Author: James Conaway
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780989725552
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
James Conaway knew there was something wrong with his father before he let himself think too deeply about it.The signs were there, in unfocused phone calls and cryptic letters. Then on a reporting trip to his hometown Conaway had to face facts: his father was in the early stages of Alzheimer's, a dreaded illness that inspired this beautifully written memoir of family and the South. As memory left his father, the author was moved to recreate the world they had shared, memory being the bulwark against oblivion. Many of these fragments are outrageously funny. The book takes us back to a society where the rules of southern gentlemanliness were still in effect, if barely. Propriety had always fought a dubious battle with bourbon, and now was being defeated by the likes of Elvis Presley and Jack Kerouc. With rueful wit Conaway artfully renders a youth of hunting and fishing giving way to brawling, debutante parties, and literary exploration. The story's told against a wistful background of an older generation with belated appreciation for its hopes, ideals and diminished postwar reality. Conaway writes of the idiosyncrasies of family life with a keen yet tender sense of the absurd, particularly the sometimes loving, mysterious relationship with his father. Linking the generations is an antiquated but powerful code of conduct, recalled here with extraordinary vividness and humor. Jim Lehrer in The Washington Post - "Profound... hilarious... honest and serious... proof that the gods look more favorably on some writers than they do on others... conaway moves through his family and life in Memphis in the '40s and '50s with the flow and grace of an impressionist painter." Tracy Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains, House) - "Exemplary... absorbing... sad and funny... It awakens our own memories, makes our own lives more available to us." Rick Bass (The Ninemile Wolves) "I'm crazy about this book, and implore the nation to read it... about the shuddering magnificence, the depthlessness, of the human heart."
Author: Seth Abramson
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819576751
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
BAX 2016: Best American Experimental Writing is the third volume of this annual literary anthology compiling the best experimental writing in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. This year's volume, guest-edited by Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris, features seventy-five works by some of the most exciting American poets and writers today, including established authors—like Sina Queyras, Tan Lin, Christian Bök, Myung Mi Kim, Juliana Spahr, Samuel R. Delany, and even Barack Obama—as well as emerging voices. Intended to provoke lively conversation and debate, Best American Experimental Writing is an ideal literary anthology for contemporary classroom settings.
Author: Janelle Collins
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1557286876
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
Inspired by the Arkansas Review’s “What Is the Delta?” series of articles, Defining the Delta collects fifteen essays from scholars in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to describe and define this important region. Here are essays examining the Delta’s physical properties, boundaries, and climate from a geologist, archeologist, and environmental historian. The Delta is also viewed through the lens of the social sciences and humanities—historians, folklorists, and others studying the connection between the land and its people, in particular the importance of agriculture and the culture of the area, especially music, literature, and food. Every turn of the page reveals another way of seeing the seven-state region that is bisected by and dependent on the Mississippi River, suggesting ultimately that there are myriad ways of looking at, and defining, the Delta.
Author: Tara M. Stringfellow
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
ISBN: 0593230507
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy. “A rhapsodic hymn to Black women.”—The New York Times Book Review “I fell in love with this family, from Joan’s fierce heart to her grandmother Hazel’s determined resilience. Tara Stringfellow will be an author to watch for years to come.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected. As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush. Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.
Author: Terri Peterson Smith
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613744269
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
Blending literature and travel, this book offers a look at 15 U.S. destinations featured in the works of famous writers. Designed as a guide to help avid bibliophiles experience, in person, the places they've only read about, award-winning journalist Terri Peterson Smith takes readers on lively tours that include a Mark Twain inspired steamboat cruise on the Mississippi, a Devil in the White City view of Chicago in the Gilded Age, a voyage through the footsteps of the immigrants and iconoclasts of San Francisco, and a look at low country Charleston's rich literary tradition. With advice on planning stress-free group travel and lit trip tips for novices, this resource also features beyond the book experiences, such as Broadway shows, Segway tours, and kayaking, making it a one-of-a-kind reference for anyone who wants to extend the experience of a great read.
Author: James Conaway
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547526598
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
The New York Times–bestselling history of the rise of California’s wine country and its most famous vintners—from the author of Napa at Last Light. James Conaway’s remarkable bestseller delves into the heart of California’s lush and verdant Napa Valley, also known as America’s Eden. Long the source of succulent grapes and singular wines, this region is also the setting for the remarkable true saga of the personalities behind the winemaking empires. This is the story of Gallos and Mondavis, of fortunes made and lost, of dynasties and destinies. In this delightful, full-bodied social history, Conaway charts the rise of a new aristocracy and, in so doing, chronicles the collective ripening of the American dream. Napa is a must-read for anyone interested in our country’s obsession with money, land, power, and prestige. “An extraordinary American success story: a pageant of family dramas and blood feuds.” —People “This is more than a ‘wine book’—it is a fascinating and closely reported social history.” —Tracy Kidder
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 560
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Book Description
Author: Rebecca Finlayson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1461746949
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Is Memphis on your list of possible places to relocate or visit? You’ll find this practical guide an essential resource for comprehensive information about this fast-growing city. Local author Rebecca Finlayson offers an unbiased perspective of Memphis and the area around it. Four maps and 30 black-and-white photographs complete the coverage.
Author: Saint Louis Railway Club
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 530
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Book Description
Author: Karal Ann Marling
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674358898
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
Describes what Graceland, the home Elvis Presley built in Memphis, tells about the late singer's life and personality.
