On the Southern Literary Trail discussion
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Retired: What are you reading?
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Grady
(last edited Aug 13, 2015 03:08PM)
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Aug 13, 2015 03:08PM
Man, what a timely note just as I wrestle with an ending. Even a story a parable came out as a result of this struggle. Maybe the felicity of Larry Brown's non-ending ending tells me something: I obsess too much about endings.
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Yeah, I remarked this pending publication to Mike Sullivan many months ago. I did an internet search on 'new Capote stories' one night and, it blew me away, news about this book. Strangely, it came out in Germany first.
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Harper Lee and Truman Capote: A Collaboration in Mischief
Very cool article which brings you into the thick of two authors' friendship and frictions. Checked my "In Cold Blood," Harper gets a dedication but no acknowledgement of research and notes.
I guess it's my turn to re-read TKAM. I set it down after 3 paragraphs the other night, just to let the tone sink in and to finish my current book. Thinking to take this one slow.
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We are good at stories. We hoard them, like an old woman in a room full of boxes, but now and then we pull out our best, and spread them out. We talk of the bad years when the cotton didn't open, and the day my cousin Wanda was washed in the Blood. We buff our beloved ancestors until they are smooth of sin, and give our scoundrels a hard shake, although sometimes we can't remember exactly which is who.
Tom wrote: "I started reading My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South by Rick Bragg in between finishing one book and picking another up from the library to..."Rick Bragg is a southern treasure.
For those f you that love a good thriller or spy/espionage novel, be sure to read I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. I Am Pilgrim
Finished The Promise of Home: A Mill River Novel . 3 stars . My review : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I just finished H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. After a few exhausting books I needed something short and entertaining - bingo!I've been wandering offside the Southern trail for a while now, it's really goodreads' fault. I keep finding new books from all kinds of genres - there's just not enough time (and money). And to top it all, I found the best second hand bookstore today.
But - I've already got Kate Chopin's The Awakening on my Kindle, and I'm very excited.
why am i drawing a blank who wrote a worn path?
I read The Garden Angel by Mindy Friddle, which takes place in upstate SC. The author is a graduate from Furman, where I work, and is back this semester teaching a class, so I was curious.Here is my review. Would be a perfect beach read, in my opinion, also interesting to those of us familiar with the history of mill towns and what they become (just a background to the story, not the core.)
I started reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening. There's such a British Austen / Brontë feel to it, it must be all those dinner parties and the characters' taking walks and not doing much else :D
I finished Chopin and liked the story. I read up a bit on her life and literature, very fascinating!Currently I'm reading Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is the third book by him that I've started, and I think this time he won me over for good :)
Finished Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye . 3 stars . My review : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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I love Gaiman. The graveyard book is an all time favorite! The one you're reading now is good.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I read The Garden Angel by Mindy Friddle, which takes place in upstate SC. The author is a graduate from Furman, where I work, and is back this semester teaching a class, so I was cur..."Thanks for thereco. I went t9 Furman (class of 92) and one of my grandmothers worked in the mills for over thirty years. Looking forward to reading it.
Laura wrote: "AstridI love Gaiman. The graveyard book is an all time favorite! The one you're reading now is good."
I really enjoyed it, it was a moving story! I'll definitely read more of his books :)
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My September commitments for my three book groups include Bull Mountain, Selected Stories by Truman Capote, Honor (about an honor killing in the 1970s and for my local book club), A Darker Shade of Magic for an audio book club here on Goodreads, and Bloodstained Kings - because Kirk told me to.At the moment, I'm finishing up a terrific little audio book about a college student who has procrastinated on his English assignment and ends up running to the local retirement home, desperate to find an able-minded senior citizen to write about. The only man the staff deems capable is much younger than the other residents and has been placed in the care center not for age, but because he is rapidly dying of cancer.
The catch? His prior home of 30 years was federal prison where he has been serving a life sentence for murdering his teenage neighbor. The biography for English 101 is going to contain far more than the student bargained for. I'm only half finished, but thanks to Diane S.'s review, am enjoying it! The Life We Bury was nominated for a 2015 Edgar Award for a first novel.
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Laura wrote: "Gosh, LeAnne I don't know whether to thank you or curse you. I just added two more books to my tbr list! Haha! You had me at "Kirk" and " Diane". Is that a song "Kirk and Diane"? I hope I can also ...""just a little ditty...'bout Kirk and Di-aaa-aane.." Yeah, those two (and you) win Worst Perpetrators Award for my burgeoning to-read stack. Love the audio books, though - easy to get things accomplished!
LeAnne wrote: "Laura wrote: "Gosh, LeAnne I don't know whether to thank you or curse you. I just added two more books to my tbr list! Haha! You had me at "Kirk" and " Diane". Is that a song "Kirk and Diane"? I ho..."Ha! And it used to be that Jack got all the credit! I'm in the middle of A Summons to Memphis currently. Next is Bull Mountain followed by The Complete Stories of Truman Capote. Then it's all for fun!
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You get me! Kirk, Jack is dead to me!
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I just started Bull Mountain last night. So far I love it! It's like watching Justified. I also hope to read A Summons to Memphis and The Complete Stories of Truman Capote. In addition, I have to read and review My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South and The Early Stories of Truman Capote. It's going to be a busy month.
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LandfallBy University of Alabama Alumni Ellen Urbani.
Two mothers and their teenage daughters, whose lives collide in a fatal car crash, take turns narrating Ellen Urbani's breathtaking novel, Landfall, set in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Eighteen-year-olds Rose and Rosebud have never met but they share a birth year, a name, and a bloody pair of sneakers. Rose’s quest to atone for the accident that kills Rosebud, a young woman so much like herself but for the color of her skin, unfolds alongside Rosebud’s battle to survive the devastating flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and to find help for her unstable mother. These unforgettable characters give voice to the dead of the storm and, in a stunning twist, demonstrate how what we think we know can make us blind to what matters most.
Tina , I recently read Landfall and loved it .
Recently finished reading Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding which I thoroughly enjoyed. I had only read a few of her short stories before. Review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Oddly, I read it just after The Pursuit Of Love which also begins with a cousin visiting a raucous and chaotic family (the Mitfords under a thin disguise) - though the comparison ends there.
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Tina wrote: "LandfallBy University of Alabama Alumni Ellen Urbani.
Two mothers and their teenage daughters, whose lives collide in a fatal car crash, take turns narrating Ellen Urbani's breat..."
I just put in a request for our library to order this title. :) Thanks for the recommendation!
Diane wrote: Peter, your review is right about this being a book you can read two different ways......I read the other one you described. I thought it was a delightful, humorous story about a large, noisy, sprawling southern family. I saw nothing dark in it at all.Diane – put down the sunny glasses and pick up the Gothic pair...then try re-reading Delta Wedding . I’d trust Roxie: “Bird in de house mean death!” and that’s where the Fairchilds are heading. ..but not just yet.
Progress and the outside world in the shape of the Yellow Dog train nearly kill the clan...but it’s slow in coming, thanks to engineer Doolittle, and with the Family laagering together “Mit-la Doo-littla can-na get-la by!”
Aunt Studney with her sack, meanwhile, haunts the plantation like the grim reaper. “Ain’t studyin’ you,”, she says, and be thankful that she isn’t. (Where does she live? “Back of the Deadening.” Oh my.) Pinchy the serving girl “comes through” after her trial in the wilderness, but the lost white girl does not fare so well (Did the beloved George really rape her? I spilt my coffee when I read that.) ...sign of the times for an old slave-holding family.
But the Fairchilds celebrate feyly and the novel closes with George and Tempe duetting “Oft in the stilly night” (a mournful Scottish air about the dear departed) whilst India gazes into the river ”as if she saw some certain thing, neither marvelous nor terrible, but simply certain, come by in the Yazoo”. Since we’re told the Yazoo is the river of death, I wonder what she saw...
Well, I like Southern Gothic, so for me the “delightful, humorous story” is wonderfully undermined by a much darker current. A look at some of the reviews on goodreads show that people are reading the novel in all sorts of different ways (some even say “nothing happens”...which is deeply puzzling)...but I think that helps make Delta Wedding more interesting. Certainly a book worth talking about.
just got the turman capote book for the group read.
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I'm suitably intrigued.
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Diane wrote: "Maybe we should do "Delta Wedding" as a group read. I'd like to get everyone's opinion. The best books are like that; different for everyone because of what the reader brings to the table."Good morning! That sounds great. I just marked it as to read. It would sure get my vote.
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I could get behind that.
Diane wrote: "Maybe we should do "Delta Wedding" as a group read. I'd like to get everyone's opinion. The best books are like that; different for everyone because of what the reader brings to the table."Absolutely! I'd love to read that too :)
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On the Southern Literary Trail
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