false 43999 2 1
Still’s mother was sixteen when she moved to Alabama due to a tornado destroying the family home. His father was a horse doctor with no formal training. James Still was born July 16, 1906 near Lafayette, Chambers County, Alabama. Still was considered a quiet child but a hard worker. He along with his nine siblings worked the family farm. They farmed cotton, sugar cane, soybeans and corn. At the age of seven, Still began grade school. He found greater interest not in the school text books but at home where there was an edition of the Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge. He became enriched with philosophy, physics and the great British poets – Shakespeare and Keats.

After graduating from high school, Still attended Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate, Tennessee. He worked at the rock quarry in the afternoons and as a library janitor in the evenings. He would often sleep at the library after spending the night reading countless literature. In 1929, he graduated from Lincoln and headed over to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. While there, he became involved in a controversial miner strike in Wilder, Tennessee. The miners were starving due to holding the picket line; Still delivered a truckload of food and clothing for the miners. After a year at Vanderbilt, he transferred to the University of Illinois and earned a graduate degree.

Still tried various professions including the Civil Service Corps, Bible salesman and even had a stint picking cotton in Texas. His friend Don West – a poet, civil rights activist, among other things – offered Still a job organizing recreation programs for a Bible school in Knott County, Kentucky. Still accepted the position but soon became a volunteer librarian at the Hindman Settlement School. Knott County, would become Still’s lifelong home.

James Still served as a Sergeant in the US Army in WWII and was stationed in Egypt in 1944.

Still moved into a two-story log house once occupied by a fine crafter of dulcimers, Jethro Amburgey. He would remain here till his death. Here, he began writing his masterpiece, River of Earth. It was published February 5, 1940. River of Earth depicts the struggles of a family trying to survive by either subsisting off the land or entering the coal mines of the Cumberland Plateau in the reaches of eastern Kentucky. Still depicts the Appalachian mining culture with ease. Mines close often and the family is forced to move and find other means to survive. Still received the Southern Author's Award shortly after publication which he shared with Thomas Wolfe for his work You Can’t Go Home Again. Still went on to publish a few collections of poetry and short stories, a juvenile novel and a compilation of Appalachian local color he collected over the years. The children's book "Jack and the Wonderbeans" was adapted for the stage by the Lexington Children's Theatre in 1992. Still participated in one performance, reading a portion of the book to open the show. He died April 28, 2001 at the age of 94.]]> male near Lafayette, Chambers County, Alabama 1906/07/16 2001/04/28 77589 0813113725 9780813113722 9 <![CDATA[River of Earth]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223647661m/77589.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223647661s/77589.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77589.River_of_Earth 3.86 64 It is the story, seen through the eyes of a small boy, of three years in the life of his family and their kin. He sees his parents pulled between the meager farm with its sense of independence and the mining camp with its uncertain promise of material prosperity. In his world privation, violence, and death are part of everyday life, accepted and endured. Yet, withal, it is a world of dignity, love, and humor, of natural beauty, which Still evokes in sharp, poetic images. No writer has caught more effectively the vividness of mountain speech or shown more honestly the trials and joys of mountain life.

]]> 43999 3.97 91 10 1978 722619 0813117410 9780813117416 0 <![CDATA[The Wolfpen Notebooks: A Record of Appalachian Life]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177634817m/722619.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177634817s/722619.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722619.The_Wolfpen_Notebooks_A_Record_of_Appalachian_Life 4.14 7 Still joined the folk life of the scattered community, attending church meetings, funerals, corn pullings, hog butcherings, box suppers at the one-room school, sapping parties, and gingerbread elections. He raised his own food, preserved fruits and vegetables for the winter, and kept two stands of bees for honey.

A neighbor remarked of Still, "He's left a good job and come over here and sot down." Still did sit down and write - the classic novel River of Earth and many poems and short stories that have found their way into national publications. Still's writings draw on everyday experiences and observations. A citation by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters states: "His gift is to set forth the poverty and valor of his people in a prose as limpid and musical as the waters of Little Carr Creek."

Still's fiction has been praised especially for its faithfulness to the idiom of the Appalachian people. From the beginning, Still jotted down expressions, customs, and happenings unique to the region. After half a century those jottings filled twenty-one notebooks. Now they have been brought together in The Wolfpen Notebooks, together with an interview with Still, a glossary, a comprehensive bibliography of his work by William Terrell Cornett, and examples of Still's use of the "sayings" in poetry and prose.

The "sayings" represent an aspect of the Appalachian experience not previously recorded and of a time largely past. Folklorists, linguists, and all who have a love of the Appalachian region will treasure this rich gleaning.

]]> 43999 3.97 91 10 1991 722618 0813191327 9780813191324 0 <![CDATA[From The Mountain, From The Valley: New And Collected Poems]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177634817m/722618.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177634817s/722618.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/722618.From_The_Mountain_From_The_Valley_New_And_Collected_Poems 4.00 7 From the Mountain, From the Valley collects all of Still's poems, including several never before published, and corrects editorial mistakes that crept into previous collections. The poems are presented in chronological order, allowing the reader to trace the evolution of Still's voice. Throughout, his language is fresh and vigorous and his insight profound. His respect for people and place never sounds sentimental or dated.

Ted Olson's introduction recounts Still's early literary career, and explores the poetic origins of his acclaimed lyrical prose. Still himself has contributed the illuminating autobiographical essay “A Man Singing to Himself,” which will appeal to every lover of his work.

]]> 43999 3.97 91 10 2001 714114 0917788753 9780917788758 0 <![CDATA[Pattern of a Man & Other Stories]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177559780m/714114.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177559780s/714114.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/714114.Pattern_of_a_Man_Other_Stories 4.60 5 I think that up there in Knott County well off the beaten path, he became a nearly perfect writer.

]]> 43999 3.97 91 10 8567 4.25 6758 1068 1976 599897 0871299771 9780871299772 1 <![CDATA[And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/599897.And_Then_They_Came_for_Me_Remembering_the_World_of_Anne_Frank 4.33 3 43999 3.97 91 10 1999 1607182 0813101514 9780813101514 0 <![CDATA[The Run for the Elbertas]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1185803806m/1607182.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1185803806s/1607182.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1607182.The_Run_for_the_Elbertas 5.00 1 43999 3.97 91 10 1980 738551 0813109655 9780813109657 0 <![CDATA[Sporty Creek]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177875019m/738551.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177875019s/738551.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/738551.Sporty_Creek 5.00 1 43999 3.97 91 10 1977 77590 093821103X 9780938211037 0 <![CDATA[Wolfpen Poems]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77590.Wolfpen_Poems 5.00 1 43999 3.97 91 10 1986 772378 0813120926 9780813120928 0 <![CDATA[An Appalachian Mother Goose]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178219857m/772378.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178219857s/772378.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/772378.An_Appalachian_Mother_Goose 3.00 1 "How many rocks in Carr Creek's bed?"
I answered wisely, I quickly said,
"As many rocks as are in your head."

Who hasn't heard of Jack Sprat, Little Boy Blue, and Peter the pumpkin eater? These colorful characters from the Mother Goose rhymes have been a staple of children's literature for the last two hundred years.

James Still, long known for his ability to bring the rhythmic and evocative language of the Appalachian region onto the page, now brings fresh life to these rhymes. This new Mother Goose introduces readers to the delights of gooseberry pie, the festivities of Jockey Day, and the dangers of witch-broom. Who knew that the man in the moon was really on his way to Hazard, Kentucky, or that a person "has only to bathe in honey dew" to avoid getting freckles?

]]> 43999 3.97 91 10 1998 6683080 1583423958 9781583423950 0 <![CDATA[Iron Kisses]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6683080-iron-kisses 0.0 0 43999 3.97 91 10 2007