Reviewed by Allen Mendenhall Emigration to Liberia is the story of the nearly 500 African-Americans who left Columbus, Georgia, and Eufaula, Alabama, from 1853 to 1903, to emigrate to Liberia, the West African nation that was founded in 1822 by United States colonization. Matthew F.K. McDaniel marshals evidence from written correspondence and newspapers to piece […]
Mollie Smith Waters Interviews Ted Dunagan
February 28, 2014 by 1 Comment
Ted Dunagan was born in 1943 in Coffeeville, Alabama. He completed the second grade there and then moved to Grove Hill, where he graduated from high school in 1961. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era, after which he attended Georgia State University in Atlanta. Later, he married, began raising a family, […]
December Read of the Month: “Dancing Naked in Dixie,” by Lauren Clark
December 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by J.R. Baldwin Award-winning travel writer Julia Sullivan is jet-lagged and on-deadline when she arrives back in New York. As she mentally prepares for a week in office, she is called into the editor’s office. Her new boss is a surprise, personally related, and not a welcome face. Even more so when Julia’s job […]
“Leaving Tuscaloosa,” by Walter Bennett
July 11, 2013 by 2 Comments
Reviewed by Amy Susan Wilson In his novel Leaving Tuscaloosa, Walter Bennett creates a haunting fictional world steeped in a gripping story that raises questions regarding our moral obligations to human communities. The novel is set in the Deep South of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1962. This is the year before Bull Connor turned his fire […]
“The Darkling,” by Carolyn Haines as R. B. Chesterton
June 19, 2013 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Mollie Waters When Carolyn Haines presented her new work The Darkling at the Alabama Book Festival in April 2013, the question on her audience’s mind was who in the world is R. B. Chesterton? Haines is best known for her popular crime novels the Bones series, which has a devoted following, but she […]
May Read of the Month: “The Kings and Queens of Roam,” by Daniel Wallace
May 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Lizzie Gheorghita Daniel Wallace fans, count yourselves lucky. The Birmingham native’s forthcoming novel, The Kings and Queens of Roam, echoes the passion for mythology and adventure first evidenced in Big Fish. Wallace illuminates the rich history of a fictional land rife with burly lumberjacks, Chinese immigrants, feral dogs, and ghosts, and seamlessly melds fanciful and imaginative elements […]