I started learning about the Great Forest in the early 1980s, when my husband and I homesteaded a 100 acre woodlot in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia. Our long back border is with the 1.2 million acres of the George Washington National Forest. So, from the beginning, we straddled the philosophical and ethical differences between private and public lands. As we learned about the devastation done to the Appalachian Mountain forests by private owners who cared for nothing but money, we took lessons from the past to form our own forest management plan aimed at avoiding such excesses. And we became advocates for the protection of national forests from any repeat of the past.
I love this book because it recreates the globally unique original forests of the eastern U.S., now lost. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Braun traveled first by horse and buggy, then by Model T, from New England to Alabama, to document the original forests of the East. She particularly loved the Great Forest of the Southern Appalachians, the lushest, most biodiverse hardwood forests in the world.
She sought out the last virgin stands even as they were being logged, and as mighty American chestnut trees died out from blight. Perhaps her most surprising lesson was that not only does second-growth forest (not to mention 3rd, 4th, etc.) not indicate what originally grew there, but it can be completely misleading.
Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America was published in 1950 and describes in detail the trees and shrubs in the deciduous forests of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It is still widely used as a reference work today. Lucy Braun was perhaps the foremost botanist in the deciduous forest region. Her descriptions of the deciduous forest associations, from mixed mesophytic to beech-maple, are wonderful, a classic title in plant ecology. Emma Lucy Braun (1889-1971) was an American botanist and ecologist whose commitment to conservation led to the eventual preservation of over 10,000 acres in Ohio. Much of…
I started learning about the Great Forest in the early 1980s, when my husband and I homesteaded a 100 acre woodlot in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia. Our long back border is with the 1.2 million acres of the George Washington National Forest. So, from the beginning, we straddled the philosophical and ethical differences between private and public lands. As we learned about the devastation done to the Appalachian Mountain forests by private owners who cared for nothing but money, we took lessons from the past to form our own forest management plan aimed at avoiding such excesses. And we became advocates for the protection of national forests from any repeat of the past.
The amazing photos and descriptions in the book absolutely stunned me. From 1880 to 1930, West Virginia went from being 95% forested with mostly virgin woods to 85% denuded, reflecting the fate of much of the Appalachian Mountain chain. In the early 1900s, the mill in Rainelle, WV, was the largest hardwood lumber plant in the world.
Clarkson tells this story through text and an amazing collection of photos, including of the largest tree ever cut in WV, in 1913: a white oak thirteen feet in diameter and estimated at 1,000 years old.
Outcries over damages from reckless timbering, followed by roaring fires and eroding floods, resulted in the Weeks Act of 1911, which authorized the U.S. Forest Service to purchase millions of acres of burning, eroding mountains for reforestation.
A truly entertaining and historical book with educational merit that portrays the lumber industry from its inconspicuous beginnings through a century and a half of progress. The main emphasis throughout Tumult... is on the day to day work and lives of the men engaged in the felling, skidding, loading, hauling, and sowing of timber. This book includes 257 full-page photos and a map insert.
Seven years ago, a hidden betrayal scattered three friends living in the shadow of Biltmore Estate. Now, when Biltmore Industries master weaver Lorna Blankenship is commissioned to create an original design for Cornelia Vanderbilt's 1924 wedding, she panics knowing she doesn't have the creativity needed. But there's an elusive artisan…
More has been accomplished by music to wake us up that any marches, speeches, injustice, and/or wealth. In the beginning, music and its many forms I followed were an accident. Now I see that music is vital for social expression, intimacy, solitude. The walls in my writing room are covered with photos, CDs, 78s, and most certainly live recordings and books. I feel sorry for the soul(s) who will have to pick through this history when I’ve gone to that Upper Room.
Tight, vivid writing about the poorest people in America in the richest country in the world. There is dignity and warmth of two sons caring for their blind father, and there is God in also every life, for better or worse. I have to read this book at least once a year to remember what hard times and resolutions are. Every word seems to matter.
I grew up in West Virginia and believed you had to leave the region to write. Only after I’d published my first novel did I discover books like these and many more. I have become a wide reader in our literature, with a special interest in novels that both tell the stories of individuals and families and explore the connection between resource extraction and poverty. It’s also a pleasure to read about regional successes as well as losses.
This is a foul-mouthed, sexist, scatological, absolutely hilarious novel about a boy’s last year in his hometown.
It is a traditional American young-man-coming-of-age novel, set during the Korean War. The real star is the tall tale version of a real town in Southern West Virginia called Crum. It is a great American novel from Appalachia in its quintessential form of coming of age and breaking away.
It is about friendship, sexual initiation, and growing up. Much of the novel sits just this side of the line separating humor from ugly stereotypes, and Maynard often pushes very close to the line, but always somehow brings us through safely to understanding and affection.
In Crum, a gritty coal town on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, the boys fight, swear, chase and sometimes catch girls. The adults are cramped in and clueless, hemmed in by the mountains. The weight of wonder, dejection, and even possibility loom over this tiny, suffocating town. This story is the tale of Jesse Stone, who doesn't know where he's going, but knows he is leaving, and whose rebellion against the people and the place of his childhood allows him to reject the comfort and familiarity of his home in search of his place in a larger world.
As I wrote in my author's note for Library on Wheels: "Growing up as a book-loving child in rural Utah in the 1960s and '70s, I developed a strong emotional connection to the bookmobile. My father died in a mining accident when I was five, leaving my mother with seven children to raise on her own. We didn't have much money or many opportunities, but every two weeks the bookmobile brought the universe to me." As a writer of children's books, I was immediately intrigued when I ran across an obscure reference to Mary Lemist Titcomb, credited with being the inventor of the bookmobile in America--and I knew at once that I had to write about her.
The spare lyricism of both the text and illustrations of That Book Woman tug at the heartstrings without being overly sentimental. Young Cal works hard with his Pap on their Appalachian farm. Unlike his sister, an avid reader, Cal thinks he was not “born / to sit so stoney-still / a-starin’ at some chicken scratch.” But his grudging admiration for “that book woman” who just keeps coming and coming, rain, snow, or shine, eventually leads him to a love of books.
I love the gentle way that That Book Woman pays homage to the WPA Pack Horse Librarians of the 1930s.
An exquisitely illustrated paean to everyone who struggles to learn how to read, and to everyone who won’t give up on them.
Cal is not the readin' type. Living way high up in the Appalachian Mountains, he'd rather help Pap plow or go out after wandering sheep than try some book learning. Nope. Cal does not want to sit stoney-still reading some chicken scratch. But that Book Woman keeps coming just the same. She comes in the rain. She comes in the snow. She comes right up the side of the mountain, and Cal knows that's not easy riding. And…
I don’t consider myself specifically a horror reader (or writer for that matter!) any more than I consider myself a fantasy, mystery, or science fiction reader. As a writer (under my real name John Mantooth as well as my pseudonym, Hank Early), much of my work has been classified as horror, though I take pride in my novels appealing to people who aren’t typically well-versed in the genre. So, it got me thinking… what are some novels that may or may not be classified as horror that will appeal to a wide range of readers? I call these books horror-adjacent, and no matter what you typically read, I think you’ll enjoy them.
Another one I read many years ago that still has its claws in me today. A sprawling epic made up of many Appalachian voices. There’s magic and grief and family secrets. It’s a Southern Gothic that will grip you from the first page and has influenced me as a writer in a myriad of ways. This might be an example of a novel that wasn’t classified as horror, but very well could have been. Will appeal to all kinds of readers.
A dark and riveting story of the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations.
Myra Lamb is a wild girl with mysterious, haint blue eyes who grows up on remote Bloodroot Mountain. Her grandmother, Byrdie, protects her fiercely and passes down “the touch” that bewitches people and animals alike. But when John Odom tries to tame Myra, it sparks a shocking disaster, ripping lives apart.
"A fascinating look at a rural world full of love and life, and dreams and disappointment." --The Boston Globe
Seven years ago, a hidden betrayal scattered three friends living in the shadow of Biltmore Estate. Now, when Biltmore Industries master weaver Lorna Blankenship is commissioned to create an original design for Cornelia Vanderbilt's 1924 wedding, she panics knowing she doesn't have the creativity needed. But there's an elusive artisan…
I love fantasy literature, because it's the what-if literature of the human spirit. Magic animates fantasy, and in the real world, magic is difficult to define; it lies somewhere on the border of the unconscious mind, the lore of our grandparents, scientific hypothesis, what the priest tells us, and what we see in social groups other than our own. In recent decades, much fantasy literature has walked away from portrayals of real-world magic, replacing it with synthetic and sterile creations euphemistically called “hard magic.” Hard magic has the form of magic, but lacks the power thereof. These books are all strong inoculations against the scourge of hard magic.
Drake’s old Nathan is explicitly identified as a “cunning man” throughout these tales. Inspired by Wellman’s Silver John, Old Nathan is a predecessor, an Appalachian wizard in the late 1700s and early 1800s, using real-world folk magic to ward off curses, heal wounds, and otherwise battle evil. Like Silver John and Hiram Woolley, Old Nathan is a war veteran—a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Nathan’s war wounds left him crippled and pulled aside from ordinary life, turning him into the course of becoming a magician.
FIFTH YEARS AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, MAGIC IS LOOSE IN THE BACKWOODS
The forces of evil are poised to prey on the folk of the hamlets and hollows: witches, demons, and red-handed men—but first they'll have to overcome Old Nathan the Wizard.
He doesn't claim much for his magical powers, but they're real enough for what they are—and besides, he hasn't forgotten how to use his long flintlock rifle ....
Enter the gritty, realistic world of Old Nathan, a backwoodsman who talks to animals and says he'll face The Devil himself-and who in the end will have to face The…
I have been a fan of the horror genre since I was a kid. Even though sometimes I was so scared, I had to sleep with the light on or not sleep at all. Something about the darkness and the unknown has always seemed so alluring. I can't even count the number of horror movies I've watched or books I've read. That feel of the hair standing up on your arms or the back of your neck is a thrill like no other.
Tales of a witch's curse in Appalachia draw a grieving father to sacrifice everything for his son. How far will a parent go to save their child and then how much farther will they have to go to save themselves? A Southern voodoo twist on Pet Cemetery that’s twice as frightening and just as engaging.
SOMETHING EVIL ROSE FROM WITHIN, AN ANCIENT BEING, ONE OLDER THAN TIME ITSELF...
Deep in the mountains of Appalachia, a legend is told about something evil that lurks within the dense woods of Gunrack Hollow. A witch is said to live there, one whose appetite for innocent souls dates back hundreds of years.
Sam Fletcher had heard the story his whole life, but he never really believed it. After all, as his father always said, it's just an old folktale...only a story.
But two years ago, something happened that made him believe. Something that ties back to an ancient evil…
When I was younger, I turned to fantastical stories of determined, flawed heroes to bring me a world I could understand and control – unlike the scary reality I lived in. Most of the fantasy stories I read as I grew up were, of course, set in a medieval England-type world. But as I got older, I found myself fascinated by the history and mythology of the New World and got the feeling there was a lot of untapped potential there. So, I started studying Mesoamerican and Native American peoples, as well as picking up alternate history fantasies set in America. So of course, I had to write my own.
Witchy Eye instantly transported me to a fascinating, alternate Appalachia, where magic and magical creatures abound.
Not only does this book tell a coming-of-age and heroic story about Sarah Calhoun, it takes place in a fascinating world where the New World has an emperor, legends that I’d heard tell of have come to life, and undead and shapeshifters haunt Sarah’s every step.
Sarah’s voice is accessible and sympathetic. At the same time, her journey to try to claim her own powerful heritage and discover the truth about her lineage, takes place in a world that is totally replete with creatures and mythology from the New World.
DJ Butler is deeply versed in the history and legends of many regions and people from old colonial America – making this a fascinating read.
Sarah Calhoun is the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Elector Andrew Calhoun, one of Appalachee's military heroes and one of the electors who gets to decide who will next ascend as the Emperor of the New World. None of that matters to Sarah. She has a nat
I moved from Ohio to southern Appalachia in 1978 to take a temporary job teaching philosophy at the University of Tennessee. I hadn’t planned to stay, but I fell in love with the mountains. Recently I retired after a fruitful 44-year career here. Concern for this land and for my children and grandchildren led me to environmental activism and shifted my teaching and writing from mathematical logic to environmental and intergenerational ethics. Eventually I wrote or edited four books on environmental matters (two specifically on the southern Appalachian environment) in addition to three on logic and (most recently) a tome on the tricky topic of incomparable values.
Camuto’s supple prose draws the reader into a journey toward mountains that no longer exist, although they are named on some old maps: the southern Appalachians not as they are, but as they were before the European invasion. A keen historian and observant naturalist, Camuto walks deep into “what’s left of the backcountry,” documenting the hopeful reintroduction of the nearly extinct red wolf and reflecting on Cherokee place names, culture, and history. "Needless to say,” he confesses, “I never got to the Cherokee Mountains”—and, in sad irony, shortly after the book’s publication the red wolf reintroduction failed. Still, Camuto has succeeded in recording resonant reminiscences of places, peoples, and biotic populations now lost.
The southern Appalachians encompass one of the most beautiful, biologically diverse, and historically important regions of North America. In the widely acclaimed Another Country: Journeying toward the Cherokee Mountains, Christopher Camuto describes the tragic collision of natural and cultural history embedded in the region. In the spirit of Thoreau's "Walking," Camuto explores the Appalachian summit country of the Great Smoky Mountains-the historical home of the Cherokee-searching for access to the nature, history, and spirit of a magnificent, if diminished, landscape.
As the author takes the reader through old-growth forests and ancient myths, he tells of the attempted restoration of Canis…
