The Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center will continue hosting its free book club in 2018 on the second Friday of each month at 11:30 at the museum.
Participants are encouraged to bring a copy of the month’s chosen reading selection to participate in a casual discussion of themes, questions, and musings. Coffee and tea will be provided.
The books in the series span a range of titles and include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and prose and focus on themes related to western North Carolina and the whole of the Appalachian region.
December’s read is Bloodroot: Reflections on Time and Place by Appalachian Women Writers edited by Joyce Dyer. Kirkus reviews said, “A broad sampling of deeply impressive writings–essays, memoirs, poetry, letters, storiesby women from the Southern Highlands, edited by Dyer (In a Tangled Wood, not reviewed). If the word Appalachia conjures little more for you than mining disasters and Walker Evans photos, turn these pages and discover the remarkable storytelling tradition that flourished there, and thrives still. Every one of these 35 pieces goes down smooth as a glass of Georgia peach, even when it bites. A few of the names of the contributors will be familiarNikki Giovanni and Gail Godwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, whose offering is a terrific out-of-time remembrance of her hometown, circa 1962but most of the women here (all were born in the 20th century) have toiled long and hard, often in obscurity, their love of words keeping the storytelling art aliveand high art it is. Each writer was asked to address how the Appalachias had affected them (whites, African-Americans, and Native Americans are represented). There are good doses of the stubborn, rooted poetry of attachment by Kathryn Stripling Byer, Rita Sims Quillen, and others. Lou V.P. Crabtree, a certified old soul, tenders a stark, lyric portrait of Price Hollow; Hilda Downer’s depiction of Bandana“named for the red bandana Clinchfield Railroad tied to a laurel branch to denote an imaginary train station”is more sensuous. Denise Gardinia tells of losing her innocence to grammar, and Ellesa Clay High takes readers on a tour of her home patch through a “soft female rain that can last for days heresomething we share with Seattle and other places.” There are 26 others, each as deserving of mention as the next. This collection won the 1997 Appalachian Studies Award–likely hands down, and deservedly so.”
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