Remembering John Egerton
The South (and the nation, too, though he was a true Southerner in the best senses of the term) was diminished today with the sudden death by heart attack of the Nashville-based writer John Egerton. We at NewSouth were privileged to know John and work with him for several decades, first through the Southern Regional Council, and later as the publisher of an insightful collections of essays, Where We Stand (2004), to which he contributed, and his wickedly satiric comic novel takedown of George W. Bush, Ali Dubya and the Forty Thieves (2006) …
Historian Jeff Benton’s new book Respectable and Disreputable: Leisure Time in Antebellum Montgomery
Jeff Benton, known for his “Montgomery Portraits” features in the Montgomery Advertiser, has written another; this time, it’s a portrait of how antebellum Montgomerians spent their leisure time. Benton’s new book is Respectable and Disreputable: Leisure Time in Antebellum Montgomery, available now. Benton is also the subject himself of a recent feature in the Advertiser …
Author Rod Davis reviews Making War at Fort Hood in Texas Observer
Author Rod Davis (Corina’s Way) has reviewed Making War at Fort Hood in the Texas Observer. Davis, a veteran of Korea during the Vietnam Era, stays involved in advocacy for those who have left the military; his forthcoming novel, South, America, stars a former Army intelligence officer …
Eddie Pattillo talks Carolina Planters with South Carolina’s Walter Edgar’s Journal, more
A detailed interview and a glowing review are just the latest to spotlight Eddie Pattillo’s unique book of history, Carolina Planters on the Alabama Frontier. Here, Pattillo, an Alabama historian, reproduces his ancestors’ letters from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, painstakingly collected alongside Pattillo’s own copious research, to give an unprecedented glimpse of early American life. The Mobile Press-Register‘s John Sledge, in his “Southern Bound” review, calls the book “magnificent”; Walter Edgar also interviews Pattillo about the book on the Walter Edgar’s Journal show, available online …
Henry Wall signs From Healing to Hell at Blakely Peanut Proud
Dr. Henry Wall signed his family story From Healing to Hell at the 3 Diamonds bookstore in Blakely, Georgia, during the March 24 Peanut Proud Festival. “We were happy to have Dr. Wall signing his book with us during Peanut Proud,” said Debra Anderson, owner of 3 Diamonds. “His book tells about an important event in his life and in Blakely history, and people seem to be really responding to his book” …
Senator Lister Hill biography praised for civil description of politics
Professor Michael Thomason praises Henrietta McCormick Hill’s A Senator’s Wife Remembers: From the Great Depression to the Great Society, in a new article in the Mobile Press-Register. As modern political battles grow ever more bitter, Thomason points out that Mrs. Hill “is always very complimentary about the people she talks about and is quite proper in what she writes and how she describes her world …”
William Gay remembered by Southern novelist John Pritchard
I cannot claim to have known William Gay well. But I admired him very, very much, and my life was touched by him in more than just an abstract way. Indeed, he blurbed my second book, The Yazoo Blues. My relationship with William was brief and almost entirely telephonic. We enjoyed a couple of exceedingly long chats over the telephone, and as a result of those talks, I knew I really liked him and understood how unusual and perhaps how massively significant he was in terms of what, where, and when he was. I always meant to get in the car and go over to Hohenwald, Tennessee, to see William, but I never did. I should have …
Robert Taylor architectural biography praised in New York Times, Press-Register
Dr. Ellen Weiss’s new lushly-illustrated biography of African American architect Robert Taylor is helping bring this figure the recognition he deserves. The January 12 New York Times “Antiques” column called Taylor a “pioneering architect,” and the Mobile Times-Register called Weiss’s book on Taylor, Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington, “long overdue” …
Ralph Nader recommends Shelton’s Consequential Learning as wake-up call to students
Politician and consumer advocate Ralph Nader, in his December 22 column “Recommended Holiday Reading for the Caring, Agitated Mind” posted on his website, recommended Jack Shelton’s Consequential Learning: A Public Approach to Better Schools as “a wake-up call to parents and students” …
Leah Rawls Atkins praises Mary Ann Neeley’s Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery’s First Historian
From the Alabama Review: Anyone researching a nineteenth-century Alabama topic that touches Montgomery must consult Matthew Blue. Before the appearance of Mary Ann Neeley’s edition of Blue’s works, this was difficult because copies were rare and fragile. Neeley’s edited and annotated volume of Blue’s works should be in major research libraries in the nation and included in most of Alabama’s public and academic collections. Collectors of Alabamiana will welcome this volume …