Short Takes

"Such scholars as Vincent Carretta, in PHILLIS WHEATLEY, find [Wheatley's] poetry more nuanced than her modern black critics have allowed. . . . Phillis Wheatley is a reminder that African-American literature began not as autobiography or protest but religious poetry, the literature of yearning. . . . We leave her, thirsting for the upper courts of the Lord."—Harper's Magazine

The Mobile Press-Register praises Harvey H. Jackson III's "robust and readable history" of the Redneck Riviera and proclaims that, "[i]f after finishing this beer-soaked and sand-whipped tour de force you don't find yourself heading to the beach, check your pulse."

Roy Hoffman, author of CHICKEN DREAMING CORN, has two pieces in the new issue of South Writ Large, UNC's global studies initiative in the Center for Southern Studies. The never-before-published essay, "The Unexpected South," follows an excerpt from CHICKEN DREAMING CORN.

In other news for Hoffman's CHICKEN DREAMING CORN, the novel is now available as an audiobook, in addition to the previously available e-book and paperback editions. The audiobook may be purchased on Amazon or the Audible website.

Don't miss the short interview on Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society with Lee L. Willis about his book SOUTHERN PROHIBITION. 

Science Magazine's Christopher Cokinos commends THE BIOREGIONAL IMAGINATION and its editors Tom Lynch, Cheryll Glotfelty, and Karla Armbruster for their "valuable contribution to the Venn diagram field of ecocriticism, where literature, science, and yes, activism can and should coexist."

Alan Duben hails Amy Mills for her book STREETS OF MEMORY in a recent South European Society and Politics: "It is striking that Mills, the foreign ethnographer, has managed to touch the soul of the city and the society at large, courageously confronting head on one of the most sensitive issues in Turkish society—the systematic bases of belonging and exclusion. . . .Mills's study will, I believe, be of poignant. . . interest to local readers with whom its themes will painfully reverberate as they now confront in other venues many of the very same issues she raises."

In the most recent issue of Environment and History, Michael Paolisso raves about Christine Keiner's work on THE OYSTER QUESTION: "THE OYSTER QUESTION is a must read for those of us who study the Chesapeake Bay and its oysters, for the watermen who will harvest oysters, and for watershed's citizens whose daily economic, political and cultural life choices affect the health of North American's largest estuary. . . . [O]ne of the best, recent books written on the Chesapeake Bay."

"Carefully researched and thoughtfully illustrated with 52 crisp black and white photos, THE WORLD OF THE SALT MARSH is a book for your keeper shelf."—Darien News