Mississippi Guide Books

If Benjy's section is the most daringly experimental, Jason's is the most harrowing. "Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say," he begins, lacing into Caddy's illegitimate daughter, and then proceeds to hurl mud at blacks, Jews, his sacred Compson ancestors, his glamorous, promiscuous sister, his doomed brother Quentin, his ailing mother, and the long-suffering black servant Dilsey who holds the family together by sheer force of character.

Notoriously "difficult," The Sound and the Fury is actually one of Faulkner's more accessible works once you get past the abrupt, unannounced time shifts--and certainly the most powerful emotionally. Everything is here: the complex equilibrium of pre-civil rights race relations; the conflict between Yankee capitalism and Southern agrarian values; a meditation on time, consciousness, and Western philosophy. And all of it is rendered in prose so gorgeous it can take your breath away. Here, for instance, Quentin recalls an autumnal encounter back home with the old black possum hunter Uncle Louis:

And we'd sit in the dry leaves that whispered a little with the slow respiration of our waiting and with the slow breathing of the earth and the windless October, the rank smell of the lantern fouling the brittle air, listening to the dogs and to the echo of Louis' voice dying away. He never raised it, yet on a still night we have heard it from our front porch. When he called the dogs in he sounded just like the horn he carried slung on his shoulder and never used, but clearer, mellower, as though his voice were a part of darkness and silence, coiling out of it, coiling into it again. WhoOoooo. WhoOoooo. WhoOooooooooooooooo.

Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man's coming off age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America.

"Superb...The Library of America has insured that most of Wright's major texts are now available as he wanted them to be tread...Most important of all is the opportunity we now have to hear a great American writer speak with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives."
--Alfred Kazin, New York Time Book Review

"The publication of this new edition is not just an editorial innovation, it is a major event in American literary history."
--Andrew Delbanco, New Republic

As the Mississippi grows from its tiny source to a wide and powerful flow, Harris gains confidence as a canoeist, faith in his endeavor, and an understanding of his varying identity as an African American traveling alone from north to south in the United States. His exact and brilliantly revealing prose shows us how each bend in this mighty river turns itself within the paddler, how person and river are entwined--and who is in charge.

Gardeners seeking advice for a scorched section of yard or searching for plants that won t fail to bloom in half-a-day s sunlight will find the right advice in Southern Sun: A Plant Selection Guide from Jo Kellum, a native southerner and landscape expert.

Choosing plants wisely for southern sun can be tricky. Some plants thrive in morning light only to curl up and die when blazing western rays reach them. Kellum considers seasonality as well. Summer sunlight is by far hotter than winter sunshine. Some plants desire plenty of sun along with plenty of water these are the ones gardeners find crispy brown upon return from vacation. Still more sun-loving plants perish at the thought of too much water. Tags at garden centers certainly can t address all these issues. And because plants that can take heat but not humidity don t stand a chance in most southern gardens, recommendations from an expert familiar with that feeling of swimming through moisture-laden air abound in this book.

In Southern Sun, Kellum addresses all of these regional concerns and more. Two hundred of Kellum s own color photographs make choosing for plantings a pleasure. Though there are plenty of colorful perennials and annuals included, the book tackles the whole yard. Recommendations for trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and vines are here, as well as bedding plants. Southern Sun is user-friendly for the beginner and thorough enough for a professional. It makes an ideal guide to plant selection for any southerner looking to beautify those difficult sunny spots in the yard.