Nonfiction

“In 2006, Hilary Williams, the 27-year-old daughter of Hank Williams Jr., and the granddaughter of country icon Hank Williams, was driving to her maternal grandfather’s funeral in Louisiana, when she and her younger sister, Holly, were in a terrible car crash along legendary Highway 61. Williams recalls the details of the moment that she reached down to change a song on her iPod—Patty Griffin’s ‘Tony,’ about a suicidal gay man—when their Toyota 4Runner skidded across the road and flipped over. Her sister was banged up, but Williams suffered the most severe damage: broken legs, ankle, back, collarbone, tailbone, pelvis, ribs as well as shattered hips. Worse, her heart stopped briefly before she could be revived again. This inspirational and sweetly written memoir recounts her many surgeries and her determination to get better. Although Williams also discusses the careers of her famous relatives, the brunt of the book is devoted to her long and arduous rehabilitation, and her triumphant return to the stage. Country-music fans will especially find it appealing.”

“Dunea is back with a celebration of a musical genre known for good ol’ down-home God-fearing folk: country. She’s assembled 50 musicians, both famous (Kenny Rogers) and obscure (Julianne Hough), in lavish full-color photo spreads. Though Dunea unfortunately asks the same questions of all involved, it’s still interesting to discover that Clint Black would have been an astronaut if he hadn’t gone into country, or that David Allen Coe doesn’t ‘believe in the God that you’re wanting me to think of,’ or that Rosanne Cash wishes she had written ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ Had Dunea included stories behind these basic responses, she may have combated the redundancy. There are also some glaring omissions, like Dolly Parton, Lyle Lovett, and Loretta Lynn. But a short list of each performer’s favorite songs almost makes up for the flaws (and Kris Kristofferson fans will be pleased to see how often ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’ appears).”

“MOTIF v2: COME WHAT MAY (an anthology of writings about CHANCE) is the second book in the MOTIF anthology series from publisher MotesBooks. Each piece in this collection uses CHANCE as a theme in works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and song lyrics. Contributors include Joseph Bathanti, Cathy Smith Bowers, Barbara Crooker, Randall Horton, Silas House, Marilyn Kallet, George Ella Lyon, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Michael McFee, Alan McMonagle, Jim Minick, Noel Smith, Frank X Walker and Dana Wildsmith. Reviewer Janice Eidus says: ‘With remarkable insight and intelligence, 136 talented writers across a broad spectrum of geography, generations and genres delve deeply into the meaning and nature of synchronicity, coincidence, luck, fate, bashert and kismet – and the very enigma of human existence.’ From reviewer Neela Vaswani: ‘Here are brief encounters that sprout generations; split seconds of ruin; sudden migrations, lust, and strife. These pieces remind us to cling to life’s lessons with grace and humor.’”

“In the late nineteenth century, black musicians in the lower Mississippi Valley, chafing under the social, legal, and economic restrictions of Jim Crow, responded with a new musical form–the blues. In Jim Crow’s Counterculture, R. A. Lawson offers a cultural history of blues musicians in the segregation era, explaining how by both accommodating and resisting Jim Crow life, blues musicians created a counterculture to incubate and nurture ideas of black individuality and citizenship. These individuals, Lawson shows, collectively demonstrate the African American struggle during the early twentieth century.”

“Those familiar with the film The Blind Side, or Michael Lewis’s best-selling book, will likely already know the inspiring story of how the Tuohys took future-NFL star Michael Oher into their home and adopted him. For anyone wondering what more there might be to say about it, the answer is: plenty. In a Heartbeat finds the Tuohys attempting to determine what it was that made them reach out to the homeless African-American boy they saw walking down the street in a t-shirt and shorts on a winter’s day. Leigh Anne and Sean had known tough times themselves and had put themselves on the lookout for troubled kids in need of help. As a white, southern, church-going family, they defy red-state/blue-state stereotypes (for instance, by sending their teen-age daughter to a seminar fostering racial and social justice); though Leigh Anne has been described as a ‘gun-toting Republican Christian,’ and admits to carrying weapons, she also claims to cross ‘party lines all the time.’ With Jenkins’s help they write with humor about their quirks and the joy that Michael brought to their family, finally arriving at the belief that ‘we can all change people’s lives by investing time in individuals.’”