The Articles

Eddy, Randy

Ideas Into Books: Westview

As an editor, Mark Kennedy allows the work of other writers to sing. He takes a wannabe wordsmith's messy piece and reshapes it with such subtlety that even a mediocre author can believe the melodious composition is her own. As a mentor, he shares long-honed craft secrets as if they were mere road directions. He teaches a rookie columnist how to hit the desirable self-deprecatory tone by likening the look of his own balding head to a skinless chicken breast. As the voice of Life Stories, he makes his audience care about his prose and his people. He pens the desperate plight of a trailer-park dweller's eviction, and cash donations come in the mail; he writes of his wife's unwitting embrace of a grocery-store stranger and readers recall similar gaffes, even as they guffaw. He describes an Alzheimer's victim with a flower on her nose and creates a poignant image of loss that comes with a curious saving levity. There's a reason Mark Kennedy wins all those awards. Just ask his supervisors, his staff or the newspaper subscribers who grab his weekly columns as if they weren't life stories, but life preservers. by Jan Galetta, Former Chattanooga Times Free Press Reporter and freelance writer

Life Stories

Parenting & Relationships

KENNEDY, MARK

Parenting

How Did I Get Here? the Root of the Matter

Jamieson, Shelley Palmer

Like a great number of young people growing up in the years between World War I and World War II, Robert Rogers Chaffin's father-in-law, George Lafever, had a difficult life. He was orphaned at a young age and took to the rails when still barely a teenager. Through pictures, letters, a life sketch, and remembrances of his entertaining stories, his unique life has been memorialized in this book, which includes the great northern migration during the nineteen-twenties and thirties as well as the greater story of the whole Upper Cumberland Region. In the trying days and hardships of the Great Depression, George Lafever and his generation were put through a trial by fire which refined their character as the furnace refines gold. The pure toughness and resolve of their generation proved the salvation of freedom and democracy in the anxiety filled days of the Second World War.

Ridin' the Blinds

History

Chaffin, Robert Rogers

Americas

Recipes and More from a Bygone Era is a remarkable find - a cookbook, history book, and pictorial record of turn-of-the-century American cullinary culture all in one.  Its one dated recipe handwritten in 1905, this amazing cookbook lay hidden inside an old breadbox until rediscovered by Betty Mac Kulaski almost a century later.  Found as she browsed through Junkie Johns Antique Store in a small town in southern Illinois, Betty Mac immediately realized what she had found.  Sitting on the dusty floor, turning each fragile page, she felt her heart grow warm.  "How I would have loved to have known this lady," she says now.  "With each hand cut page, I could feel the strong devotion, love for her family, and home.  The only thing better than finding this treasure is being able to share it."

Recipes and More from a Bygone Era

Kulaski, Betty MAC

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Sitting at her husband's gravesite, Joyce McIntosh's world has been turned upside down. Will she ever be able to make it on her own? Joyce must learn a new way of life; one she and her five children won't find enjoyable. Through the struggles of life, Joyce learns she must pull herself together and support her family. Trying to keep everything as normal as possible for the children, she learns the hard way that her church friends aren't what they once appeared. Or was she looking at them through an easy life's eye? All at once he walks into her life; now she must figure out what to do with this man. Does she want to go down the path of romantic relationship again? Can her heart belong to another after more than twenty years of marriage? Can she bury one man after a lifetime of loving him, and then fall for another so soon? Or will she stay in her comfort zone just enjoying the solitude of being a single mom. Joyce had always thought her faith in the Lord was strong, but through these trials she realizes she has much to learn about herself, and her God. You will love this romantic story of loving, losing, heartbreak, and loving again.

Storms, 2nd Edition

Reba Stanley

Thomas Jackson's book "From One Muse to Another" is filled with quips and quotes from the lighthearted to the profound, sure to inspire and entertain readers of all ages.  A perfect gift for everyone from the graduate to the grandparent, it is truly a gift from the Muses, those ancient sources of in-spiration who literally "breathed" insight, music and poetry into artists and creative minds receptive to their heavenly songs.

From One Muse to Another

Thomas C. Jackson

"As the number of surviving veterans of World War II dwindles, the appearance of new memoirs from participants in that conflict appears less likely. Fortunately, in 1989 Herschel Ponder, from Asheville, North Carolina, felt compelled to put pen to paper to inform his three daughters and grandchildren of his part in the greatest armed struggle of the twentieth century. A broad audience will welcome these well-written and fascinating recollections, which his family has agreed to share with others." Howard Davis Grier, PhD

Ponder Anew What the Almighty Can Do: A World War II Warrior's Story

Biographies & Memoirs

Ponder, Herschel D.

Kiefer, Robert

Leaders & Notable People

"As her fight wore on and her battling body wore down, I knew it was time to talk to her. I'd already told her it was okay if she wanted to die. But now I just wanted to tell her, one last time on Earth, what she meant to me, to us all ...while she could still hear me. So, I took a deep breath, thought about what I would say, or at least how I would start. And this monologue of memories and love just came spilling out..." What author Tim Ghianni said in that CCU unit during the next few hours, his mother's last few hours, is a sometimes funny, sometimes tear-filled and occasionally raw string of memories and anecdotes as he tells his mom how her wonderful life helped shape his own.

Shoebox Full of Toads: Farewell to Mom

Self-Help

Ghianni, Tim

Death & Grief

"What makes you happy? Perhaps one answer would be reading Sawdust and Turnip Greens where you will enter the world of Dr. Fleet's acerbic wit, laconic prose, and rapier sharp insights. Not only has Dr. Fleet done his best for his patients through four decades of practice, but he has done his best for his readers who will delightedly journey through Sawdust and Turnip Greens and hope that Dr. Fleet will publish even more of his tersely perceptive essays for future happy reading." Ann H. Price, MD FACP

Sawdust and Turnip Greens

Humor & Entertainment

Fleet, William F.

Humor

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