Southern Memories

Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the center of Russell Banks’s uncompromising and morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders.

This audiobook tells the story of the Brown family of Caswell County, NC, and their journey over four generations, captured in short stories, vignettes, and whimsical narrative glimpses. The Brown family’s journey began two generations earlier with my grandmother’s grandmother, Queen Evans, who was kidnapped in Africa and brought to North Carolina as a slave on a plantation of a White slave owner. One of the many duties of Queen, the seven-year-old enslaved girl, was to serve as a “foot-warmer”.

Baseball, religion, work, death, and the company store - these figured eminently in the lives of Southern cotton mill workers and their families during the early decades of the 20th century. In this firsthand account of his native Bladenboro, North Carolina, George G. Suggs, Jr., captures in rich detail the world of a thriving cotton mill town where the company was dominant but workers had forged a strong community. Here the focus is on the workers - their interests, personalities, and values - in their best and in their darker moments.

During a trip to Cincinnati four friends find more than they expected to during their visit to the city. In When Home Beckons they learn that home is not just a place…but the people and memories that make it home.Maddie, Summer, Olivia, and Emma arrive in Cincinnati unaware that for Maddie’s grandfather, who is traveling with them, the city holds long cherished memories. They are surprised to learn that he once lived in Cincinnati with his family including Maddie’s mother when she was a young teenager. It isn’t long before they are drawn into his poignant recollections when they ...

Bobby Ress is a cop with a simple life. He believes in making a difference. He loves his wife and his daughter. He has a place in the world. Then people start dying...a lot of them, in horrible ways. It's a case like no other. And step by gruesome step, the simple, true things Bobby knew to be right and good begin to make less and less sense. Because, Bobby is learning about pain.

In this memoir James E Roghair recalls growing up as a South Dakota farm boy in the sixth decade after statehood. He, his parents and three younger siblings shared a small house without indoor plumbing, electricity, or telephone, near unincorporated Okaton, with its small school and church.

Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away.

The Lost Cause and the Great War tells the stories of central Tennessee Progressive-era reformers to illustrate the fascinating broader issue of how Southerners steeped in Lost Cause Civil War mythologies simultaneously developed patriotic American fervor. Focusing on Luke Lea, a prominent politician and American army officer who attempted to capture Kaiser Wilhelm II during World War I, the book reveals the intricate interplay between three competing ideas: attachment to the memory of the Confederacy, intense American nationalism, and advocacy for progressive reforms.

Luego de su elogiado debut con Huesos sin descanso, Cristóbal Marín recupera en Atacama fantasma algunos recuerdos de viajes de infancia y juventud que, mezclados con ciertas informaciones, dan forma y fondo al desierto de Atacama. A partir del mecanismo de la memoria de infancia y juventud el autor recorre diversos episodios que ocurrieron en ese vasto e inhóspito territorio: la travesía de Diego de Almagro, la increíble vida y obra de Max Uhle, la matanza en la Escuela Santa María de Iquique, el auge.

Chasing Dreamtime is the incredible true-life story of a young traveler's journey through memory and myth. In 1975, after college and a brief, disastrous marriage, Neva Sullaway attempts to escape her anguish as well as the post-Vietnam confusion of her generation by sailing alone around the world, but her plans are abruptly scuttled. A string of unlikely events occurs and sends her boat-hopping across the vast South Pacific. While sailing among the exquisitely beautiful Pacific atolls, Sullaway is arrested for a visa violation, hunted by sharks, stricken with tropical fever and held at ...

This collection of vignettes, immersed in the magic and nostalgia of a well-loved childhood, takes readers into the vibrant abundance of South Louisiana’s customs and creatures. Surrounded by a large family that adored birthday parties and Christmas, Leonide (Lennie Lou) Martin’s early childhood was filled with adventures. Now, in her 80s, she has reached into misty memories to tell stories about nature and animals, people, and places. Her grandparents’ rural properties adjoining the Mississippi River were filled with insects, birds, reptiles, and poisonous snakes and plants. Family ...

Annie Jordan’s newly opened can of worms sends her and Tyler on a trip. Two trips, as a matter of fact. They need to sort out the family matter. Whose father is who? Does what was in the past stay in the past or can Annie and Tyler unearth the mystery of their parentage? What about the mysterious woman who’s left her a message. Who is she? How does she fit in with Sam? Does she? Annie’s trying not to be overtly curious, but can you blame a girl—ahem, woman!—for wondering about this newly arrived stranger? Then there’s the matter of all the bad luck she’s been having. And the ...

"Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires" is a lovely telling of a childhood spent in Johannesburg, South Africa, and of settling into adult life and motherhood in Nova Scotia, Canada. Recipes, collected from travels, family, and friends allows the story to be told with the foods and dishes as the conveyance. The changing seasons, the natural wild beauty that surrounds everyday life, the abundance of wild edibles and local produce all serve as the inspiration to each chapter.

Can friendship last a lifetime? Everyone says that hindsight is 20/20. If that’s true, how much of that image in the rear view affects who we are today, or who we will become tomorrow? Jo Felsenthal and Gina Ingram were the closest of childhood friends back in Polk Ridge, Arkansas. Growing up in this beautiful, close-knit Ozark community, they were surrounded by love and laughter. But as these girls grew into women, choices were made, and life took them in very different directions. Now, they’re just hours away from a reunion several decades in the making. An out-of-the-blue Facebook ...

In Snippets of Truths, author Mary Hardy shares the stories of her youth while growing up in rural Southern Mississippi in the '50s and '60s. A collection of anecdotes and vignettes, this memoir narrates the memorable experiences of Hardy's childhood. From the large to the small, and from the ordinary and everyday to the remarkable, Snippets of Truths recalls a wide array of events living on a farm, working in the fields, attending school, participating as a majorette, becoming homecoming queen, making homemade ice cream, and creating dolls out of Coca Cola bottles.