South Carolina Books

I just finished reading IN FOR A PENNY, an international intrigue with just the perfect hint of romance, and was thrilled to find that Kathryn Wall, a favorite new author of mine, did not disappoint her fans with the standard "second novel crank-out." A natural storyteller and seasoned wordsmith, Wall has once again crafted a complex and compelling plot and peopled it with a stellar cast of larger-than-life characters.

Bay Tanner, the gutsy little rebel-rouser heroine widowed in Wall's first novel, IN FOR A PENNY, is a chip off the Judge's salty block. Like her dad, Bay has nose for foul play and, since her husband's horrific murder in book one, an apparently unsquelchable passion for sleuthing. So when the matriarch of monied friends meets her untimely and suspicious death, Bay Tanner is hooked and off to the races again.

Wall should have called this one IN FOR A GRAND. It's a grand read and sure to leave readers primed and ready for the inevitable book three in the series.

C'est magnifique!

... And Not A Penny More is the follow-up to the first Bay Tanner mystery, In For A Penny. Bay is also a retired accountant, who is still recovering from losing her husband in a plane explosion which tore up her shoulder. Bay has a talent for sniffing out injustice. Her wheelchair ridden father, known as "The Judge," operates in the background to not only look after Bay, but to assist her.

Bay's old friend, now Countess and divorcee Jordan von Brandt, returns to South Carolina after her mother mysteriously dies aboard a cruise ship. Leslie Herrington was in perfect health, and Jordan wants answers. Bay joins Jordan and her brother Trey aboard a cruise ship destined for islands in the Caribbean, where Bay finds a new love in the unlikely ranks of Interpol, plus possible answers to her own past:

"That's what I'd like to know.' Darnay lit one of his foul French cigarettes and offered it to me. I waved it away. What do you have to do with Eddie Brown shoes?' he demanded. Who?' The guy who's been tailing you. The one who just came looking for us.' I have no idea what you're talking about.' Come on, Bay. Level with me. He doesn't have any reason to be interested in me, so it has to be you. What have you done to attract the attention of a Miami mobster?'"

Bay Tanner is a compelling, sexy heroine who chain smokes (cigarette country), runs away from the many men who pursue her, and uses her big heart and great instincts to save her friends from bad real estate deals, International terrorists, and serial killers. And Not A Penny More is an excellent follow-up to a series that treats the readers to enough thrills and spills to satisfy.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

As the title implies, Joyce E. Chaplin has a dual purpose. She describes slave agriculture in the colonial to the pre-antebellum period and studies the Lower South's notions of Western modernity and innovation. While southern whites were aware of and tried to apply modern ideas and innovations, they could not, in the end, disassociate themselves from being slaveholders. In a nutshell the Lower South was characterized by continuity as well as, in Chaplin's words, change and persistence. It was anything but static.

In her analysis, Chaplin found that whites frequently used Scottish enlightened thought as an historical framework for assessing their own chances of achieving socio-economic improvement. The Scottish school, Chaplin proposes, is a way to show how whites' were informed of modern contemporary theory from newspapers, books, and local authors. The Reverend Alexander Hewitt wrote a 1770s account of the rise and progress of the Lower South and David Ramsey, a physician and early North American historian, modeled the Scottish statistical efforts of Sir john Sinclair.

Landholders were keeping up with the times and not at all languishing in the backwaters enjoying mint juleps on verandahs. Still, while they adjusted to national and world events and adapted their crops, capital and labor, they did not, in the end, relinquish their reliance on slavery. Chaplin's tries to understand this aspect of slavery in order to discover why racism is so persistent.

Chaplin offers a cautionary comment in the preface. She says she doesn't want to come across as cynical toward humanity's ability to overcome racism. She succeeds in adhering to her scholarly purpose until, interestingly, at the end of her book she expresses some skepticism. While whites in the Lower South adopted notions of modernity, they adhered to slavery in order to achieve their own ends. In doing so they rejected an opportunity to use their wealth, resources and leadership for reform. Instead they chose to avoid the instability that would be necessary to move beyond slavery.

Many histories of the South have focused exclusively on the antebellum period, characterizing the region as economically undiverse, intellectually out of touch with Enlightenment ideals, and culturally static. These assesments create the impression that southerners were backward people who should have known that the society they created was not maintainable. Joyce Chaplin argues that during the period from 1730 to 1815, the region was in actuality a dynamic and innovative place that fell victim only to its own success. To do so, she has compiled an enormous amount of evidence, based on sources ranging from specialized secondary literature on economics, philosophy, and culture, as well as primary documents such as period newspapers, public records, and private correspondence.

Chaplin begins her study with a treatment of the predominant economic and political theories of the late 17th century, arguing that southerners accepted the theories of the Scottish school that a commercial society was most conducive to individual wealth creation, and thereby a stronger and more harmonious society. To find products that would create the most wealth, southerners experimented and innovated with various crops and productive means, reflecting the Enlightenment values of scientific pursuit and rationality. In the process, they created a culture that celebrated the right of the individual to pursue prosperity, but that relied upon government aid and regulation, as well as black slavery. Both of the latter aspects were seen as potentially disruptive to their fragile new society, but also unavoidable if individual (and thereby societal) betterment was to be achieved. Even as southerners came to fear the potential of government and slaves (who Chaplin shows to be far from powerless) to challenge their authority, they found that they could not do away with them without undermining the culture of white achievement they had fostered.

Chaplin shows that southereners were not hostile to manufacturing, engaging in it on a small scale particularly during times of market disruption, such as during the Revolution and the War of 1812. Cotton and rice production returned as the dominant economic activities of the South because they were by far the least risky and most profitable, not because of any intellectual opposition to non-agricultural forms of capitalization. Chaplin believes that if only the region had continued its economic diversification, the South would not have been so heavily tied to slavery, and would not have experienced its eventual economic and social stagnation.

`The book is site reporting at its best. It is extremely well illustrated with numerous field excavation photographs, artifact plates, historical maps, and South's archaerological site plans, which rank among the most artistic and informative produced. This is an excellent site report and well worth the wait.'

Journal of Anthropological Research, 59 (2003)

`.. a major authority on method and theory in historical archaeology and an expert on the American Southeast, considers arhcaeological conservation, theory building, and historic site interpretation and restoration focusing on 1670-80 Charles Towne, South Carolina, and the Native American legacy that preceded European colonization. His well-documented compendium explicates "the process of historic site development for the education and entertainment of the visiting public", presenting a salient example of historic cultural resource management.'

Choice, 40:2 (October 2002)

I read this book a few months before moving to Surry county from California. It has given me a lot of sobering yet uplifting perspective. Since moving here, I have met the author, and a few of the people mentioned in the book. It has been a wonderful experience.

I am researching my family ancestry and because I was born in Surry County and still have many relatives still living there, I am very anxious to read and add a copy of this book to my family library!

Thank you Dr. Scales Thompson for putting this precious time of events on paper and making it available to the public.

Rozita Smith

Im really happy with this book for personal interest. But I had shown picture to my students-40~50age old wemen do flower art-, then they toke a deep sigh. This book is really good for everyone who interest in flowers, trees, art and design.

what a gloriously handsome book. the book shares its name with an eponymous show during the summer of 1997. i was in charleston and able to see this great, spread out exhibit. i was unsure how the book could capture the beauty of this show and was very surprised to see that the book enhanced my memories of the show. this book will make a great addition to the library or coffee table of anyone interested in contemporary art of the world. curator and author beardsley selected a diverse group of artists from all parts of the globe, and includes ironwork, site specific installations, video, and beautiful sculpture and painting. i was fortunate to have seen this exhibit, but if you missed this fabulous exhibit, get your hands on this book. i have bought several copies of this book and given them as gifts to family and friends.

This study of vernacular architecture is a great contribution to the social history of slavery. By looking at facets of design such as settlement patterns and the formal qualities of buildings, Vlach shows how patterns in material culture provide clues for understanding the patterns of history that one can read by examining the buildings. This remarkable book not only documents plantation architecture as an important contribution to the historical record, but it also provides a fascinating interpretation of the subject. It is an especially important study because of the dearth of written documents left by slaves.

John Vlach's book is a thorough study of the architecture of plantation slavery in the South. He primarily used resource materials from the 1930s Historic American Building Survey and WPA interviews with former slaves to develop a social history. The research is solid and comprehensive. Vlach demonstrates ways to interpret the buildings for information about the life of the people who worked and dwelled in them, and he backs up his conclusions with interview materials. It's a terrific way of studying architecture that merges folklife studies with architectural history. The conclusions expanded my understanding about history, and this book is an essential contribution to learning about black history.

The author holds you spellbound by her well-told tales that grab you by the throat and have you looking over your shoulder to the very last page.You won't be able to put her book down until you've read all of it. The ghostly illustrations add to the chills and I thoroughly enjoyed each haunting tale.

Having read all of the published works of Terrance Zepke, I feel this book maintains the quality of her earlier writing. It is well thought out, interesting, well researched & most of all it is exciting. If you enjoy a good ghost story with exciting twists & settings you can actually visit, then this book is a must. It is sprinkled with unique illustrations & directions for visiting some of the famous as well as some of the lesser known locations where the ledgends began! You don't even have to save it for a stormy night, it creates it's own eerie ambiance. Enjoy!

Compiled, organized and edited by Zachary Michael Jack (Assistant Professor of English, North Central College, Naperville, Illinois), Black Earth And Ivory Tower: New American Essays From Farm And Classroom is a compendium of articulate, informed and thoughtful commentaries on modern farming, teaching new generations of time-honored agrarian values, and critical accounts of shifting national priorities as America continues the trend of expanding urbanization and declining small farm agriculture. Professor Jack brings a special insight and sensitivity to the issues addressed having been raised on an Iowa farm that his family first settled in the early 1860s. Also available in hardcover (1570035881, $59.95), Black Earth And Ivory Tower is a highly recommended addition to community and academic library Agricultural Studies, Farm Life Studies, and Social Issues reference collections.

"Black Earth and Ivory Tower: New American Essays from Farm and Classroom" has been a very enlightening read. I am a city person by birth, and I was surprised at how many of the themes of this book I could relate to. I not only learned a lot about life on a farm; I also learned about life as a teacher. The concept of farming and teaching going hand in hand was an idea I was not fully able to appreciate until I started reading these thirty-four, creative nonfiction essays.

Each author and text is unique, and yet common themes unite every narrative, making this an almost flawless collection. Some of my favorites include "Reading and Writing the Land" by Michael Carey, "Addicted to Work" by Linda Hasselstrom, and "The Way the Country Lies" by Douglas Bauer. I was pleasantly surprised, for instance, by the amount of stories these authors shared intimating sneaking off to read books as children while everyone else worked on the farm. Like many other people who grew up in urban areas, I always imagined farm children as constant workers who spent all their time helping elders.

Many other surprising, stereotype-exploding scenes populate this fine book of nonfiction. After reading the work of these contributors, almost all of whom have won awards for both their teaching and writing, it would be impossible for someone to fall back into the stereotype of thinking that a person from a farm is somehow less cultured or educated, as demonstrated by the credentials of the contributors, which range from U.S. Poet Laureate (Ted Kooser) to former Pulitzer Prize nominee (Robert Higgs).

Jack has done a wonderful job editing and artfully introducing his collection (check out "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Farmer Hyde"), as each essay flows effortlessly into the next one and unusually fine author biographies precede each essay. The personal essays, memoirs, and literary journalism anthologized in "Black Earth" are so thoughtful and at the same time so down-to-earth that it was easy for me to forget that I was also learning a great deal about agriculture as I read. The book's illustrations, drawn from Bob Artley's nationally syndicated "Country Things" cartoon series, make for a delightful bonus.

This would be a great text for teachers, farmers, and students of the land, as well as a general reader interested in farm and ranch life past and present. In a time when farming is a dying art, it's wonderful that a book like this has reestablished the beauty and artistry of both farming and teaching and has perfectly demonstrated why the two go hand in hand.

Larry Ivers has written a thoroughly documented volume covering every aspect of British military service in colonial Georgia, beginning while the area was still under the aegis of South Carolina. The building of fortifications, regulation of traders, diplomacy with the various Indian tribes, scouting by land and water, disease, death and boredom on a lonely frontier are all part of this highly entertaining read. Maps and illustrations are plentiful and most helpful. This book should be of value to anyone interested in Pre-Revolutionary Georgia, living historians, wargamers, and students of Native American studies.

British Drums on the Southern Frontier is the finest history of colonial British warfare on the Southern frontier, as well as a fantastic biography of James Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia. This is probably the most widely "bibliographied" book by modern writers of Georgia history and has, until now, only been available in libraries and as an expensive used book.

Prof. Christopher Dunn has written an impressive book about music and its role in the history and development of Brazilian Counterculture. "Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture" begins by covering the history of Brazilian intellectual modernism (modernismo), focusing on the contributions of Oswald de Andrade and Mario de Andrade, as well as the early development of a progressive political impulse in early to mid 20th century Brazil. Two elements emerge early: the growth of a 'orthodox' socialism in the arts and music, and a concern over the authenticity of Brasilian cultural production both for internal consumption and external export. Musically, this concern with authenticity focused on the dual phenomena of Carmen Miranda, and Bossa Nova, both of which carry either heavy non-Brazilian influences and uncomfortable racial stereotypes.

Meanwhile, the progressive impulse is subverted in a right-wing military coup (supported and encouraged by the United States) which profoundly affects the Brazilian arts and the public. Television and Opera maintain a certain degree of freedom from censorship at first, but revolutionary socialism seems unable to articulate an effective resistance.

Enter Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. In this matrix of poltical and nationalistic uncertainty, and through the use of pastiche, dissassociative imagery, irony, parody, and a concern with the everyday frustrations of Brazilians, they construct an insurgent music that gains a wide reach and audience, while mostly flying underneath the dictatorship's radar screen. Refusing the government's attempts to force a highly nationalistic concept of unity on the populace, Tropicalia uses deploys the benign imagery of tropical paradise, only to subvert them with references (sometimes overt, sometimes oblique by necessity) to social and political trauma. The more orthodox leftists, of course, criticize Tropicalia for not directly inciting the masses to act, and instead promoting escapism. Yet Tropicalia's moment in the sun is not only threaded in the past of Brazilian historical discourse on modernity, but serves to feed a growing countercultural movement in Brazilian culture throughout the late 1960s and 1970's. By foregrounding areas of Brazilian socio-economic underdevelopment, Afro-Brazilian religion (Macumba, Candomble), and the historical legacy of Portugese colonialism, Tropicalia stakes out a lasting ground, and a usable past for Brazilian counterculture.

The book is heavy on history, and light on the explicit citation of theory, although its playful and trickster hermeneutic (well suited to its subject matter) is everywhere. Also playing a prominant role in the book is Candomble. Candomble religion plays an imporant role in the history of Tropicalia, and in the larger history of Brazilian metaphor and music. Candomble practices and practitioners occur in artistic discourses concerning the nature and center of Brazilian modernismo. Such as the 1971 painting "Primeria missa no Brasili" by Glauco Rodrigues, the song "Batmacumba" on "Tropicalia , ou panis et circensis" and on Os Mutandes first recording , Veloso's "Triste Bahia," a 1970's pop revival with roots as early as the 1930's. but especially prescient with Gil Gilberto and Veloso, and Gal Costa's tour of "Doces Barbaros" in 1976. 1977 saw Veloso's album "Bicho" and Gilberto Gil's "Refavela," both intimately concerned with Black consciousness and Candomble. Even as 1997 Gil's album "Quanta" wove discourses of the Internet with Orisha worship.

A dense book that weaves from literary and painting analysis to economic development theory and musical hermeneutics--this is a carefully written and edited interdisciplinary work of Cultural History and American/Atlantic Studies.

The author recommends the CD "Tropicalia Essentials" for use with the book. It is available on Amazon.com

After reading the book , I would also suggest "Tropicalia, ou panis et circensis" -- the original release of which appears to have been a crystalizing moment in the Tropicalia movement.

An outstanding history of the late -1960s surrealist-hippie rock movement known as "tropicalia." Although tons has already been written about Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and the other heroes of the tropicalia scene in the Brazilian press and academia, it's been pretty slim pickings in the English-speaking world... up until now, that is! Christopher Dunn, who co-edited "Brazilian Popular Music & Globalization," skillfully combines hard academic research with a relatively light, conversational prose. This is dense yet captivating material, as Dunn deftly explores the historical and philosophical connections to tropicalia -- an art movement that was originally conceived as cross-genre and multi-media -- and previous Brazilian movements such as modernismo, which was Brazil's homegrown 1920s variant of the "futurist" philosophy that swept through Europe in the early 20th Century. Dunn also deftly tells the story of tropicalia's explosive growth as a subversive, psychedelic musical genre, and the harsh political repression it was met with by the dictatorship which held power from 1964 to 1985. This is a vital book, of interest to the many newfound fans of this wild musical style, or to art historians tracking the worldwide path of dada-ism and surrealist art. Highly recommended.