UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch is the state’s premier literary series, bringing the Tar Heel State’s best and brightest Southern writers to the small screen. In every illuminating interview, host D.G. Martin sheds light on authors’ lives, books and the state’s indelible imprint on their works.
Leading a small army of slaves, Nat Turner was a man born with a mission: to set the captives free. When words failed, he ignited an uprising that left over fifty whites dead. In the predawn hours of August 22, 1831, Nat Turner stormed into history with a Bible in one hand, brandishing a sword in the other. His rebellion shined a national spotlight on slavery and the state of Virginia and divided a nation’s trust. Turner himself became a lightning rod for abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and a terror and secret shame for slave owners.
Leading a small army of slaves, Nat Turner was a man born with a mission: to set the captives free. When words failed, he ignited an uprising that left over fifty whites dead. In the predawn hours of August 22, 1831, Nat Turner stormed into history with a Bible in one hand, brandishing a sword in the other. His rebellion shined a national spotlight on slavery and the state of Virginia and divided a nation’s trust. Turner himself became a lightning rod for abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and a terror and secret shame for slave owners.
It all began with a pit bull named Booger. Former Miss Wyoming Bernann McKinney was so distraught over the death of her dog, whom she regarded as her guardian and savior, that she paid $50,000 to RNL Bio for the chance to bring her beloved companion back to life. The result were five new Boogers-the first successful commercial cloning of a canine- delivered in 2008, along with a slew of compelling questions about the boundaries of science, commerce, and ethics. Blending shocking investigative reporting with colorful anecdotes, Pulitzer Prize-winning John Woestendiek takes readers behind the scenes of this emerging industry.
As a little girl growing up in Boston, Miriam Bluestein fantasized about a life lived on stage, specifically in a musical. Get married, have a family—sure, maybe she’d do those things, too, but first and foremost there was her career. As a woman, she is both tormented and consoled by those dreams in her day-to-day existence with her family, including a short-tempered husband, a cranky mother, and three demanding children, one of whom, Ethan, shows real talent for the stage.
Ruth Moose has taught creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill since l996. Author of two books of short stories, The Wreath Ribbon Quilt (St. Andrews Press) and Dreaming in Color (August House) as well as five other poetry collections, her poems and stories have appeared Atlantic Monthly, Redbook, Prairie Schooner, Yankee, The Nation, Christian Science Monitor and other places. Her stories have been published in England, Holland, South Africa, and Denmark. She received a McDowell Colony Fellowship and most recently, in 2008, a Chapman Fellowship for teaching.
D.G. Martin interviews Lloyd Kramer, author of Nationalism in Europe and America.
D.G. Martin interviews Jeffrey Deaver, author of the new James Bond novel "Carte Blanche."
In 1963, at the age of 17, Dwayne Hallston discovers James Brown and wants to perform just like him. Meanwhile, Dwayne's forbidden black friend Larry aspires to play piano like Thelonius Monk. In THE NIGHT TRAIN, Edgerton's trademark humor reminds us of our divided national history and the way music has helped bring us together.
Jane Borden is a hybrid: a hipster-debutante. She was reared in a proper Southern home in Greensboro, sent to boarding school in Virginia, and then went on to join a sorority in Chapel Hill. She next moved to New York and discovered that none of this grooming meant a lick to anyone. Enjoy the hilarity of Jane's musings on the intersections of Southern hospitality and Gotham cool.
Andrea Reusing - Cooking in the Moment. For Andrea Reusing - an award-winning chef, a leader in the sustainable agriculture movement, and a working mother - “cooking in the moment” simply means focusing on one meal at a time. Cooking in the Moment is a rich, absorbing journey through a year in Reusing’s home kitchen as she cooks for family and friends using ingredients grown nearby.
D. G. Martin interviews Nicholas Sparks - Best of Me In the fall of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply, irrevocably in love. Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.
D. G. Martin interviews Charles Frazier - Nightwoods The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s. Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a lean, taut narrative while losing none of the transcendent prose, virtuosic storytelling, and insight into human nature that have made him one of the most beloved and celebrated authors in the world. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine. Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways. Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art.
D. G. Martin interviews Robyn Hadley - Within View, Within Reach: Navigating the College-Bound Journey - More than twenty-five years after being offered admission and full scholarships to Duke University, Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Robyn S. Hadley continues to assist students, families and others in the process of navigating the college-bound journey. Within View, Within Reach is a "How To" guide for parents that educates them about the world of college admissions and how they can best assist their teenager in finding the right college and paying for it. In this book, Hadley shares a roadmap for parents to assist their teenager in navigating the college bound journey and how to bring the dream of a college education from Within View to Within Reach
D. G. Martin interviews Angela Davis-Gardner - Butterfly's Child
D. G. Martin interviews Margorie Hudson - Accidental Birds of the Carolinas
D. G. Martin interviews Sheri Castle - The New Southern Garden Cookbook
D. G. Martin interviews Sheri Castle - The New Southern Garden Cookbook
D. G. Martin interviews Rosencrans Baldwin - You Lost Me There
D. G. Martin interviews Steve Barry - The Jefferson Key
D. G. Martin interviews Sara Foster - Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen: Soulful, Traditional, Seasonal
D. G. Martin interviews David Halperin - Journal of a UFO Investigator
D. G. Martin interviews John D. Kasarda - Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next
D. G. Martin interviews Michael Parker - The Watery Part of The World
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