More North Carolina books

By D. G. Martin
Posted Tuesday, September 4, 2007

 E-mail this page    Printer-friendly page

Chapel Hill, NC -How about a look at a new list of North Carolina related books to consider for your reading this fall?

Like the summer reading list that I gave you a couple of months ago, these ten suggestions will appeal to different kinds of readers. Or, said another way, you are probably not going to want to read every one of them, but I bet that at least one or two of them would be good reads for you. The rest of them are ones you will be glad to know about.

1. You may question the North Carolina connection of Tim Madigan’s “I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers.” But thanks to UNC-TV, Mr. Roger’s neighborhood has become a part of the North Carolina landscape and the growing-up memories for most of us. Madigan’s description of how Mr. Rogers became his friend shows how much it means for us to care about others.

2. Retired UNC-Wilmington professor Melton McLaurin’s “The Marines of Montford Point” tells the story of our country’s first black Marines. Using the voices of the Marines, the book takes its readers to Montford Point near Camp Lejeune and gives them a dose of the mixture of humiliation and pride that were a part of a black Marine’s experience in the 1940’s. (September 21, 23)

3. How is the best way to get to know North Carolina’s Poet Laureate, Kathryn Stripling Byer? Here is my suggestion: Read her latest collection of poems, “Coming to Rest.” Even if you are not “into” poetry, don’t be afraid of this one. It is warm, personal, and human, and its poems gently bring a reader into Byer’s life and experience. (September 28, 30)

4. Durham author David Guy is a practicing Buddhist. His latest book, “Jake Fades: A Novel of Impermanence,” tells a warm, believable story of how an aging Zen teacher and his admirers deal with the challenge of the coming time without him. (October 5,7)

5. Georgann Eubanks’ soon-to-be-published “Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains” will take us on a tour of our mountain communities and tell us all about the writers who lived and visited there—and about the books that were written in or about our mountains. (October 12, 14)

6. Zelda Lockhart, who lives in Durham and Hillsborough, has written a Civil War and post Civil War era novel, “Cold Running Creek.” In addition to setting forth a compelling and complicated tri-racial family saga, this book challenges our set notions of racial interaction. (October 19, 21)

7. Attorney Mike Lassiter spent years traveling across North Carolina taking photos of the businesses that are disappearing from our landscape: barber shops, movie theaters, hardware and grocery stores, filling stations, and drug stores. The result, “Our Vanishing Americana: A North Carolina Portrait,” has been a word-of-mouth success and is finding its way to the coffee tables of many North Carolina homes. (October 26, 28)

8. North Carolina’s Joe and Terry Graedon are famous across the country as a result of their People’s Pharmacy public radio programs and newspaper columns. Their latest book, “Best Choices from the People’s Pharmacy,” is fun to read and a great source of current and practical information about good health practices. (November 2, 4)

9. In “Off the Rim: Basketball and Other Religions in a Carolina Childhood,” UNC professor Fred Hobson, one of the most respected scholars of the South, confesses that basketball is his life’s real passion. (November 9, 11)

10. If there is one new book about North Carolina that should be on your North Carolinian’s bookshelf, it is William Powell’s “Encyclopedia of North Carolina.” For ready reference about our state and for the pleasure of reading good descriptions of history, geography, ideas, and events that made us who we are, you cannot find a better book. (November 16, 18)

Maybe you wonder about the dates I have listed with these 10 books. Or maybe you guessed that all of them will the subject of discussion on upcoming North Carolina Bookwatch programs on UNC-TV on the dates listed on Fridays at 9:30 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.Check out the books that interest you and tune in on Fridays or Sundays!

-------------------------------------------------------------

D.G. Martin is the host of UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Fridays at 9:30 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.

Upcoming NC Bookwatch programs on UNC-TV at 5pm, Sundays:

September 7th 9:30pm, encore August 9th 5:00pm

James Peacock
Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World

September 14th 9:30pm, encore August 16th 5:00pm

Tim Madigan
I'm Proud of You

September 21st 9:30pm, encore August 23rd 5:00pm

Melton McLaurin
The Marines of Montford Point

September 28th 9:30pm, encore August 30th 5:00pm

Kathryn Stripling Byer
Coming to Rest