New Appalachian Books

New Appalachian Books by George Brosi Almost Like a Song. Ronnie Milsap with Tom Carter. New York: McGraw-Hill. 259 pages, illustrated, with a discography. 1990. Hardback in dust jacket. $19.95. Unlike most biographies of media figures, this book focuses about half of its attention on Milsap's life before he became a country and cross-over singer. Thus the setting for much of the book is Graham County, North Carolina, deep in the Smoky Mountains. It tells, in Milsap's own words, a poignant story of those who saw him as a curse and those who accepted him and helped him in an unpaternalistic way. It tells of his life in the mountains, at the school for the blind in Raleigh, and at Young Harris Junior College in the North Georgia mountains, which granted him a degree in 1964. Ball, Randy. Backroads: A Portfolio ofMountain Images. Rogersville, Tennessee: self-published, 1990. 48 pages. Trade paperback. $6.50. The black-and-white photographs which are presented here, one to a page, have all been developed by the photographer himself. They represent a nice balance between experimental and expository photography. They also represent a nice, balanced view of traditional Upper East Tennessee life—scenery, people, and buildings. Berry, Wendell. Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1990. 108 pages. Hardback in dust jacket with fourteen, black-and-white photographs and eighteen full-color reproductions of the subject's art. $23.00 *George Brosi is the proprietor of a business called Appalachian Mountain Books and publishes a periodical by that same name twelve times a year. He sells books, both new and out-of-print, through the mail and brings a display of books for sale to regional events. His address is Appalachian Mountain Books, Route 2, Box 238, Whittier, North Carolina, 28789. His phone number is 704-5865319 . 73 This fabulous gift book brings together the lives of two of Kentucky's most famous farmer/philosophers: Harlan Hubbard, the subsistance farmer/artist/advocate of simple living is the subject, and Wendell Berry, the market-farmer/poet/ novelist/essayist and professor is the biographer! The most memorable talk I've heard Wendell Berry give was his spontaneous tribute to Hubbard at last year's memorial service. This expansion of those remarks presents a compelling world view worthy of emulation. __________. Sayings and Doings and An Eastward Look: Lexington, Kentucky: Gnomon Press, an expanded edition combining books originally published in 1974 and 1975. 53 pages. Trade paperback. $8.50. Because this presents previously unpublished poetry by Wendell Berry, it is essential to any regional library. I loved the previous edition of Sayings and Doings by itself as a gift for someone in the hospital, unable to focus for very long, but looking for relief from television and visitors. Luckily, most of us don t spend much time in hospitals, and this edition should be a welcome addition to our collections of the works of one of our most important and inspiring voices. Burton, Thomas. Some Ballad Folks. Johnson City, Tennessee: Center for Appalachian Studies and Services of East Tennessee State University, the third, 1990, printing of a 1978 release. 108 pages with index, photographs, and musical notations . $5.00. $8.00 with cassette tape. This book presents the life and work of five residents of Beech Mountain, North Carolina, who have been the sources for a huge portion of the traditional Appalachian ballads collected by folklorists. Chappell, Fred. / Am One of You Forever. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: an unstated 1990 repirnt of a 1987 release. 184 pages. Trade paperback. $8.95. "I am honestly convinced that Fred Chappell is one of the finest writers of this time, one of the rare and precious few who are truly 'major.' I think that this is his finest work so far." —George Garrett. "... should be reread for its rollicking humor, its poetry, its delicate exploration of the initiation theme, and for its acute evocation of place." —The Sewanee Review. "Chappell creates a sort of magical realism set to fiddles—now funny, now sad and full of turns and surprises throughout." —Newsweek. The Setting is reminiscent of Haywood County, in North Carolina mountains...