Books
Group avatar

Southern Literature

This group is for any reader interested in southern literature, from the classics (Thomas Wolfe, Eudora Welty, Erskine Caldwell, etc.) to the contemporary (Fannie Flagg, Lee Smith, Nicholas Sparks, etc.). Members should share a love of texts that relay the often humble lives of eccentric southerners as they tackle the odds, build character, and...more »
  • Category: Genres | Started February 2007

« more discussions

  • Leigh Ann  E

    Appalachian Lit suggestions

    Save Changes Cancel
    I love books that take place around the Appalachian mountains. Particularly those set during the coal wars (Storming Heaven and Unquiet Earth are favorites). Does anyone have any other suggestions that they've enjoyed?
    Leigh Ann E started this discussion 5 years ago. ( reply | permalink )

31

replies
expand replies 
Sign in to participate in this discussion.
  • DashForCover
    Save Changes Cancel
    I don't know about the coar wars. But one book I enjoyed many years ago was Christy by Catherine Marshall. It was about, I believe, her grandmother.

    Dash For Cover
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • MaggieReads
    Save Changes Cancel
    I love Tall Woman by Dykeman! Hubby goes off to the Civil War and wifey must make do. Precurser to the Foxfire books. :D
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Icedream
    Save Changes Cancel
    I should remember more but off the top of my head:
    Thunder in the Mountains- Lon Savage
    Coal Run- Tawni O'Dell
    Miner's Daughter- Gretchen Laskas
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Rhonda L
    Save Changes Cancel
    These aren't during the Coal Wars, but, Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap books are wonderful, especially for those of us who are from near that area, and recognize some of the landmarks and such.
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Miss P
    Save Changes Cancel
    Coal wars aside, "Fair and Tender Ladies" by Lee Smith is magnificent, followed by the outstanding Gap Creek - Robert Morgan and Prodical Summer - Barbara Kingsolver.
    The Stone Gap books by Adriana Trigiani are always a fun read.
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Jane J
    Save Changes Cancel
    I just finished a great mystery set in the Appalachians of NC.........
    "Signs In The Blood" by Vicki Lane
    It was well written, and has a lot of local flavor and color of the area!
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Tracy W
    Save Changes Cancel
    Again, not sure about those coal wars. But The Songcatcher by Sharon McCrumb is the Appalachia-set novel (other than Marshall's Christy, of course) that comes immediately to mind. It skips through time from the 18th to late 20th centuries.
    posted 5 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Barbara M
    Save Changes Cancel
    I just finished reading Cataloochee by Caldwell. His first novel. Setting in the NC mountains; time period from just after the Civil War through the 1800s. I am ignorant of the Coal Wars so I will have to work on learning more about that.
    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • jenlynn97
    Save Changes Cancel
    I like to go to English grad school websites and download the syllabus for the Appalachian Literature classes, if I can. I get most of my suggestions that way.
    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Kathie C
    Save Changes Cancel
    Clay's Quilt....
    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Verna A
    Save Changes Cancel
    Anything by Silas House, he should have a new book coming out soon, but his novels are: Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves and The Coal Tattoo. Happy reading! He was my thesis advisor and is a great teacher as well as writer!
    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Wendy B
    Save Changes Cancel
    I really should join this group, I will after I post this.

    There is a short biography called - "Appalachian Mountain girl" I read this a few years ago, it is excellent! I actually would love to read it again!
    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
    show 4 replies
    • Kentucky Reader (Margaret H)
      Save Changes Cancel

      I bought that book at the Kentucky Book Fair a few years ago and I also love it. It's about a family that, like so many, had to leave the Kentucky mountains they loved to earn a living.

      posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
    • Wendy B
      Save Changes Cancel

      Hey Kentucky reader, I would love to read more books that take place in Kentucky (what is the abbreviation anyway? KT? KN? hmmm I really don't know. KY???)

      Have any book suggestions for me?

      posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
    • Kentucky Reader (Margaret H)
      Save Changes Cancel

      I'm sorry it took me so long to answer you. I just saw your post.

      KY is the abbreviation for Kentucky.

      Here are some good books set in Kentucky:

      Clay's Quilt and its 2 sequels, Silas House
      Troublesome Creek and its 2 sequels, Jan Watson
      Part of L is for Lawless by Sue Grafton takes place in Louisville, KY (Grafton is a Kentucky native now in CA)
      The Memory Keepers Daughter, Kim Edwards
      The Scourges of Heaven, my favorite of many by David Dick
      Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
      Jayber Crow, my favorite of many by Wendell Berry
      Scent of Lilacs and its sequels, Gabhart
      Kentucky Straight, short stories, Chris Offutt
      Growing up Hard in Harlan County, GC. Jones
      The Mountain, the Miner and the Lord, Harry Caudill
      Anything by Jesse Stuart

      I could go on forever but that should keep you busy for awhile.

      posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
    • mef

      mef 

      Save Changes Cancel

      Hiya -- I grew up in Kentucky, too. That makes living in the United Kingdom, as I do now, kind of strange, because the abbreviation for that is UK, which any Kentuckian knows means the University of Kentucky in general, if not the University of Kentucky Wildcats in particular.

      I can't say I've read many Kentucky books, though. My mother had everything Jessie Stuart ever wrote. I liked the Wilgus Stories by Gurney Norman -- *very* Kentucky, very Appalachian, and very satisfying. Some relatives who are archaeologists gave me Creekside, by Kelli Carmean, about an archaeologist digging a homestead site, along with the parallel story of the people who had lived there in pioneer days -- I felt it read too much like an archaeologist writing about a dig rather than like a novel, but I've lent to some other people who really liked it, so maybe it just wasn't my cup of tea.

      I parted company with Wendell Berry long ago, and it probably just shows an unflattering inflexibility on my part, but when he published an essay about how writers were harming the environment by using word processors, and somebody said "what are we supposed to do, then?" and he said "Do what I do: write by hand and have your wife type it", he went down a notch or several in my estimation. There are many things I'd like to say to him about that, starting with breaking the news that, wonder of wonders, some writers out here are actually women, and there might be more of them if they weren't using their time on this earth as typists for Great Men...

      Oh! Come to think of it, Ann Patchett's Patron Saint of Liars starts in KY and has big sections set in Kentucky, but I don't remember whether it was Appalachian KY.

      posted 1 year ago. ( permalink )
  • Diane R
    Save Changes Cancel
    I just finished, The Well and The Mine by Gen(Jen?) Phillips. Takes place in the Appalachias. Wonderful story!!
    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Tim

    Tim 

    Save Changes Cancel

    I agree with Verna A. Anything by Silas House Is amazing, especially if you are intereseted in Eastern Kentucky coal wars. And how lucky for you Verna to have had him as a teacher. I met him once in my writers group called Writers of the North Fork, located in Hazard, Ky. He is actually a member, and a great guy. My favorite was "A Parchment of Leaves."

    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • George Witte
    Save Changes Cancel

    Fred Chappell's cycle of novels: I Am One of You Forever, Brighten the Corner Where You Are, Farewell I'm Bound to Leave You, and Look Back All the Green Valley. These are wonderful books, individually and collectively.

    posted 4 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Mary O
    Save Changes Cancel

    Fred Chappell and Robert Watson were my teachers for my MFA program at UNC Greensboro. So was Lee Zachiarias. They were all excellent teachers and writers and I was lucky to get to know tham and learn from them.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Lynn W
    Save Changes Cancel

    You might try October Sky by Homer Hickam. It's not set during the coal wars, but it's based on a true story and the father is a coal miner. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls is a harrowing memoir of growing up in Appalachia.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )
    show 1 reply
    • mef

      mef 

      Save Changes Cancel

      The Glass Castle is a *fabulous* read (as is Mary Karr's The Liar's Club, which isn't Appalachian--it starts out in East Texas--but which seems to me very like The Glass Castle, or maybe it's just that I read them at nearly the same time!).

      posted 1 year ago. ( permalink )
  • Laurene M
    Save Changes Cancel

    I just finished Bloodroot by Amy Greene. Read it twice.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )
  • ryfinskibooknut
    Save Changes Cancel

    Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell. Deep in the Ozark Mountains, clans live by a code of conduct that no one dares defy—until an intrepid teenage girl has no other choice. When Ree Dolly's crystal-meth-making father skips bail and goes missing, her family home is on the line. Unless she finds him, she and her young siblings and disabled mother face destitution. In a heroic quest, Ree traverses the county to confront her kin, break their silent collusion, and bring her father home.

    This author is awesome! Read his other books as well.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )
  • Marty C
    Save Changes Cancel

    Sarena by Ron Rash. Chilling story about lumber barons during the Great Depression in the mountains of NC.

    posted 3 years ago. ( permalink )
  • BethODye
    Save Changes Cancel

    just joined the group. This is one of my fave topics, seeing as how I'm from WV. some ideas:

    Lark and Termite by Jayne Ann Phillips
    anything by Homer Hickam
    Strange as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake (one of my faves, along w/ Giardina)
    Carlene Thompson writes mysteries usually set in WV
    Lick Creek by Brad Kessler
    anything by Mary Lee Settle
    Ashes of Roses and War by Sibyl Pischke

    posted 2 years ago. ( permalink )
  • GLB

    GLB 

    Save Changes Cancel

    Sweetie by Kathryn Magendie

    For shy, stuttering Melissa, the wild mountain girl named Sweetie is a symbol of pride and strength. But to many in their Appalachian town Sweetie is an outcast, a sinister influence, or worse. This poignant and haunting story takes readers deep inside the bittersweet heart of childhood loyalties.

    posted 1 year ago. ( permalink )
  • The BlackCat Library
    Save Changes Cancel

    Robert Morgan has a couple of good Appalachian set books: Gap Creek and This Rock

    posted 1 year ago. ( permalink )
  • mef

    mef 

    Save Changes Cancel

    Just ran across, for the first time, the term Afrilachian. Maybe you all already know it, but it seems to have been coined after I moved away from the US, so I'd never heard it. Explanation/derivation here: http://wordspy.com/words/Affrilachian.asp

    I saw it first in an alumni publication's report of an Afrilachian poet who had given a commencement address.

    Anybody here reading Afrilachians?

    posted 9 months ago. ( permalink )
    show 2 replies
    • Kentucky Reader (Margaret H)
      Save Changes Cancel

      Hi Mef. Somehow your post arrived in my e-mail, even though I had actually left this group some time ago because it seemed to be inactive. I'm glad to see it's back. I re-joined so I could reply to your question about Affrilachia.

      I have the book Affrilachia: Poems by Frank X Walker, autographed by the author the year it was published, which was shortly after he coined the word. I'm Appalachian myself, not Affrilachian, but I can relate to his experiences as a fellow Appalachian. It would surprise me if the term Affrilachian is used much outside of Kentucky, but maybe (the) word has spread.

      posted 9 months ago. ( permalink )
    • mef

      mef (edited)

      Save Changes Cancel

      Thanks for your message-- yes, we've resurrected the group. That you've rejoined is a positive sign; maybe we'll reach critical mass soon! As for use of the term Afrilachian outside the region, well, I'm in England! (Though I realize that's not exactly whay you meant :-)

      posted 9 months ago. ( permalink )
  • To reply to this discussion, please sign in.

Return to top