New Appalachian Books

Abstract

NEW APPALACHIAN BOOKS by George Brosi * Abner, Vernon. Getting the Spirit. 96 pages. Berea, Kentucky: Kentucke Imprints, 1985. Trade paperback. $5.95. This is the wit and wisdom of a folk-writer from Jackson County in eastern Kentucky —the county which the Louisville Courier Journal recently ranked dead last in a survey of the quality of life in Kentucky's 120 counties. The book is divided into "Fiction," "Poetry," and "Philosophy" sections, giving the reader a wide range of Abner writings. This book is particularly important because so seldom does a person whose outward life is as ordinary as Abner's get a book published. Caldwell, John. Voyages of the Heart. 126 pages. Arlington, Virginia: Caldwell Publications, 1985. Hardback in dust jacket. $12.00. Caldwell was raised in the mountains of western Virginia and has now retired to his boyhood locale. Some of these poems have mountain settings while others reflect his thirty-year career as a submariner on the oceans of the world. Chapman, Jefferson. Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History. 136 pages. Knoxville, Tennessee: The Tennessee Valley Authority, 1985. 8'/2XlI paperback, illustrated, with index and bibliography. $8.95. "This book is an effort to convey to the nonprofessional reader some of the results and interpretations from 14 years of archaeology in the lower Little Tennessee River valley," states the author in the preface. Located just south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this valley is the cradle of Overhill Cherokee settlement, one of three major Cherokee settlements found when Europeans first explored the Appalachian South. The archaeological excavations were done during many wellpublicized delays in the construction of TVA's Tellico Dam, including the delays caused by litigation against the Dam on the grounds that the Little Tennessee was the only remaining habitat for the endangered snail darter fish. * George Brosi owns and operates the Appalachian Bookstore in Berea and publishes the bi-monthly Appalachian Mountain Books. He also sells books through mail orders to clients in all parts of the country. If readers need more information about any of the above listings, write him at 123 Walnut Street, Berea, Kentucky 40403 75 Chappell, Fred. Source. 64 pages. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. Hardback in dust jacket: $13.95. Trade paperback. $6.95. "The joint award of this year's Bollingen Prize in Poetry to John Ashbery and Fred Chappell came as a happy surprise to admirers of Chappell's Midouest. . . In this new collection of lyrics, Chappell is freed of the exigencies of framework, and his powers seem to have responded with ever greater enthusiasm... The peculiarly rich Chappell diction, combining strictly poetic language with country dialect, is more effective than ever. Even with a masterpiece behind him, Chappell has not exhausted his gifts, as these virtuoso songs, prayers, elegies and fables prove."—Publishers Weekly. Chappell, a native of Canton, North Carolina, teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Classroom All Around Us. Museum/School Partnership of East Tennessee. 35 pages. Publisher not stated, but known to be the Children's Museum of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1985. d'/???? paperback, illustrated. $1.25. This attractive book uses each of its 35 pages to feature a picture and text about an outstanding educational site in East Tennessee set up to receive school field trips. From newspapers to state parks to historic sites to John Rice Irwin's inimitable Museum of Appalachia, the featured field trip "classrooms" represent a wide variety of experiences. Davis, Ed. Appalachian Day. 16 pages. Richford, Vermont: Samisdat, 1985. Trade paperback. $1.00. The author writes that he was "born and raised in Princeton, West Virginia, a small town at the end of the infamous West Virginia Turnpike," and left the state eight years ago to become a college teacher in Dayton, Ohio. This is his first poetry chapbook . Farr, Sidney Saylor. More Than Moonshine: Appalachian Recipes and Recollections . 221 pages with an index. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: The University of Pittsburgh Press, a 1985 re-print of a 1983 release. Hardback in dust jacket. $14.95. Trade paperback. $6.95. This book consists of recollections of growing up in the 1940s in an isolated section of...