Southern Memoirs

Police Investigation: In the atlas of world history, it would occupy a small space of time. Without warning a bomb goes off in a shopping complex. Two housewives and three children are left dead. An act of anger and retaliation in a holiday resort, which triggered a violent chain of events.

"A fun read about an underrated talent and 35 years of both good and bad luck in life... and the struggles to keep a career alive as the old territorial system was falling apart."- Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer "One of the best-written wrestling books I have ever read... honest and endlessly entertaining."- Jim Valley, Pro Wrestling Torch contributor "It's been a long time since I've been so pleasantly surprised by a book... a very well-written and lively read."- Dwight Jaynes, Comcast Sports Net He defeated Andre the Giant, tutored the Ultimate Warrior and helped Jake "The Snake" ...

This edition of Che Guevara's diary of the last year of his life describes Che's efforts to launch a guerrilla insurrection against the military government of Bolivia. It was found in his backpack when he was captured by the Bolivian Army in October 1967.

In The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy invites the listener into the interiors of her world, sharing her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her. From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, we can relish here the richness of their work and, in turn the richness of the author’s own.

Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.

Briarcliff Mansion and the land it occupies are owned by Emory University, which refers to it as its "Briarcliff Campus." Fortune and Folly, in part, illuminates the largely lost story of how the mansion, and the entire surrounding neighborhood, got its name. But in order to understand the mansion, we have to understand the man who built it. Briarcliff Mansion once belonged to a man named Asa Candler, Jr.—also known as Buddie. The second son and namesake of Coca-Cola founder Asa Griggs Candler, Buddie was a wealthy real estate developer of great successes and greater failures.

Condition Red, Destroyer Action in the South Pacific (1943) by Frederick J. Bell (1903-1994) is one of the greatest accounts of the war in the South Pacific. It recounts the adventures of US Navy destroyer USS Grayson during the early days of the South Pacific campaign of World War Two. The book provides a comprehensive picture of life on a destroyer, with descriptions of daily routines as well as encounters with the enemy on land, sea, and air.

Nearly two centuries before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their epic trek to the Pacific coast, a group of three Spanish noblemen and an African survived shipwreck, famine, Indian attack, and disease to make the first crossing of North America in recorded history. Drawing on contemporary accounts and long-lost records, Robert Goodwin tells the amazing story of their odyssey through the American South.

Leaving Aberdeen is the story of a young Southern girl's awakening during a turbulent time of racial reckoning, from reading torn textbooks in a one-room schoolhouse to attending a premier HBCU, from professional modeling to motherhood, and from accepting her "place" to supporting her husband's membership as a Black Panther.

This collection of letters from Henry M. Stanley published in 1898, present Henry's view of the then-current state of South Africa. It incorporates his views on the opportunities for the growing nation, highlights the bad management of its politicians, and the tension between the Dutch and English settlers.

She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia. Her dream was to become a concert pianist, though she’d been writing since she was sixteen and the influence of music was evident throughout her work. Her first novel—The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—was published in 1940 when she was twenty-three and overnight, Carson McCullers became the most widely talked-about writer of the time. Mary Dearborn gives us the first full picture of one of America’s greatest writers, a complex artist who was decades ahead of her time, a writer who understood—and captured, the heart and longing of the outcast.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life.

Like the educator who changed his life, Thornton became a classroom teacher. But budget cuts took his job, and he decided to rewrite his story using his artistic talent. Thornton’s artistry and work ethic got him attention at Coca-Cola, both good and bad. He had to figure out a way to navigate this new world, where higher-ups praised him but coworkers reminded him of his “blackness” by drawing a noose in his workstation. He persevered by learning to appreciate and embrace diversity, people resources, and conflicting opinions.

Written in the form of a letter to her granddaughter, the author of this little book describes her plantation childhood, her marriage and parenthood, and her experiences during the Civil War and Reconstruction. In response to what she believed were misconceptions about antebellum Southern slavery, she argues that while some slaveholders were cruel, the majority were conscientious about the well-being of their servants and looked upon them as members of the household.

Girlz 'n the Hood is the unsentimental, moving, and surprisingly humorous account of a girl and her 10 siblings who grew up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Mary’s mother was a fierce matriarch, a single mom who raised 11 children with the help of welfare checks and a firearm hidden in her bra.

Growing up in Dorchester presented real challenges, but once Tom took over his father's auto repair shop in South Boston, life became intense. Mob-enforcers, drug dealers and killers became his friends and clients. Thomas Cirignano experienced Southie's era of extreme crime and violence, first hand. He managed to not just co-exist, but to thrive in that environment. At the shop, Whitey Bulger threatened Tom with a gun. A neighbor was gunned-down at the gas pumps.

Nemesis is the story of an ordinary man who became the king of the largest slum in Rio, the head of a drug cartel, and perhaps Brazil's most wanted criminal. It's a gripping tale of gold hunters and evangelical pastors, bent police and rich-kid addicts, quixotic politicians and drug lords with math degrees. Traversing through rain forests and high-security prisons, filthy slums and glittering shopping malls, this is also the story of how change came to Brazil.

Eastbourne or Bust A not-at-all-serious account of one man, one bike, and the long, painful road to the coast. Ever thought cycling the South Downs Way would be a charming, leisurely jaunt through scenic countryside? Yeah, so did I. Idiot. What actually happened was a four-day, mud-splattered odyssey of mechanical failures, chalky cliffside death slides, possessed bike saddles, and a surprising number of historical detours involving Romans, smugglers, haunted windmills and at least one overly dramatic Victorian tunnel. Armed with questionable fitness, a half-functioning bicycle, and the ...

Ronald Kitchen was 21, on his way to buy milk for his four-year-old, when he was picked up by the Chicago police, brutally tortured, and coerced to confess to five counts of heinous murder. He spent 22 years in prison, 13 of those on death row, labeled as a monster. Kitchen was only one of the many victims of Jon Burge and his notorious Midnight Crew that terrorized and incarcerated Black men - 118 have come forward so far - on the south side of Chicago for nearly two decades.

Humorous essays on life in the south. A Southern woman's take on daily life.