McCammon (Swan Song, Stinger, The Wolf's Hour).Both set in the South, Boy's Life tells a haunting tale of a young boy's seemingly ordinary life in a town called Zephyr, until one day he witnesses a car with a man at the wheel plunge deep into Saxon's Lake. "This superbly told tale combines the sensibilities of Mark Twain, Flannery O'Connor, and Steven Spielberg...a solid coming-age story and a fine mystery...Devour this bountiful book." -- New York Newsday.In Gone South, a moment of rage and fear, and a past filled with disturbing memories turns Dan Lambert into a unwitting killer. When he flees South and meets a woman named Arden in search of a faith healer, there ensues a riveting, twisting tale of desperation and discovery. "A gothic picaresque that mixes gritty plot and black comedy...a thriller..." -- The Wall Street Journal. "Gone South is an absorbing, bizarre thriller that blazes through the dark and swampy bayous of Louisiana like a jagged bolt of hot summer lightning...McCammon is a truly original American author." -- Lansing State Journal.

    Warren wrote enduring fiction as well as influential works of literary criticism and theory. Yet, as this variorum edition of his published poems suggests, it is his poetry - spanning sixty years, sixteen volumes of verse, and a wide range of styles - that places Warren among America's foremost men of letters. In this volume, John Burt, Warren's literary executor, has gathered together every poem Warren ever published (with the exception of Brother to Dragons), including the many poems he published in The Fugitive and other magazines, as well as those that appeared in his small press works and broadsides. Burt has also exhaustively collated all of the published versions of Warren's poems - in some cases, a poem appeared as many as six different times with substantive revisions in every line - as well as the author's typescripts and proofs. And since Warren never seemed to reread any of his books without a pencil in hand, Burt has referred to Warren's personal library copies. A record of Burt's comprehensive analysis is found in this edition's textual notes, list of emendations, and explanatory notes.

    It is a journal filled with strong emotions about a wondrous place on the American landscape. Her entries tell the sad saga of the decision to flood Glen Canyon on the Colorado River. Her words and songs make the canyon come alive and they provide a vivid picture of what has been lost.

    It is even more remarkable if the book is set where we live, a place we thought we'd been. These poems make up a dramatic and lyrical portrait of the migration of poor Buncombe County farmers to a mill village outside Chester, S.C. However, the book is much more than documentary. Rash, whose grandparents and parents worked in the Eureka Mill interweaves his family's personal history with the broader texture of mill life, giving us at once intimacy and perspective, heart and understanding.

    Caroline is the chatelaine of a magnificent home, hostess to her husband's wealthy friends and prospective clients, and the official "one-woman welcome wagon" for young, eager talent that her husband, Clay, imports to their corner of South Carolina to work for the family company--a vastly successful land-developing conglomerate. If Caro drinks a little too much for Clay's liking, he knows the reason why, and he takes comfort in the fact that she can escape to the island in the Lowcountry that her beloved Granddaddy left her. Wild and seemingly timeless, the island is a place of incomparable, breathtaking beauty--and it is the one place where Caroline can lose herself and simply forget.Roaming the island is a band of wild ponies, whose freedom and spirit have captivated Caro since she was a child. When she learns that her husband must either develop the island or lose the company that he spent his whole life building, she is devastated. The Lowcountry is Caroline's heritage--the one constant she believed would never change. A resort would not only tame (and therefore destroy) the island she loves--but what will happen to the wild ponies? Spurred to action and inspired with new purpose, Caroline must confront the part of herself that she has numbed with alcohol and careful avoidance, and she must reconsider her priorities--what is important that she would die for it? In fighting to save the island--her island--Caroline draws on an inner strength that forces her to reconsider her role in society, her marriage, and, ultimately, herself. Low Country is a story of personal renewal and transformation --one woman's proper Old South upbringing and expectations colliding with the new South's runaway prosperity. It is magnificently told, and it is Anne Rivers Siddons at her absolute best.

    In addition to generous helpings of folklore, the text highlights and embraces the art of Appalachian cuisine from pioneer days to the present, providing insights that will fascinate readers everywhere. Divided into four sections - The Folklore, The Art, The Foods, The Blessings - the book is packed with authoritative folklore and authentic Appalachian recipes, as well as old-timey photographs in the "Foxfire" fashion: fireplace and wood-stove cooking, hog killing, bear hunting, shuck-bean strining, apple-butter partying, dinner on the grounds, and much more. The Folklore includes chapters on the people, seasons, and social life as it pertains to food. The Art includes chapters on growing, gardening, farming by the signs, food preparation, and food preservation. The more than 200 recipes are accompanied with stories of how the foods have been passed from generation to generation. And the Blessings include numerous hill country invocations. All in all, the book contains 61 fascinating chapters and almost one hundred sidebars on special topics. Among the 23 chapters of recipes are such subjects as: Corn Bread: Mountain Staff of Life; From Catheads to Angel Biscuits; Moonshine: Mountain Water of Life; Hog-Killing Day: Mountain Celebration; Smokehouse Ham and Red-Eye Gravy. The result of years of research and interviews, "Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine" will remind readers of the "Foxfire" series of an earlier generation.

    A vivid account of growing up as "poor white trash" in the race-torn rural South of the 1960s, with an alcoholic and largely absent father, an extraordinarily strong mother and a younger brother drawn into a cycle of poverty and crime.

    But a fateful misunderstanding gave Vietnam vet Caney the flashiest joke in the entire state. Twelve years later, the once-busy highway is dead and the sign is as worn as Caney, who hasn't ventured outside the diner since it opened. Then one blustery December day, a thirtyish Crow woman blows in with a three-legged dog in her arms and a long-buried secret on her mind. Hiring on as a carhop, Vena Takes Horse is soon shaking up business, the locals, and Caney's heart...as she teaches them all about generosity of spirit, love, and the possibility of promise-just like the sign says.

    - Comprehensive reading and study guides for some of the world's most important literary masterpieces- Concise critical excerpts provide a scholarly overview of each work- "The Story Behind the Story" details the conditions under which the work was written- Each book includes a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography

    Winner of the 1997 Appalachian Studies Award Appalachian Writers Association 1999 Book of the Year Winner of the Susan Koppleman Award of the Popular Culture Association for Best Edited Collection in Women's Studies Joyce Dyer is director of writing and associate professor of English at Hiram College, Ohio."

    Described by "Publishers Weekly" as "easily Gilchrist's best book in years, " this collection of stories gives readers a taste of her gifted sense of the language and the humor of human foibles.

    The veterinarian voyeur of "Now You See Her" harbors erotic illusions about the beautiful woman next door - desires shared by his teenaged son. "Poker" acknowledges the power of card games and canines to mend a broken heart, while "Sleeping with My Dog" finds the humor and pathos in the unspoken boundaries between men and women. And in "Tenant, " an orphaned German shepherd leads a man to ponder his landlady's legacy. By turns unpredictable and wise, sorrowful and triumphant, Dogfight and Other Stories reveals the transformative power of life's small struggles.

    Smith, award-winning author of A Land Remembered, Forever Island, and other classic novels about Mississippi and Florida, wrote The Beginning in the 1960s at the height of the Civil Rights movement. He offered an inside perspective on its effect on the people, both black and white, caught in the upheaval of the changing South. Now a new generation of readers can reassess the times and the decisions of those who lived through them.Midvale is an imaginary small town in southern Mississippi in the 1960s. Life moves at a pace set by its long, hot summers and dirt-poor economy. The African-Americans know their place and pretty much keep to it in "the quarters," a dilapidated section of town. The whites, mostly merchants and farmers, know their place too, living quiet, family-oriented lives. A reasonably friendly atmosphere prevails in this segregated society. Then Washington begins passing new laws, and a current of unrest ripples through town as a few blacks, for the first time, register to vote. Angry segregationist Sim Hankins demands that Sheriff Ike Thornton do something to stop it. Sheriff Thornton has his own ideas of what should be done to improve race relations: rehabilitation of "the quarters" with indoor bathrooms, new roofs and paint, and paved streets. But his plan triggers violence between those who would keep the old ways and those willing to make a beginning toward the new. Then the outside world arrives in the form of two young white Civil Rights workers determined to start a "freedom school." The resulting violence and bloodshed carry the story to a climax not unlike the 1960s' newspaper headlines.

    Includes hikes in the newly established Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument.

    The hundreds of recipes are all indexed by title, menu, and featured month so they will be a snap to locate. Each chapter offers tips and secrets straight from the experts at the Southern Living kitchen, long recognized as the authority on authentic Southern cuisine. Full-color photographs illustrate the finished dishes throughout the book, and popular food columns are also included such as "Taste Of The South" and "From Our Kitchen".

    Now Venus plays in cocktail lounges, sporting her survival skills like a suit of armor. When a stranger emerges from her parents' long-ago past with an offer too good to refuse, Venus' suspicions flare up.But Gib Cameron has a special mission. He represents the Camerons of Tennessee--a family as rooted in American history and Southern soil as Venus' is notorious and fly-by-night. Yet the Camerons, survivors of tragedy, need Venus for reasons that have to do with honor and loyalty and an almost mystical bond to their shared past. And Gib, as hard-eyed a skeptic as Venus herself, has to persuade her to come to their mountain home.Humor, sexiness, pathos, and surprises are all part of Deborah Smith's unique storytelling magic. When Venus Fell will entrance readers with its tale of Venus's reluctant journey to Tennessee, where two well-guarded hearts, afraid to trust again, will find they've come home.

    When the pounding of the big drum signals the start of the jazz parade, a brother and sister run to follow the band through the neighborhood streets. Soon the children join their neighbors in "second line" dancing -- shimmying, shaking, and swaying in joyful movements that have been passed down for generations. Fatima Shaik's lyrical text shows how this quintessentially American musical form weaves stories through its rhythms and sounds. With E. B. Lewis's vibrant, expressive watercolor paintings, The Jazz of Our Street rings as sweetly as a trumpet's note.

    

    There are sweets for any holiday or special event -- Christmas, church suppers, birthdays, weddings, Valentine's Day, bridge luncheons, cocktail parties -- even the Kentucky Derby! The recipes are utterly delightful from their titles to their delectable tastes and textures -- try Boozy Mud Pie, Pistachio Snowballs, Coconut Igloos, Trump Toffee Cookies, Caramel Chewies, Satan Chocolate Pound Cake with Fudge Frosting, Crunchy Peanut Butter Ice Cream, or Blueberry Flummery.Jim and Martha Pearl have the perfect treat for any occasion. Planning a New Year's Parry? Why not bring Bourbon Cream Mold with Shaved Chocolate? Going to a cookout? Bake a Banana Split Pie. Need a "friend-ship gift"? Give that special someone Aunt Ella's Buttermilk Gingerbread. Whether you're attending a Mother's Day brunch (Sunshine Chiffon Cake with Orange Butter Frosting) or a Thanksgiving dinner (Cajun Sweet Potato Pecan Pie), or visiting a sick relative (Sweet Maa's "Get Well" Baked Custard), you'll find that perfect treat right here. In each of these recipes, Jim and Martha Pearl prove that they sure know how to enjoy dessert down South!