Friday, May 16, 2008
BOOKS
|
In 1996, newspaper columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson wrangled an assignment from her editor in Atlanta. She was to cover a boar hunt in south Louisiana, but the story turned out to be a bit of a bust.
Your Living Family Tree, Keeping Your Family Together Forever Through Print, Photos, Sound, and Video is a new book by Gordon Burgett and published and distributed by Communication Unlimited of Novato, Calif. What a joy it used to be to receive a well-written letter. Before cell phones, telephones, telegrams, the Internet and other advances in technology, people used to communicate across distances by sitting down and putting their thoughts and feelings on paper. When you write a book about the place where you live, you almost inevitably rub some folks the wrong way. That’s not been the case for Rheta Grimsley Johnson, at least so far. It was a different time. The team played its home games on a basketball court that sat atop a dirt floor in what was essentially a rodeo arena. It’s star was a skinny kid who favored floppy, oversized socks. They were his lucky socks. He washed them himself after every game. His dad was the coach. The team was LSU and the kid with the huge hosiery was Pete Maravich — Pistol Pete. One of the most colorful and significant cities in Louisiana is Natchitoches, and it holds a fascination for writers, historians, and visitors on a level with New Orleans, just not as prolific in terms of written works. It was founded in 1714, four years before New Orleans, and with its location at the edge of a lawless area extending to Nacogdoches, Texas, it has known some turbulent periods during its development. The Friends of the Community Library of South St. Landry Parish are sponsoring a book sale and signing at The Herbs And Gardens Festival in Sunset, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, May 3. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) _ Two weeks after the next president is elected, Mike Huckabee will publish a book sharing details on his failed bid for the White House and offering his vision for remodeling the conservative movement. Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Group (USA), said Wednesday it will publish the former Arkansas governor and one-time Republican presidential hopeful's next book, to be released Nov. 18. Set in 1903 in the Canadian West, this novel begins with a young widow named Mary Boulton on the run. As the story unfolds, her compulsion to flee is revealed: she’s a widow because she has killed her husband, and his two gigantic, look-alike, red-haired brothers are chasing her. So she runs, afoot and on horseback. Adamson’s language is dense with imagery and the careful pacing of each sentence is evidence of her (Gil is short for Gillian) background in poetry. It seems as if another Katrina story comes out every day. Margaret Media is a book publishing company that was founded in New Orleans in 1981. The company was named for Mary Haughery, an Irish social worker in 19th century New Orleans. NEW YORK (AP) -- Miley Cyrus, author. The multi-hyphenate teen star has signed a book deal to tell the story of her young life, it was announced Tuesday. The memoir by Cyrus, who stars in the Disney Channel series "Hannah Montana," is planned to be released in spring 2009. Disney said the book will focus particularly on the guidance of Cyrus' mother, Leticia. Before you can answer the question “Did we really need another book about John James Audubon?” Danny Heitman’s engaging new book has pulled you into a 73-page essay that captures Audubon’s time outside St. Francisville in the summer of 1821. More importantly, Heitman’s essay suggests why the interest in Audubon the artist, outdoorsman and early American marketing man persists. Within American letters, there’s a small but abiding tradition of newspaper journalists who moonlight as poets. Before he firmly established his fame, Carl Sandburg worked as a film reviewer at a Chicago daily. In Charlotte, N.C., Dannye Romine Powell is known not only as a favorite columnist of The Observer, but the author of two well-received books of verse, The Ecstasy of Regret and At Every Wedding Someone Stays Home. Louisiana Poet Laureate Darrell Bourque didn’t always write poetry. “I didn’t write as a child. It wasn’t until I went to the university and I began to (write),” he said. That was about 40 years ago. |
ADVERTISEMENTS
Now on 2theadvocate.com
