaks by Patti Callahan Henry
Garnering comparisons to Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy, Patti Callahan Henry has woven her lyrical Southern voice throughout the Lowcountry landscape. Now, as two women from opposite sides of the same sea meet, a tale unfolds that will draw readers into the heart's remembrances-and the tender awakenings of first love.

Though bogged down in the stress of planning her elaborate wedding to a professional golfer, twenty-seven-year-old Kara Larson still makes time to visit ninety-six-year-old Maeve Mahoney at her nursing home. And as Maeve recounts the rambling story of her first love back in Ireland, Kara is driven to remember her own first love: childhood neighbor Jack Sullivan.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: P.C. Henry’s novel features the popular story-within-a-story plot device and we came up with the following favorites that also feature it.


Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flag
It’s the story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women, of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth, who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present, for Evelyn and for us, will never quite be the same.  Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, with humor and drama, and with an ending that would fill with smiling tears the Whistle Stop Lake...if they only had a lake....


Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.


The movie, Titanic
Nothing on Earth can rival the epic spectacle and breathtaking grandeur of Titanic the sweeping love story that sailed into the hearts of moviegoers around the world ultimately emerging as the most popular motion picture of all time.Leonardo DiCaprio and Oscar-nominee Kate Winslet light up the screen as Jack and Rose the young lovers who find one another on the maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" R.M.S. Titanic. But when the doomed luxury liner collides with an iceberg in the frigid North Atlantic their passionate love affair becomes a thrilling race for survival.

Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives, a Memoir by Wayne Flynt
This historical memoir by the widely recognized scholar, Wayne Flynt, chronicles the inner workings of his academic career at Samford and Auburn Universities, as well as his many contributions to the general history of Alabama. Flynt has traveled the state and the South lecturing and teaching both lay and academic groups, calling on his detailed knowledge of both the history and power structures in Alabama to reveal uncomfortable truths wherever he finds them, whether in academic institutions that fall short of their stated missions, in government and industry leaders who seek and hold power by playing to the fears and prejudices of the public, or in religious groups who abandon their original missions and instead seek financial and emotional comfort in lip service only.

Children’s author Hoyt Wilson
Hoyt Wilson, author, educator and film producer has earned 16 national media awards including four national film awards for a biographical film series from the International Film Festival of New York, National Educational Film Festival, The Independent Film Producers Of America and the US Indusrtrial Film Festival. All his work is of a biographical nature. (amazon.com)

Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis by Howell Raines, who had a brief tenure as editor of the New York Times
Just as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance used motorcycle repair as a metaphor for the examination of self, Howell Raines uses his lifelong experiences as a fly fisherman to explore his life, politics, gender, roles as a son, husband, father, and journalist, and his attitudes toward aging and mortality. A man who has fished with presidents and Southern friends as well as with his own two sons, Raines chronicles his progress from "the Redneck way of fishing" for quantity and food to the catch-and-release way of his friend and mentor Dick Blalock. Blalock taught Raines that fly fishing is about attitude and friendship, not about catching fish. Raines imparts tips on casting and stream beds gracefully, along with his love for what he calls "waters that move" as he explores the deep funk he fell into at midlife, complete with a divorce, a seven-year feud with his father and brother, and the all-consuming animosity he allowed himself to develop toward his boss at work. By casting into the waters of his own life -- and ultimately reconciling with middle age -- Howell Raines has written a literate, contemplative celebration of life and friendship.

Odd Egg Editor by Kathryn Tucker Windham
Remembering the sting of male discrimination she repeatedly endured during her career as a newspaper-woman, the author wistfully recalls the hurt of being overlooked, snubbed, and ribbed by her male colleagues.

GENERAL DISCUSSION: The Library carries an outstanding documentary film about Windham called “Kathryn: The Story of a Teller.”

Staked by J.F. Lewis
With his Denis Leary–esque wit and misanthropic outlook on (un)life, Eric is a vampire with issues. Take his memory problems, for example. He not only can’t remember who he ate for dinner yesterday, he doesn’t even remember how he became a vampire in the first place. Then his girlfriend, Tabitha, finally convinces him to turn her into a vampire—and when he does, his desire for her fades. And her younger sister Rachel sure is cute...but when Eric kills a werewolf in self-defense, things really get out of hand. Now a pack of born-again lycanthropes is out for holy retribution, while Tabitha and Rachel each have their own agendas...which may or may not include helping Eric stay in one piece. All Eric wants to do is run his strip club, drink a little blood, and be left alone. Instead, he must survive car crashes, sunlight, sex magic, and werewolves on ice—not to mention his own nasty temper and forgetfulness.

GENERAL DISCUSSION:
Reading a story set in a place with which the reader is familiar always sets people off, either in good ways, bad ways, or both. Diane McWhorter’s expose on civil rights in Birmingham, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama and the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, sparked some local controversy when it was published. Linda Howard writes romantic suspense and set one of her thrilling novels, Dying to Please, right here in Mountain Brook. Anne George is a perennial favorite with her Southern Sisters cozy mysteries, beginning with Murder on a Girls’ Night Out, which are set all around our great state from Birmingham to Gulf Shores as well as other Alabama locales.

Genre Reading Group recap - books & literacy

Next month's topic is Alabama authors. Drop by the library for a local author selection or please feel free to browse for your own selection.  I'm happy to help either way.

Also, next month we'll probably be meeting OFF-SITE! The Children's Department will be hosting their Halloween extravaganza so parking and maneuverability in general will be compromised. I'm working on that and will let you know when I find a spot for us. I'll also bombard you beforehand with Friendly Reminders.

If you or someone you know loves horror movies, make plans to attend the Nightmare on Oak Street Horror Movie Double Feature on Friday, October 21
from 5pm-9pm. Pizza, snacks, and horror...is there any better combination? (ages 18 and up only)

If horror movies are not your bag, plan to visit the Dead Authors' Graveyard on Saturday, October 22. The Graveyard will be open for visitation 10am-4pm so you may visit the graves, learn some cool facts, and eat some snacks...but you might not want to linger much past sunset.

On to the list!

Days of Reading by Marcel Proust
In these inspiring essays about why we read, Proust explores all the pleasures and trials that we take from books, as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work, and the joys of losing yourself in literature as a child.

The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time by David L. Ulin
Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions — why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen — it doesn’t matter. The key is the act of reading, the seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, pages.

General discusion:
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of artists — a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists — Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain’s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language — a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. It’s the ultimate tale of art trumping science. More broadly, Lehrer shows that there’s a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect.

Is Google Making Us Stupid: What the Internet is Doind to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008)

Lost Classics: Writers on Books Loved and Lost, Overlooked, Under-read, Unavailable, Stolen, Extinct, or Otherwise Out of Commission edited by Michael Ondaatje, Michael Redhill, Esta Spalding, Linda Spalding
Compiled by the editors of Brick: A Literary Magazine, Lost Classics is a reader’s delight: an intriguing and entertaining collection of eulogies for lost books. As the editors have written in a joint introduction to the book, “being lovers of books, we’ve pulled a scent of these absences behind us our whole reading lives, telling people about books that exist only on our own shelves, or even just in our own memory.” Anyone who has ever been changed by a book will find kindred spirits in the pages of Lost Classics. Each of the editors has contributed a lost book essay to this collection, including Michael Ondaatje on Sri Lankan filmmaker Tissa Abeysekara’s Bringing Tony Home, a novella about a mutual era of childhood. Also included are Margaret Atwood on sex and death in the scandalous Doctor Glas, first published in Sweden in 1905; Russell Banks on the off-beat travelogue Too Late to Turn Back by Barbara Greene–the “slightly ditzy” cousin of Graham; Bill Richardson on a children’s book for adults by Russell Hoban; Ronald Wright on William Golding’s Pincher Martin; Caryl Phillips on Michael Mac Liammoir’s account of his experiences on the set of Orson Welles’s Othello, and much, much more.

The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books by Steve Leveen
Do not set out to live a well-read life but rather your well-read life. No one can be well-read using someone else's reading list. Unless a book is good for you, you won't connect with it and gain from it. Just as no one can tell you how to lead your life, no one can tell you what to read for your life. How do readers find more time to read? In The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, Steve Leveen offers both inspiration and practical advice for bibliophiles on how to get more books in their life and more life from their books.
His recommendations are disarmingly refreshing, as when he advises when not to read a book and why not to feel guilty if you missed reading all those classics in school. He helps readers reorganize their bookshelves into a Library of Candidates that they actively build and a Living Library of books read with enthusiasm, and he emphasizes the value of creating a Bookography, or annotated list of your reading life. Separate chapters are devoted to the power of audio books and the merits of reading groups. The author himself admits he came "late to the bookshelf," making this charming little guide all the more convincing.

General discussion: A favored quote from the book above, "Reading groups are health clubs for the mind."

You've Got To Read This Book: 55 People Tell the Story of the Book That Changed Their Life compiled by Jack Canfield, Gay Hendricks with Carol Kline
There's nothing better than a book you can't put down—or better yet, a book you'll never forget. This book puts the power of transformational reading into your hands. Jack Canfield, cocreator of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, and self-actualization pioneer Gay Hendricks have invited notable people to share personal stories of books that changed their lives. What book shaped their outlook and habits? Helped them navigate rough seas? Spurred them to satisfaction and success?

The contributors include Dave Barry, Stephen Covey, Malachy McCourt, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Mark Victor Hansen, John Gray, Christiane Northrup, Bernie Siegel, Craig Newmark, Michael E. Gerber, Lou Holtz, and Pat Williams, to name just a few. Their richly varied stories are poignant, energizing, and entertaining. Author and actor Malachy McCourt tells how a tattered biography of Gandhi, stumbled on in his youth, offered a shining example of true humility—and planted the seeds that would help support his sobriety decades later.

Bestselling author and physician Bernie Siegel, M.D., tells how William Saroyan's The Human Comedy helped him realize that, in order to successfully treat his patients with life-threatening illnesses, "I had to help them live—not just prevent them from dying."

Actress Catherine Oxenberg reveals how, at a life crossroads and struggling with bulimia, a book taught her the transforming difference one person could make in the life of another—and why that person for her was Richard Burton.

Rafe Esquith, the award-winning teacher whose inner-city students have performed Shakespeare all over the world, recounts his deep self-doubt in the midst of his success—and how reading To Kill a Mockingbird strengthened him to continue teaching.

Beloved librarian and bestselling author Nancy Pearl writes how, at age ten, Robert Heinlein's science fiction book Space Cadet impressed on her the meaning of personal integrity and gave her a vision of world peace she'd never imagined possible. Two years later, she marched in her first civil rights demonstration and learned that there's always a way to make "a small contribution to intergalactic harmony."

If you're looking for insight and illumination—or simply for that next great book to read—You've Got to Read This Book! has treasures in store for you.

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry
With astonishing charm, grace, and good humor, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove returns with a fascinating memoir of his lifelong passion of buying, selling, and collecting rare books.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: the True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Unrepentant book thief John Charles Gilkey has stolen a fortune in rare books from around the country. Yet unlike most thieves who steal for profit, Gilkey steals for love-the love of books. Perhaps equally obsessive is Ken Sanders, the self-appointed "bibliodick" who's driven to catch him. Following this eccentric cat-and-mouse chase with a mixture of suspense, insight and humor, Allison Hoover Bartlett plunges the reader deep into a rich world of fanatical book lust and considers what it is that makes some people stop at nothing to posses the titles they love.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the “complete” libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, the library of books never written—Manguel illuminates the mysteries of libraries as no other writer could. With scores of wonderful images throughout, The Library at Night is a fascinating voyage through Manguel’s mind, memory, and vast knowledge of books and civilizations.

What is YOUR favorite book about books?

Genre Reading Group Recap: Alabama authors

The Genre Reading Group (GRG) meetings just get better and better! There is no time like the present to officially join up with the most fun book group in town!

The group picks the topics, YOU pick the book. During the meeting, participants share their thoughts on the book, the topic, and all points in between. We LOVE new members so mark your calendars for November 30, 2010 at 6:30pm for the next GRG meeting!

Last night’s discussion was on Alabama authors and participants shared something for everyone! One participant even brought props for Fannie Flagg’s A Redbird Christmas, including an electronic chirping redbird, a tiny artificial Christmas tree, a miniature Alabama state flag, and a Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer! I wish I’d had my camera. As you can tell, the GRG members are serious about reading!

Next month’s topic is Folktales & Fables. For many libraries, these books can be found in the nonfiction section at call number 398.2. I have a selection of books pulled but participants are always welcome to fish for their own choice!

On to the discussion!

Alabama Moon by Watt Key
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; he’s become 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.

There is a film adaptation for Alabama Moon which premiered at the 2009 Sidewalk Film Festival right here in Birmingham. If you are on Facebook, join the “The Edge 12 Birmingham” fan page and let them know. If you are not on Facebook, call The Edge at 205 795 3500. If you didn’t know about The Edge, it’s on Crestwood Blvd in the old Festival 12 Theater location. They are featuring a mix of first run and independent films and they need our support!

Dirt Road Home by Watt Key
After his recapture at the end of Alabama Moon, gutsy 14-year-old Hal Mitchell is sentenced to live at Hellenweiler, an institution that is more like a jail than the boys' home it's supposed to be. Hal could walk out in just a few months if he keeps out of trouble. But in a place like Hellenweiler, the more he tries to avoid the gangs and their violence, the stronger Hal's fellow inmates try to make him fail.

The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan
Sarah Crowe left Atlanta, and the remnants of a tumultuous relationship, to live alone in an old house in rural Rhode Island. Within its walls she discovers an unfinished manuscript written by the house's former tenant-a parapsychologist obsessed with the ancient oak growing on a desolate corner of the property. And as the gnarled tree takes root in her imagination, Sarah risks her health and her sanity to unearth a revelation planted centuries ago...

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

The film adaptation of this novel stars Halle Berry.

Penumbra by Carolyn Haines
Jade Dupree is a beautician and undertaker’s assistant, and her work with the dead is not the only thing that sets her apart from the rest of Drexel, Mississippi. Jade was raised by a black family but everyone in town knows that her real parents are a well-to-do white woman and a black man who had an affair in New Orleans. In the 1950s, that fact makes Jade both more free and more isolated. When Jade’s white half sister, Marlena, is severely beaten and her young daughter kidnapped, Jade is determined to find her niece before it’s too late. She gets some help from a white deputy sheriff, but their relationship-forbidden but inevitable-threatens to add to the violence that seems to be brewing in town. Carolyn Haines has written several acclaimed mysteries, but here she mines much darker, more serious territory, resulting in a suspenseful, lyrical, passionate and literary crime novel.

The reader shared the definition of “penumbra” with the group:
1a : a space of partial illumination (as in an eclipse) between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light
b : a shaded region surrounding the dark central portion of a sunspot
2: a surrounding or adjoining region in which something exists in a lesser degree : fringe
3: a body of rights held to be guaranteed by implication in a civil constitution
4: something that covers, surrounds, or obscures : shroud penumbra of secrecy> penumbra of somber dignity has descended over his reputation — James Atlas> Merriam-Webster

Revenant by Carolyn Haines
Reporter Carson Lynch has returned to Mississippi with a half-formed desire to start over. Since her daughter's tragic death two years ago, she's been self-medicating with vodka, karaoke and work. Her reputation as a journalist hangs by a thread, but she's just been handed the story that might save her career . . .A bulldozer has unearthed a mass grave near a notorious Biloxi nightclub. The remains of five women lie within, each one buried with a bridal veil -- and without her ring finger. Now more would-be brides are turning up dead: are these copycat crimes, or has a serial killer resurfaced after nearly twenty-five years? With a fury bordering on obsession, Carson throws herself into the story. But the cozy relationship her editor wants with the D.A. and local police jeopardizes her ability to tell the real story . . . and find the monster before he kills again.

Since the author’s other book title turned into such a good vocabulary lesson, I decided to include the definition for this one as well:
1: one that returns after death or a long absence (Merriam-Webster)

A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg
Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works. And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it. Once you experience the wonder, you too will never forget A Redbird Christmas.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg
The story of two women in the 1980s, of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women, of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth, who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present, for Evelyn and for us, will never quite be the same.

The film adaptation of this novel stars Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy. Coming up in Spring 2011, this book will be the Project Read One Book selection for the Jefferson County Library Cooperative. Associated programs and book groups may be found at many of the public libraries around the county so stay tuned!

Murder on a Bad Hair Day by Anne George
It's hard to believe practical, petite ex-schoolteacher Patricia Anne and amiable, ample-bodied, and outrageous Mary Alice are sisters, yet sibling rivalry has survived decades of good-natured disagreement about everything from husbands to hair color. No sooner do the Southern sisters discover a common interest in some local art, when they're arguing the artistic merits of some well-coiffured heads at a gallery opening. A few hours later, one of those pretty ladies ends up dead -- with not a hair out of place. The other shows up on Patricia Anne's doorstep dazed, disheveled, and telling a wild tale of a narrow escape from some deadly cuts. Now the sisters are once again combing for clues to catch a killer with a bizarre style in art -- and murder.

Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (also titled, Coming Attractions) by Fannie Flagg
Taken from the pages of Daisy Fay Harper's journal, this is a coming of age story set in rural Mississippi that is by turns hilarious and touching. It begins in 1952 when Daisy Fay is a sassy, truth-tellin' but lonely eleven-year old, and ends six years later when she becomes the flamboyant, unlikely -- but assured -- winner of the Miss Mississippi contest. Along the way, we meet some of the raffish and outrageous town locals, including her own Daddy, who comes up with a mortgage scheme that requires Daisy's "resurrection." This is a thoroughly entertaining comic novel with a heroine who is bound to capture your heart.

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg (due out November 9^th)
Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie’s life seems practically perfect—she’s lovely, charming, and a successful real estate agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can’t help but wonder how she wound up in her present condition. She had been on her hopeful way to becoming Miss America and realizing her childhood dream of someday living in one of the elegant old homes on top of Red Mountain, with the adoring husband and the 2.5 children, but then something unexpected happened and changed everything. Maggie graduated at the top of her class at charm school, can fold a napkin in more than forty-eight different ways, and can enter and exit a car gracefully, but all the finesse in the world cannot help her now. Since the legendary real estate dynamo Hazel Whisenknott, beloved founder of Red Mountain Realty, died five years ago, business has gone from bad to worse—and the future isn’t looking much better. But just when things seem completely hopeless, Maggie suddenly comes up with the perfect plan to solve it all. As Maggie prepares to put her plan into action, we meet the cast of high-spirited characters around her. To Brenda Peoples, Maggie’s best friend and real estate partner, Maggie’s life seems easy as pie. Slender Maggie doesn’t have to worry about her figure, or about her Weight Watchers sponsor catching her at the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop. And Ethel Clipp, Red Mountain’s ancient and grumpy office manager with the bright purple hair, thinks the world of Maggie but has absolutely nothing nice to say about their rival Babs “The Beast of Birmingham” Bingington, the unscrupulous estate agent who hates Maggie and is determined to put her out of business. Maggie has heartbreaking secrets in her past, but through a strange turn of events, she soon discovers, quite by accident, that everybody, it seems—dead or alive—has at least one little secret.

My Last Days as Roy Rogers by Pat Cunningham DeVoto
In an Alabama town in the early 1950s during the last polio summer before the Salk vaccine, ten-year-old Tabitha "Tab" Rutland is about to have the time of her life. Although movie theaters and pools have been closed to stem the epidemic, Tab, a tomboy with a passion for Roy Rogers, still seeks adventure with her best friend Maudie May, "the lightest brown colored person" she knows. Now as they meddle with the local bootlegger, Mr. Jake, row out on the Tennessee River to land the biggest catfish ever, and snoop into the town's darkest secrets, Tab sets out to be a hero...and comes of age in an unforgettable confrontation with human frailty, racial injustice, and the healing power of love.

Stay Hungry by Charles Gaines
I have not been able to find an official synopsis of this book. It is about the world of bodybuilding in the 1960’s. A film adaptation was done starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Gathering Home by Vicki Covington
Whitney Gaines has always known she was adopted. It's never been a problem -- she loves her parents, Mary Ellen and Cal, a liberal minister, and enjoys her life in Birmingham, Alabama. But the year Whitney turns eighteen, Cal decides to run for Congress and the entire Gaines family is thrust into the spotlight. Whitney resolves to look for her birth parents, a decision her liberal-minded adoptive parents support. Although her birth mother doesn't answer her letters, Whitney finds her father, Sam Kirby, a gay cartoonist living in New York, wondering about the child he knows is out there, somewhere. Whitney's letters reawaken Sam's ambivalence about his southern roots.At the same time, a romance blossoms between Whitney and her father's campaign manager, and Whitney begins writing to Sam's mother, who rejoices in the news that she is, against all odds, a grandmother. The relationships Whitney develops with her newfound natural relatives, particularly with her grandmother, are the centerpiece of this critically acclaimed novel.

Summer Crossings by Truman Capote
Thought to be lost for over 50 years, here is the first novel by one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Set in New York during the summer of 1945, this is the story of a young carefree socialite, Grady, who must make serious decisions about the romance she is dangerously pursuing and the effect it will have on everyone involved.

Family Linen by Lee Smith
A childhood memory re-experienced, a funeral that brings about a family reunion, and the excavation of a swimming pool on the site of an old well, uncover family secrets and air the dirty linen in this behind-the-scenes look at life and family, memory and forgetfulness, anger and forgiveness in a small Southern town.

Welcome to the World Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg
Once again, Flagg's humor and respect and affection for her characters shine forth. Many inhabit small-town or suburban America. But this time, her heroine is urban: a brainy, beautiful, and ambitious rising star of 1970s television. Dena Nordstrom, pride of the network, is a woman whose future is full of promise, her present rich with complications, and her past marked by mystery.

It’s easy to think that only Southern writers can get that close-knit community feel just right, but this is often not the case. We came up with a handful of books that are not set in the South nor authored by Southern writers but which still invoke that same small-town feeling.

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow
Meet the Ames Girls: eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, a child's illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life's joys and challenges -- and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy. The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. Photograph by photograph, recollection by recollection, occasionally with tears and often with great laughter, their sweeping and moving story is shared by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal columnist, as he attempts to define the matchless bonds of female friendship. It demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women's lives - their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters - and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them. The Girls from Ames is the story of a group of ordinary women who built an extraordinary friendship. With both universal insights and deeply personal moments, it is a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.

The Beardstown Ladies’ Common-Sense Investing Guide: How We Beat the Stock Market and How You Can Too by Leslie Whitaker
The "Ladies" here are 16 women, average age 55, of an Illinois river town whose investment club, since 1980, has scored an average 23.4% annual return (59.5% in 1991) on a portfolio of 20 carefully selected stocks-twice the rate of the bellwether S&P 500 index. Opening monthly meetings with a prayer and closing with a recipe, the Ladies pay no heed to current market trends, preferring to buy shares after researching companies that have sustained moneymaking growth. Dividends are reinvested. The book is chock-full of family-finance anecdotes, firsthand reports on regional industry, case histories of stocks bought and sold, recommended research tools and the actual minutes (with portfolio changes) of meetings during that banner year of 1991. This well-organized, down-to-earth investment guide will make many readers feel they have never experienced such pleasant instruction. There was mention of a scandal when this book came up and the Ladies added a note to the product description at Amazon:
Dear Reader,
We recently discovered that there were mistakes in the way we calculated our club's returns. More specifically, the 23.4 percent return rate referred to in various places in this book actually related to a two-year period ending December 31, 1992, and the return for 1991 was 54.4 percent. The annual rate of return for our investment club during the 10 years from its inception through 1993 was 9.1 percent, and through the end of 1997 it was 15.3 percent. We are distressed that there were any inaccuracies in our financial figures. Our priorities are still, as they always have been, education, enjoyment, and enrichment, in that order. We've included recipes in the past, and now we would like to share with you our recipe for humble pie: a full measure of regret mixed with our sincere apologies. We thank everyone for their support. Sincerely, The Beardstown Ladies

The Teacher’s Funeral by Richard Peck
C'mon back to rural Indiana in 1904 and join 15-year-old Russell, whose summer ends with the unexpected death of old Miss Myrt Arbuckle. Russell and his younger brother are thrilled because just maybe the school board will decide to stop its foolishness and tear down the one-room schoolhouse. Surely it doesn't pay to hire a new teacher for the six students who attend. But to his utter horror, one is hired and it's none other than his extremely bossy older sister, even though she still has a year left of high school herself. Tansy takes to teaching with vigor and manages to circumvent all of the high jinks and calamities that threaten to undermine her authority, such as an accidental fire in the privy and a puff adder in her desk drawer. Peck expertly evokes humor and colloquial speech and mores with such sentences as "The water wasn't crotch-deep on a dwarf at that point," and "She had a snout on her long enough to drink water down a crawdad hole." Even readers who are blasé about current technological advances will be as excited as Russell is when he sees the steel Case Agitator threshing machine down from Wisconsin on its once-yearly exhibit, or the Overland Automobile Company's Bullet No. 2 racing car that can travel a mile in an unheard-of 43 seconds. Another gem from Peck–and a fabulous lead-in to titles such as Olive Burns's Cold Sassy Tree (Houghton, 1984).–Susan Riley, Mount Kisco Public Library, NY (School Library Journal)

Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck
Peewee idolizes Jake, a big brother whose dreams of auto mechanic glory are fueled by the hard road coming to link their Indiana town and futures with the twentieth century. And motoring down the road comes Irene Ridpath, a young librarian with plans to astonish them all and turn Peewee’s life upside down. Here Lies the Librarian, with its quirky characters, folksy setting, classic cars, and hilariously larger-than-life moments, is vintage Richard Peck—an offbeat, deliciously wicked comedy that is also unexpectedly moving.

Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon books

What is your favorite Southern fiction book, author, or setting?

Happy reading!
Holley