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  Ghosts of the Carolinas

  Nancy Roberts

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  North and South Carolina are steeped in history—some of it supernatural. The “custodian of the twilight zone” shares their spookiest tales (Southern Living). 
   
  Nancy Roberts, known as the “First Lady of American Folklore,” is a topnotch storyteller and one of the few who both write and tell their own stories. For more than two decades, Ms. Roberts has documented ghost stories and interviewed hundreds of people throughout the United States. 
   
  A nationally known author of twenty-three books, Ms. Roberts began her career with a series of ghost stories written for The Charlotte Observer. Carl Sandburg sent her word that her stories were good, suggesting “they should be a book.” Since then her books have won her a certificate of commendation from the American Association for State and Local History and a nomination for the Great Western Writer’s Spur Award. 
   
  Ms. Roberts has a special love for encounters with Southern specters. A native of North Carolina, she grew up listening to the ghost stories of the Old South. In this collection of her favorites, Ms. Roberts tells of the phantoms who haunt the Carolinas and the people who have witnessed their appearances firsthand. 
   
  Praise for Nancy Roberts 
   
  “Just about everybody likes a good ghost story. And ghost hunter/author Nancy Roberts has put together as shivery a selection of other worldly tales as you’re likely to find anywhere . . . And whether you believe in ghosts or not, these tales are guaranteed to give you a chill, especially before you go into a dark room alone.” —Southern Living

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  The Haunted South - Where Ghosts...

  Nancy Roberts

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  The Old South comes to supernatural life in this classic collection of chilling tales from the “custodian of the twilight zone” (Southern Living). 
   
  Nancy Roberts, known as the “First Lady of American Folklore,” is a topnotch storyteller and one of the few who both write and tell their own stories. For more than two decades, Ms. Roberts has documented ghost stories and interviewed hundreds of people throughout the United States. 
   
  A nationally known author of twenty-three books, Ms. Roberts began her career with a series of ghost stories written for The Charlotte Observer. Carl Sandburg sent her word that her stories were good, suggesting “they should be a book.” Since then her books have won her a certificate of commendation from the American Association for State and Local History and a nomination for the Great Western Writer’s Spur Award. 
   
  The Haunted South includes tales about . . . An angel sighting in the North Carolina mountainsA poltergeist occurrence that drew trainloads of spectators to Jessup, GeorgiaA ghostly warning in Atlanta presaging a major plane crashA North Carolina tavern where unsuspecting travelers were murderedAn omen of death brought by South Carolina’s “Gray Lady”The apparition of an Alabama Railroad Robin HoodA ghost ship off North Carolina’s Outer Banks 
   
  Praise for Nancy Roberts 
   
  “Ghost hunter/author Nancy Roberts has put together as shivery a selection of other worldly tales as you’re likely to find anywhere . . . And whether you believe in ghosts or not, these tales are guaranteed to give you a chill, especially before you go into a dark room alone.” —Southern Living

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  This is London - Life and Death...

  Ben Judah

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  This is London in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers, witch doctors and sex workers.This is London in the voices of Arabs, Afghans, Nigerians, Poles, Romanians and Russians.This is London as you've never seen it before.

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  Land of Lincoln - Adventures in...

  Andrew Ferguson

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  “Brilliant . . . Ferguson’s guided tour of the often amusing, sometimes bizarre ways we remember Lincoln today . . . is heartening and even inspiring.” —Bill Kristol, Time   Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president and perhaps the most influential American who ever lived. But what is his place in our country today? In Land of Lincoln, Andrew Ferguson packs his bags and embarks on a journey to the heart of contemporary Lincoln Nation, where he encounters a world as funny as it is poignant, and a population as devoted as it is colorful.   In small-town Indiana, Ferguson drops in on the national conference of Lincoln presenters, 175 grown men who make their living (sort of) by impersonating their hero. He meets the premier collectors of Lincoln memorabilia, prized items of which include Lincoln’s chamber pot, locks of his hair, and pages from a boyhood schoolbook. He takes his wife and children on a trip across the long-defunct Lincoln Heritage Trail, a driving tour of landmarks from Lincoln’s life. This book is an entertaining, unexpected, and big-hearted celebration of Lincoln’s enduring influence on our country—and the people who help keep his spirit alive.   “A hilarious, offbeat tour of Lincoln shrines, statues, cabins and museums . . . Mr. Ferguson maps it expertly, with an understated Midwestern sense of humor that Lincoln, master of the funny story, would have been the first to appreciate.” —William Grimes, The New York Times

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  Never in a Hurry - Essays on...

  Naomi Shihab Nye

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  From the acclaimed poet and National Book Award finalist, “a sparkling book of travel and childhood: born on the bridge between two cultures” (Paulette Jiles, New York Times–bestselling author). 
   
  In Never in a Hurry the poet Naomi Shihab Nye resist the American inclination to “leave toward places when we barely had time enough to get there.” Instead she travels the world at an observant pace, talking to strangers and introducing readers to an endearing assemblage of eccentric neighbors, Filipina faith healers, dry-cleaning proprietors, and other quirky characters. 
   
  A Palestinian-American who lives in a Mexican-American neighborhood, Nye speaks for the mix of people and places that can be called the “American Experience.” From St. Louis, the symbolic “Gateway to the West,” she embarks on a westward migration to examine America, past and present, and to glimpse into the lives of its latest outsiders—illegal immigrants from Mexico and troubled inner-city children. 
   
  In other essays Nye ventures beyond North America’s bounds, telling of a year in her childhood spent in Palestine and of an adulthood filled with cross-cultural quests. Whether recounting the purchase of a car on the island of Oahu or a camel-back ride through India’s Thar Desert, Nye writes in wry, refreshing tones about themes that transcend borders and about the journey that remains the greatest of all—the journey from outside to in as the world enters each one of us, as we learn to see. 
   
  “The generous gift of a writer at the top of her form, a book jammed with vivid sights and pungent tastes and wonderful stories.” —Marion Winik, author of Above Us Only Sky

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  The Journey of Alvar Núñez...

  Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

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  Few stories of shipwreck and survival can equal that of the 16th century Spaniard Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who, cast ashore near present day (USA) Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1528, survived eight years of hand-to-mouth existence among the Indians of the South and Southwest, and who walked on foot across the plains to the Pacific Coast, arriving in Mexico in 1536. In 1542 he published an account of his adventures, and the present reading is based on Fanny Bandelier’s English translation of that text.Cabeza de Vaca, along with three other survivors, two Spaniards and a North African (Estévanico, a black slave) endured incredible hardships. Cabeza da Vaca was, himself, at first enslaved by the Indians, forced to dig roots with his bare hands for food. However, he soon showed powers of adaptation that allowed him to survive. He became a trader, bartering “seashells and cockles” from the coast for hides, red ochre, flint, and deer hair tassels from the inland tribes. “Trade suited me well,” he writes, “because it gave me liberty to go where I pleased.” The Indians “rejoiced greatly when seeing me and I would bring them what they needed, and those who did not know me would desire and endeavor to meet me for sake of my fame.” Cabeza de Vaca’s “fame” soon grew to include a reputation as a healer. In return for his “cures,” the Indians gave him “all that they had,” which included food, often in perilously short supply.The success of the survivors’ final overland treck in search of Spanish settlement reflected their comprehension of Indian customs and values. They were passed along from one tribe to another, accompanied by an ontourage of friendly natives. At each stop, Cabeza de Vaca saw to it that the food and presents he received were distributed to his followers by their chiefs, thus ensuring their loyalty.After eight years among the Indians, Cabeza de Vaca had a hard time adjusting to “civilization.” He writes that the Spanish governor in Mexico “received us very well, giving us what he had, for us to dress in; but for many days I could bear no clothing, nor could we sleep except on the bare floor.” His first person narrative is an exciting tale of survival “against the odds.”(Introduction by Sue Anderson)

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