Books in Non Series series

Nancy Roberts's Southern Ghost Lore Revival--Exhumed and Improved for Fearless ReadersNancy Roberts has often been described to as the "First Lady of American Folklore" and the title is well deserved. Throughout her decades-long career, Roberts documented supernatural experiences and interviewed hundreds of people about their recollections of encounters with the supernatural. This nationally renowned writer began her undertaking in this ghostly realm as a freelance writer for the Charlotte Observer. Encouraged by Carl Sandburg, who enjoyed her stories and articles, Roberts wrote her first book in 1958. Aptly called a "custodian of the twilight zone" by Southern Living magazine, Roberts based her suspenseful stories on interviews and her rich knowledge of American folklore. Her stories were always rooted in history, which earned her a certificate of commendation from the American Association of State and Local History for her books on the Carolinas and Appalachia.

Discovered one sultry summer in an Atlanta basement full of sixty years' worth of accumulated debris, the writings of a young Margaret Mitchell reveal a prodigious and inspirational talent for such a young girl. The writer, who would later pen the best-selling book of all time after the Bible (and one that still sells more than 200,000 copies annually), was a precocious, imaginative, headstrong rebel and yet as distracted by everyday concerns about parental approval and social insecurities as any child. Nevertheless, as shown in the pages of Before Scarlett, Mitchell displayed an amazing talent through her writing of letters, journals, short stories, and one-act plays (later staged in her midtown Atlanta home). From westerns and shipwreck tales to stories of scalawags and musings on her best friends and boys, Mitchell demonstrated a finesse for challenging authority and striking out on her own―personality traits not surprising for the society debutante who was later rejected by the Junior League of Atlanta because of a racy dance she performed at one of their balls and the author who would later cope with the pressures of international fame measured against her personal philanthropic efforts for African American causes in racially divided Atlanta. Mitchell's is a story of youthful independence and talent. Fully illustrated with twenty-eight recently discovered writings, this collection is perfect for any young writer, or anyone interested in the early writings of one of America's most popular authors.

Nancy Roberts's Southern Ghost Lore Revival--Exhumed and Improved for Fearless ReadersNancy Roberts has often been described to as the "First Lady of American Folklore" and the title is well deserved. Throughout her decades-long career, Roberts documented supernatural experiences and interviewed hundreds of people about their recollections of encounters with the supernatural.This nationally renowned writer began her undertaking in this ghostly realm as a freelance writer for the Charlotte Observer. Encouraged by Carl Sandburg, who enjoyed her stories and articles, Roberts wrote her first book in 1958. Aptly called a "custodian of the twilight zone" by Southern Living magazine, Roberts based her suspenseful stories on interviews and her rich knowledge of American folklore. Her stories were always rooted in history, which earned her a certificate of commendation from the American Association of State and Local History for her books on the Carolinas and Appalachia.

The Spirit of an Activist chronicles the life and distinguished career of Isaiah DeQuincey Newman (1911-1985), a Protestant pastor, civil rights leader, and South Carolina statesman. Known as a tenacious advocate for racial equality, Newman was also renowned for his diplomatic skills when working with opponents and his advocacy of nonviolent protest over confrontation. His leadership and dedication to peaceful change played an important role in the dismantling of segregation in South Carolina. The thirteen narratives in this volume by such diverse contributors as Richard W. Riley, William Saunders, Esther Nell Witherspoon, and Donald L. Fowler attest to Newman's impact on South Carolina. Editor Sadye L. M. Logan orchestrates these many contributions into an informative, moving, and sometimes passionate collage of Newman's challenges, triumphs, and small and significant everyday acts of courage.Through this collection Logan takes the reader on an extraordinary journey from Newman's childhood in Darlington County, South Carolina, to his death at the age of seventy-four. Along that journey Newman led the state's African Americans to join the Democratic Party and was a delegate to several Democratic Presidential Conventions. In 1983 he became the first African American South Carolinian elected to the State Senate in nearly a century. The Spirit of an Activist is essentially biographical, but it uses a diverse chorus of voices to capture Newman's rich and varied contributions in transforming South Carolina's rigid and unjust social systems. His quiet dignity and appeals to reason won him the confidence, and ultimately the support, of key white political and economic leaders. In effect Newman served both as chief strategist for the protest movement and as chief negotiator at the conference table, becoming the "unofficial liaison" between South Carolina's African American citizens and the state's white power structure. In the years that followed formal desegregation, Newman remained active in politics and became a trusted confidant of state leaders, many of whom are featured in this volume. The Spirit of an Activist includes a foreword by attorney and civil rights activist Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., and a prologue by South Carolina congressman James E. Clyburn, both personal friends of Newman who worked with him during the civil rights struggle. ContributorsGloria Blackwell (Rackley)Tanya S. BriceMillicent E. BrownWallace Brown, Sr.James E. ClyburnG. Robert CookCarrie Crawford WashingtonDonald L. FowlerKaren Ross GrantVernon E. Jordan, Jr.Sadye L. M. LoganRobert E. McNairJosephine A. McRantJerome NobleMatthew J. Perry, Jr.Harrison ReardonRichard W. RileyWim RoefsAlex Sanders William "Bill" SaundersHiram Spain, Jr.James S. ThomasIsaac "Ike" W. WilliamsEsther Nell Knuckles Glymph Witherspoon

Part travelogue, part psychological self-study, Sam Pickering's Edinburgh Days, or Doing What I Want to Do is an open invitation to be led on a walking tour of Scotland's capital as well as through the labyrinth of the guide's swerving moods and memories. Along the way readers discern as much from Pickering's sensual observations of Scottish lives and landmarks as they do about what befalls the curious mind of an intellectual removed from the relations and responsibilities that otherwise delineate his days. Pickering spent the winter and spring of 2004 on a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, making his return to the city after a forty-year absence. Edinburgh Days maps the transition from his life in Connecticut, defined by family, academic appointments, and the recognition of neighbors and avid acolytes, to a temporary existence on foreign soil that is at once unsettlingly isolating and curiously liberating. Torn between labeling himself a tourist or a sojourner, Pickering opts to define himself as an "urban spelunker" and embarks on daily explorations of the city's museums, bookshops, pubs, antique stores, monuments, neighborhoods, and graveyards. His ambling tours include such recognizable sites as Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Castle Rock, the Museum of Childhood, the National Gallery, the Writers' Museum, the Museum of the People, the Huntly House, the John Knox House, the Royal Botanic Garden, and the Edinburgh Zoo. The holdings of city and university libraries present Pickering with the opportunity to revisit the works of a host of writers, both renowned and obscure, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Samuel Smiles, John Buchan, Tobias Wolfe, Russell Hoban, Patrick White, Hilaire Belloc, and Van Wyck Brooks. Freed from his default settings yet never willing to fully immerse himself in the surrounding culture, Pickering serves as an adventurous participant-observer, cataloging and collecting his Edinburgh experiences in the expansive curio shop of his mind while monitoring how his extended absence from home and family affects him. "I have long been a traveler in little things," he muses, and it is his fascination with minutiae that infuses this collection of essays with the dynamic descriptions, quirky observations, and jesting interludes that bring the historic city to life on the page and simultaneously recall the very best of Pickering's idiosyncratic style.

Nancy Roberts's Southern Ghost Lore Revival -- Exhumed and Improved for Fearless ReadersNancy Roberts has often been described to as the "First Lady of American Folklore" and the title is well deserved. Throughout her decades-long career, Roberts documented supernatural experiences and interviewed hundreds of people about their recollections of encounters with the supernatural. This nationally renowned writer began her undertaking in this ghostly realm as a freelance writer for the Charlotte Observer. Encouraged by Carl Sandburg, who enjoyed her stories and articles, Roberts wrote her first book in 1958. Aptly called a "custodian of the twilight zone" by Southern Living magazine, Roberts based her suspenseful stories on interviews and her rich knowledge of American folklore. Her stories were always rooted in history, which earned her a certificate of commendation from the American Association of State and Local History for her books on the Carolinas and Appalachia.

Once deemed the "custodian of the twilight zone" by Southern Living, celebrated storyteller and ghost hunter Nancy Roberts returns to familiar subject matter in this newly expanded edition of her Ghosts of the Wild West, a finalist for the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America in its original edition. In these seventeen ghostly tales-including five new stories-Roberts expertly guides readers through eerie encounters and harrowing hauntings across Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and the Dakotas. Along the way her accounts intersect with the lives (and afterlives) of legendary figures such as Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Doc Holliday. Roberts also justifies the fascination among ghost hunters, folklorists, and interested tourists with notoriously haunted locales such as Deadwood, Tombstone, and Abilene through her tales of paranormal legends linked to these gunslinger towns synonymous with violence and vice in Western lore. But not all of these encounters feature frightening specters or wandering souls. Roberts also details episodes of animal spirits, protective presences, and supernatural healings.

Harry Potter and Beyond explores J. K. Rowling's beloved best-selling series and its virtuoso reimagining of British literary traditions. Weaving together elements of fantasy, the school-story novel, detective fiction, allegory, and bildungsroman, the Harry Potter novels evade simplistic categorization as children's or fantasy literature. Because the Potter series both breaks new ground and adheres to longstanding narrative formulas, readers can enhance their enjoyment of these epic adventures by better understanding their place in literary history.Along with the seven foundational novels of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and Beyond assesses the extraordinary range of supplementary material concerning the young wizard and his allies, including the films of the books, the subsequent film series of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the theatrical spectacle Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and a range of other Potter-inspired narratives. Beyond the world of Potter, Pugh surveys Rowling's literary fiction The Casual Vacancy and her detective series featuring Cormoran Strike, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Through this comprehensive overview of Rowling's body of work, Pugh reveals the vast web of connections between yesteryear's stories and Rowling's vivid creations.