Nonfiction

“America’s first blind professional fisherman, Mike Lorance, shares the intimate details of his amazing life, from the national acclaim he garnered for saving a family of four from drowning while he was a child to learning to cope with the personal and professional challenges of going blind. His successes and failures and eventual peace within his life are shared here in his own words.”

“A master wine writer at the top of his class… ‘Is Jay McInerney the world’s best wine writer?’ The Guardian asked recently. After reading his last collection of wine essays, I would have to argue that he is certainly the most entertaining.”

“Drawn mainly from the centennial anniversary symposium on James Agee held at the University of Tennessee in the fall of 2009, the essays of Agee at 100 are as diverse in topic and purpose as is Agee’s work itself. Often devalued during his life by those who thought his breadth a hindrance to greatness, Agee’s achievements as a poet, novelist, journalist, essayist, critic, documentarian, and screenwriter are now more fully recognized. With its use of previously unknown and recently recovered materials as well as established works, this groundbreaking new collection is a timely contribution to the resurgence of interest in Agee’s significance.”

“This book establishes that Horton Foote’s characters and themes come from Wharton, Texas, a region influenced more by the Deep South than the cowboy tradition of West Texas. But these interviews also establish that such stories are not place-specific. They are universal stories about going away and the eternal search of emotional and spiritual homes. Foote’s stories are revealed as reflecting the dislocation, loneliness, racial tension, and gender and class divisions of the United States.”

“Vigorously written, brave, and candid . . . a deeply moving, instructive account of embattled lives and loves striving for order in the face of a heartbreaking mental illness.”

“Creation Story explores parallels and intersections in the works of Dial and his fellow Alabamians, the remarkable quilters of Gee’s Bend. In the tradition of African American cemetery constructions and yard art, these artists harness the tactile properties and symbolic associations of cast-off materials in creating an art of profound beauty and evocative power. Produced against a backdrop of poverty and racism, these artworks have an appeal that crosses aesthetic, social, and geographical boundaries, earning them wide recognition as being among the most compelling art of our time.”