Okra Picks challenge ~ Nov 15, 2011 to March 31, 2012

Each season, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) selects a crop of Southern books to handsell, and those books are called Okra Picks.  Fall 2011 has a dozen books (listed below), so let's read us a batch of okra books, okay?

Details:

The Okra Picks challenge will run from November 15, 2011 through March 31, 2012, almost 20 weeks.  When you read any of the twelve books (listed below), write a review to share your thoughts with the rest of us.  Then click here and leave a comment with the link to the review (not your blog), and I'll post it in the list of reviews by each person.

Sign Up:

You can join this challenge at any time.  Just grab the Okra Picks logo above and write a post announcing your intention to participate in the challenge — you don’t need to pick specific books now.  Once you have posted your Okra Picks challenge introductory post, leave your name on my Taking the Challenge blog, along with a link directly to your introductory post (not just to your blog’s home page).  If you don’t have a blog, no problem — you can leave a comment there telling me you want to participate.

List of books:

The Ballad of Tom Dooley ~ by Sharyn McCrumb, 2011, fiction (North Carolina)

Laura Foster, a simple country girl, was murdered and her lover Tom Dula was hanged for the crime. With the help of historians, lawyers, and researchers, McCrumb visited the actual sites, studied the legal evidence, and uncovered a missing piece of the story that will shock those who think they already know what happened.

The Chamomile: A Novel of Revolutionary America ~ by Susan Craft, 2001, fiction (South Carolina)

Lilyan Cameron joins Patriot Spies in British occupied Charlestown, SC, to rescue her brother from a notorious prison ship.  She saves the life of one British officer and kills another to save her Cherokee friend.  In escaping bounty hunters, she treks 200 miles of wilderness and very nearly loses everthing before finaly reuniting with her true love.

Cold Glory ~ by B. Kent Anderson, 2011, fiction (Oklahoma)

When a page of a Civil War-era document is unearthed in Oklahoma, history professor Nick Journey is called in to evaluate the find — and is attacked by two men armed with Special Forces weapons.  Federal agent Meg Tolman's investigation into Journey's attack uncovers more questions than answers, and she soon joins his quest to recover and protect the missing pages.

Coming Up for Air ~ by Patti Callahan Henry, 2011, fiction (Alabama)

Ellie Calvin is caught in a dying marriage, and she knows it.  Everything changes after her controlling mother, Lillian, passes away.  At the funeral, she learns her ex-boyfriend is in charge of a documentary that involves Lillian.  Ellie doesn't want to face the questions until, going through her mother's things, she discovers a hidden diary — and a window onto stories buried long ago.

Drifting Into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River ~ by Janisse Ray, 2011, memoir (Georgia)

Janisse Ray was a babe in arms when a boat of her father's construction cracked open and went down in the Altamaha River.  Tucked in a life preserver, she washed onto a sandbar as the craft sank.  Thus began a relationship with a mighty river that almost nobody knows.  From childhood she dreamed of paddling its entire length to the sea.

The Happy Table of Eugene Walker: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink ~ edited by Don Goodman and Thomas Head, 2011, cookbook

Eugene Walter (1921-98) was a pioneering food writer and a champion of southern foodways and culture.  Read about vintage and artisanal drinks — from bourbon and juleps to champagne and punch — with a southern twist on America's culinary heritage. It includes more than 300 recipes featuring the use of spirits.

Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans ~ by Kadir Nelson, 2011, children's

Written in the voice of an unnamed narrator whose forebears came to this country on slave ships and who lived to cast her vote for the first African American president, this book touches on some of the great transformative events and small victories of that history.  Nelson used his grandmother as inspiration for the narrator, according to this video, to show that African Americans helped our country achieve its promise of liberty and justice — the true heart and soul of this nation.

The Hum and the Shiver ~ by Alex Bledsoe, 2011, fiction (Tennessee)

No one knows where the Tufa came from or how they ended up in the mountains of East Tennessee.  Dark-haired, enigmatic, they live quietly in the hills and valleys, their origins lost to history.  But clues are hidden in the songs passed down for generations.  Private Bronwyn Hyatt, a true daughter of the Tufa, has returned from Iraq, wounded in body and spirit, but her troubles are far from over.

Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion ~ by Robert Morgan, 2011, history

Thomas Jefferson, a naturalist and visionary, dreamed that the U.S. would stretch across the continent. The account of how that dream became reality unfolds in the stories of Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman, David Crockett, Sam Houston, James K. Polk, Winfield Scott, Kit Carson, Nicholas Trist, and John Quincy Adams.

Moonlight on Linoleum: A Daughter's Memoir ~ by Terry Helwig, 2011, memoir

Because of their troubled and very young mother, Helwig had to become an early and faithful caretaker to her five siblings at a young age.  Because of their stepfather’s roving job in the oil fields, they moved frequently from town to town in the American West.  The girls were often separated and left behind with relatives and never knew what their unstable mother would do next.

Waking ~ by Ron Rash, 2011, poetry

Rash leads his readers on a Southern odyssey, full of a terse wit and a sense of the narrative so authentic it will dazzle you.  As we wake inside these poems, we see rivers wild with trout, lightning storms, homemade churches, nailed and leaning against the side of a Tennessee mountain, a barn choked with curing tobacco, rockers that move over the same spot until they carve their names into the ground, deeper, even, into the roots where myths start, into the very marrow of the world.

You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool ~ by Celia Rivenbark, 2011, essays

From the bestselling, award-winning author of You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning comes another collection of hilarious observations that are sure to resonate with women, mothers, and girlfriends everywhere.  USA Today said, "Think Dave Barry from a female point-of-view."

List of participants:

1. Bonnie Jacobs @ Bonnie's Books
2. You're next!

Thanks to Kathy of Bermudaonion’s Weblog, who hosted this challenge in 2010.

The more of these books you read, the bigger and better the name you can call yourself.  We have four categories, using Southern terms.  Photos have been provided for those of you who don't speak Southern.

Levels of accomplishment:

Reading 1-3 books makes you a GOOBER

Reading 4-6 books makes you a TATER

Reading 7-9 books makes you a PEACH

Reading 10-12 books makes you OKRA, the quintessential Southern food, especially when fried.

Cross posted on my Taking the Challenge blog, where everyone's reviews will be shown in an easy-to-locate format.