Briefly Noted | Chapter 16

The Slaw and the Slow Cooked: Culture and Barbecue in the Mid-South

Edited by James R. Veteto and Edward M. Maclin

Vanderbilt University Press
232 pages
$27.95

“The Slaw and the Slow-Cooked has far wider relevance than the Mid-South of its subtitle. Its contributors examine many aspects of America’s oldest Slow Food, from its primeval origins into the age of Twitter and Facebook. They treat their savory subject seriously, but not (thank the Lord) solemnly. You don’t have to be a barbecue nut to enjoy this book, but if you are one, you’ll be in hog heaven.”

— John Shelton Reed, co-author, Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue

The Slaw and the Slow Cooked: Culture and Barbecue in the Mid-South

Ghosts Behind the Sun: Splendor, Enigma & Death

Tav Falco

Creation
312 pages
$24.95

“This book is the bible of dixie-fried rockabilly psychosis and Memphis beat art underground true crime history myth – read it and scream for hell.”

— Bobby Gillespie, Primal Scream

Ghosts Behind the Sun: Splendor, Enigma & Death

The Portable Son

Barrett Hathcock

Aqueous Books
200 pages
$14

“The ghosts of the Old South are present throughout, even while the main characters’ struggles are distinctively contemporary. It’s all here, the awkwardness of reconnecting with childhood friends, the impossibility of integrating your youth with your adulthood, the longing for home when home is a time and not a place: Hathcock writes haunting, unforgettable stories.”

— Publishers Weekly

End of Summer

Michael Potts

WordCrafts Press
264 pages
$14.99

“A deeply moving and passionate book, Michael Potts’ End of Summer is a poignant literary novel about childhood and memory. This is contemporary Southern fiction at its best. In textured language and with heartfelt attention to detail, Potts’ nuanced portrayal of rural life in southern Appalachia and a young boy’s initial encounter with death reminds us that life at the economic margins can be culturally and spiritually rich, and that even as absences and losses sometimes damage us, these can also strengthen and redeem.”

— Michael Colonnese, Ph.D.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament

Edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

Oxford University Press, USA
700 pages
$35

“It is an admirable piece of scholarship. It provides a wealth of highly relevant context, enriching the cultural and literary as well as the theological and historical terms in which these writings of first-century Jews should be approached. The contributors are tactful and sophisticated in their treatment of antiquity and respectful of its mysteries.”

— Marilynne Robinson, Wall Street Journal

Georgia Democrats, The Civil Rights Movement, and the Shaping of The New South

Tim S.R. Boyd

University Press of Florida
288 pages
$74.95

“In this timely volume, Tim Boyd challenges one of the most prominent explanations for this shift: the ‘white backlash’ theory. Taking the political experience in Georgia as a case study, he makes a compelling argument that New South politics formed out of the factional differences within the state Democratic Party and not simply as a result of white reactions to the civil rights movement.”

— From the Publisher