Book Reviews

In A Window to Heaven: The Daring First Ascent of Denali: America’s Wildest Peak, Monteagle writer Patrick Dean chronicles the adventurous life of Hudson Stuck, a Sewanee graduate and Episcopal priest who was by turns a climber, cowboy, literature professor, master of the Iditarod, and above all an advocate for the rights and dignity of native Alaskans. On June 7, 1913, Stuck and a contentious team became the first climbers to successfully summit North America’s highest peak. Dean will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by the Sewanee School of Letters on March 4.

With his second book, The Spirit of Music — a follow-up to his 2008 debut, The Music Lesson — Victor L. Wooten updates the classic hero’s journey, casting himself and a band of fellow musicians into a dire contest to save the world from an insidious enemy out to destroy music.

Michael Eric Dyson’s Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America focuses on life, breath, and death, particularly regarding Black bodies. Dyson beatifies the slain and enjoins those newly “woke” to approach social justice work with humility.  

In Against the Current: Paddling Upstream on the Tennessee River, Maryville College professor and nature writer Kim Trevathan travels the length of the waterway a second time to discover “how the river had changed in twenty years, and how the passing of two decades had changed me.” Trevathan will discuss Against the Current at a virtual event hosted by Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on February 25.