North Carolina Bookwatch 2008-09 | UNC-TV

When NPR contributor Scott Huler made one more attempt to get through James Joyce’s Ulysses, he had no idea it would launch an obsession with the book’s inspiration: the ancient Greek epic The Odyssey and the lonely homebound journey of its Everyman hero, Odysseus.

For thirty years, Roy Underhill's PBS program, The Woodwright's Shop, has brought classic hand-tool craftsmanship to viewers across America. Now, in his seventh book, Roy shows how to engage the mysteries of the splitting wedge and the cutting edge to shape wood from forest to furniture.

When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the charismatic and beautiful Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is a young woman hell-bent on a trajectory of self-destruction, and she doesn't care who is taken down with her. No matter the transgression'a stolen credit card, a cocaine binge, an affair with a teacher, an accident that precipitates the end of Catherine's promising riding career-Catherine can neither resist Skye's spell nor stop her downward spiral.

In an all-new episode, Link reveals Righteous Warrior, sharing the story of one of the most powerful Americans of the twentieth century and the conservative mark he left on the American political landscape.

Martin Clark’s most remarkable novel yet is the gripping, complex story of a murder cover-up that wreaks widespread havoc even as it redefines the concept of justice—a relentlessly entertaining saga that delves deeply into matters at once ambiguous and essential.

Henry is a bible salesman. Clearwater is a car thief. Henry needs a ride. Clearwater needs an assistant. The second World War is over, and nineteen-year-old Henry Dampier walks the roads of North Carolina, selling bibles. When Clearwater offers him a lift, Henry thinks it is a lucky day that only gets better with Clearwater’s “confession” of being an FBI agent in need of aid. Henry joyfully seizes the opportunity to lead a double life as bible salesman and G-man.

In this episode, Shelia Moses shares how Twin Leon and Twin Luke stick together to face the odds as only twelve-year-old boys can do, managing to save themselves while also unexpectedly saving their entire family in a week's time, in moving, funny, and poignant novel.

In Queen of the Oil Club: The Intrepid Wanda Jablonksi and the Power of Information, investigative reporter and historian Anna Rubino tells the story of how a path-breaking journalist, Wanda Jablonski, contributed to the breakdown of Big Oil by lifting the veil of secrecy over its business, exposing its vulnerabilities, and drawing attention to its chief opponents, the founders of OPEC. Through exclusive access to Jablonski's private papers, interviews with more than a hundred people who knew her, including former oil executives and oil ministers, and her own experience working for Jablonksi's Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, Rubino has written the first-ever biography of this fearless and pioneering woman known to the oil world simply as "Wanda."

In A Broom of One's Own, Nancy Peacock, whose first novel was selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year, explores with warmth, wit, and candor what it means to be a writer. An encouragement to all hard-working artists, no matter how they make a living, Peacock's book provides valuable insights and advice on motivation, craft, and criticism while offering hilarious anecdotes about the houses she cleans.

Well, the old tales are back, and they've grown up! Black Pearls brings you the stories of your childhood, told in a way you've never heard before. Instead of lulling you to sleep, they'll wake you up—to the haunting sadness that waits just inside the windows of a gingerbread cottage, the passion that fuels a witch's flight, and the heartache that comes, again and again, at the stroke of midnight.

With the uncanny insight into the well-intentioned heart that made Jim the Boy a favorite novel for thousands of readers, Tony Earley has fashioned another nuanced and unforgettable portrait of America in another time--making it again even realer than our own day. In this episode, Earley discusses The Blue Star, this timeless and moving story of discovery, loss and growing up.

At a time when access to health care in the United States is being widely debated, Nortin Hadler argues that an even more important issue is being overlooked. Although necessary health care should be available to all who need it, he says, the current health-care debate assumes that everyone requires massive amounts of expensive care to stay healthy.

In this episode, author Cindy Ramsey shares Boys of the Battleship North Carolina, the story of the battleship through the eyes of the men who served her. After doing research about the ship at the National Archives in 2000, Ramsey spent six days helping the staff of the memorial compile a living-history archive of personal interviews conducted with the surviving crew members.

In this episode, JD Rhoades, the Shamus Award-nominated author of the critically acclaimed Jack Keller southern crime series, shares his explosive stand-alone thriller Breaking Cover, about an undercover federal agent--a chameleon whose specialty is assaulting criminal organizations from within.

Anna Hayes presents Sharp's career as an attorney, distinguished judge, and politician within the context of the social mores, the legal profession, and the political battles of her day, illuminated by a careful and revealing examination of Sharp's family background, private life, and personality. Judge Sharp was viewed by contemporaries as the quintessential spinster, who had sacrificed marriage and family life for a successful career. The letters and journals she wrote throughout her life, however, reveal that Sharp led a rich private life in which her love affairs occupied a major place, unsuspected by the public or even her closest friends and family.

The history of Lee's army is a powerful lens on the entire war. The fate of Lee's army explains why the South almost won -- and why it lost. The story of his men -- their reasons for fighting, their cohesion, mounting casualties, diseases, supply problems, and discipline problems -- tells it all. Glatthaar's definitive account settles many historical arguments. The Rebels were fighting above all to defend slavery. More than half of Lee's men were killed, wounded, or captured -- a staggering statistic. Their leader, Robert E. Lee, though far from perfect, held an exalted place in his men's eyes despite a number of mistakes and despite a range of problems among some of his key lieutenants. In this episode, Glatthaar shares his General Lee's Army--a masterpiece of scholarship and vivid storytelling, narrated as much as possible in the words of the enlisted men and their officers.

In this episode, Therese Fowler shares Souvenir, an unforgettable story that illuminates the possibility of second chances, the naïve choices of youth, the tensions within families, and the transforming power of love.

More than a cookbook, this is the story of how a little girl, born in the South of Yankee parents, fell in love with southern cooking at the age of five. And a bite of brown sugar pie was all it took.

Too Proud to Ride a Cow, is author/adventurer Bernie Harbert's account of his 3,500-mile across America with a mule. Written to explain why and how he crossed the continent with little more than a twenty-year old mule, a tipi and a camera, “Too Proud” reveals the America Harberts discovered at his 8-mile per day pace. In addition to 9 maps, the 256-page book contains 93 photographs (47 in color) from Harberts’ voyage.

Historians Perdue and Green reveal the government’s betrayals and the divisions within the Cherokee Nation, follow the exiles along the Trail of Tears, and chronicle the hardships found in the West. In its trauma and tragedy, the Cherokee diaspora has come to represent the irreparable injustice done to Native Americans in the name of nation building—and in their determined survival, it represents the resilience of the Native American spirit.

Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post—Civil War saga of three generations of families–their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner.

Americans are addicted to happiness. When we’re not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness, or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life:Stumbling on Happiness; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential.

When Celeste Lassiter Massey must travel to Harlem to live with her actress Aunt Valentina, she's not thrilled at all to leave her friends, home and Poppa in comfortable Raleigh, North Carolina for New York's 1921 fast life.

Robert Morgan has spent the past five years researching and reading everything ever written about the legendary American hero, Daniel Boone. In his engrossing, full-scale book, Boone: A Biography, Morgan looks behind the legends and shows us the true, flesh-and-blood man.

Born in 1884 into an old Buncombe County family, Reynolds worked as a patent medicine salesman in Chicago, acted in vaudeville, ran a skating rink in New Orleans and traveled around the world, writing travel books, making films and seeking adventure. And everywhere he traveled, the handsome, charming Reynolds sweet-talked beautiful women.

UNC-TV's original literary series books even more great writers than ever before as it embarks on its first 26-episode season when Francis Mayes, the New York Times best-selling author of the now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun, presents her latest offering A Year in the World to series host D.G. Martin.