Tag Archives: American South

Early Alabama

Early Alabama: An Illustrated Guide to the Formative Years © 2019 Mike Bunn184 pages Published in time for the celebration of Alabama’s bicentennial, Early Alabama invites readers back to when the Heart of Dixie was still a wilderness, save for … Continue reading

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The South’s Okayest Writer

The South’s Okayest Writer: The Adventures of a Boy Columnist© 2018 Sean Dietrich241 pages There is a Japanese art, kintsugi, of putting broken pieces of pottery back together again with gilded paint, with the result that the repaired object is … Continue reading

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Sean of the South and the Old Man’s Boy

Sean Dietrich and his wife Jamie’s collective world was shaken when their doctor said the C word.  Cancer.  The emperor of all maladies,  the ticking timebomb in each of us.   Rather than crumbling into a  weeping ball of woe-is-me,  … Continue reading

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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War© 2008 H.W. Crocker III 370 pages This is not a book I’d expected to read,   because as a Southerner who’s been reading different views about the war for twenty years,  I … Continue reading

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Stories, southern and otherwise

Rick Bragg is one of those authors I gave a shot simply because people around me wouldn’t shut up about him. It’s easy to understand why, after only a page or two;  he has a gift for storytelling, one he … Continue reading

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Southern stories: quotations from My Southern Journey

“My people tell their stories of vast red fields and bitter turnip greens and harsh white whiskey like they are rocking in some invisible chair, smooth and easy even in the terrible parts because the past has already done its … Continue reading

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Go Set a Watchman

Go Set a Watchman© 2015 Harper Lee 288 pages When it was announced that Harper Lee had published a sequel to her legendary book, Go Set a Watchman,  I was skeptical, as were many.  Given how close its author was … Continue reading

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Afternoons with Harper Lee

Afternoons with Harper Lee© 2022 Wayne Flynt256 pages Recently I had the pleasure of listening to historian Dr. Wayne Flynt speak at my local library,  drawing from his new book, Afternoons with Harper Lee.   As with Mockingbird Songs, a … Continue reading

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Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind© 1936 Margaret Mitchell1037 pages It’s been nearly twenty years since I visited the joined worlds of antebellum Tara and postwar Atlanta, tied together through the life of a ruined plantation belle turned business magnate, Scarlett O’Hara. … Continue reading

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A southern trilogy: Rick Bragg’s folks

All Over but the Shoutin’ is perhaps Rick Bragg’s most well-known work, beginning a trilogy that, in its focus on one family in the early and mid-20th century,   takes readers into the generally ignored territory of the poor white working class of the South.   … Continue reading

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