An anticipated novel by a beloved storyteller, an entertaining cookbook (and an event to go with it!), an unusual memoir and a book full of history lessons make this month’s list of must-reads.
Nightwoods (Random House) by Charles Frazier
His internationally bestselling debut, Cold Mountain, won Frazier millions of fans. They will, no doubt, be thrilled to have a new book by this amazing storyteller. Nightwoods is the story of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins. Before the children came, Luce was content on her solitary path, choosing even to live apart from the small community around her. With her new duties, that quiet, simple life will change in ways she cannot begin to imagine. Historical literature is Frazier’s forte, and this book is set in 20th-century Appalachia. It’s rich with enough detail to make the past—and the story itself—come right to life.
A New Turn in the South (Clarkson Potter) by Hugh Acheson
Acheson opened his Athens, Ga., restaurant Five and Ten in 2000. By 2002, he was on the cover of Food & Wine as one of the Best New Chefs in America. Along the way, his eclectic take on modern regional cooking helped transform the Athens’s food scene. Acheson shares 120 favorite recipes in this cookbook that is just as much fun to read as it is to follow. Basic enough for beginners and interesting enough for seasoned cooks, the book is organized by course—from Libations (Southern Pimm’s Cup) to Snackies (Boiled-Peanut Hummus), from Pickles (Gingered Pickled Carrots) to Put-Ups (Vidalia Onion Jam). Then there are soups and salads, a garden’s worth of vegetables, foods from seas and streams, “things with wings” and red meat. Oh, and the book is illustrated with lovely photos and Acheson’s whimsical drawings.
NOTE: Acheson will be the guest star at a dinner at Hot & Hot Fish Club on October 19. The plated, seated dinner ($50 per person plus alcohol, tax and gratuity) begins at 6:30 and is a fundraiser for Chris Hastings’s new Slow Foods chapter called Slow Foods Crossroads. The menu will include roasted carrot and beet salad with feta, parsley and cumin vinaigrette; Frogmore stew; braised quail with leeks, dates and cider; and pecan and pear flip cake. There will be cookbooks for sale at the event. Auction items that night will include Acheson’s art, dinner for six at Hot & Hot and dinner for 12 at the Well House at SpringHouse Restaurant. For more info, call 933-5474
An Accidental Mother (Unbridled Books) by Katherine Anne Kindred
In this funny and heartbreaking memoir, Kate Kindred recounts the incredible joys of motherhood that she discovered when she met and fell in love with Jim, a handsome, caring man who had custody of his 2-year-old son, Michael. Until then, Kate, who was divorced, had decided that life without children was to be her lot. But when she stepped in to mother Michael, she realized that life as a stepmother is both sweet and complicated. She also, in the six years they were together, found out that it’s a priceless gift.
Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion (Algonquin) by Robert Morgan
America’s Manifest Destiny is illuminated with compelling prose (and maps, battle plans, portraits and illustrations) in Morgan’s saga of Westward Expansion. Thomas Jefferson, leader, naturalist and visionary, dreamed that the United States would stretch across the entire continent—ocean to ocean. Through the stories of Jefferson and nine other Americans, Morgan shows how that dream became a reality. He offers vivid characterizations of Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, James K. Polk, Winfield Scott, Kit Carson, Nicholas Trist, John Quincy Adams, David Crockett and John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman. He writes of how the adventurous spirits and lust for land of these men (and countless, nameless others) helped create the country we know today. Morgan is the bestselling author of Gap Creek (an Oprah Book Club pick) and Daniel Boone: A Biography.
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