Suggested Reading
Mostly, these books are about, or take place in, the South. Although many are not specifically about our immediate area, they’ll still “take you home again.” Click on the book cover or title that interests you, and you’ll be sent to Amazon.com or some other venue, where you can learn more about it. Many titles are available in Kindle versions.
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Don Bailey Cliffside High School, the publication, is a brief history of Cliffside High School, the school. Included are lists of all faculty and all graduates, with brief profiles of selected administrators, faculty and alumni. |
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Joe Epley Without government orders or formal training, mountain and piedmont patriots join together with their own weapons and horses to expel a British led Loyalist army that plunders the western Carolina countryside, delivering harsh retribution to those supporting rebellion. A compelling novel by North Carolina’s own Joe Epley. |
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Barry Yelton The title of Barry Yelton’s Scarecrow in Gray is derived from the impression of the condition of the Confederate soldiers as described by a new [North Carolina] recruit, Francis Yelton, the author’s great-grandfather. The book is a personal, emotional tale of the new private’s adventures during the final year of the Civil War, in which the men were all so starved they looked like scarecrows. (From a reader review on Amazon.com.) Yelton, a Forest City native, married Judy Jackson, daughter of the late Clyde and Ruby Jackson. They currently live on Beason Road in Cliffside and attend Cliffside Baptist Church, where Barry serves as a deacon. |
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Anita Price Davis & James M. Walker Rutherford County in the Korean War Highlights the Korean War-era service and sacrifice of the people of Rutherford County. An intimate and revealing portrait of the strength of a community and the character of its people. Nearly 20 photos and write-ups of Cliffside men and women who served during the Korean conflict. |
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Fred First “Both down-to-earth and heartwarming, the Slow Road Home is just one of those books that enrich your experience as a reader… [The author is] a good companion, using his knowledge as a naturalist, his eye for a picture, and his decidedly poetic voice to point out all the small things one might otherwise miss, while spinning a yarn that captivates the imagination.” (A reader’s comment.) |
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Alfred Reno Bailey Cliffside: Portrait of A Carolina Mill Town Words and pictures portraying the gentle and loving nature of Cliffside and the generations of people who have called it home. Two hundred fourteen photos of the places and people of Cliffside from the earliest days to the 1980s. Photos of or references to over 400 of the town’s citizens. |
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Judson Mitcham Narrator Ellis Burt, the 74-year-old son of a poor white Georgia sharecropper, grew up during the Depression and served six years in the penitentiary while still a young man. Moving restlessly back and forth from time present to time past, he recalls his childhood, courtship and marriage, trying to sort out what brought him to the one awful moment when he fell hapless victim to his early social deprivation. |
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Anita Price Davis, James M. Walker Rutherford County in World War II, Vol. II A follow-up to Rutherford County in World War II continues to illustrate the tremendous contributions of a brave community to the World War II effort. Patriotic photographs, many of which were collected by the authors during personal interviews with local veterans and other dedicated residents, memorialize this proud county’s service and commitment to the war effort. You’ll recognize several of those included in the book: Glenn McKinney; Hollis Owens, Jr.; Dan Scruggs; Robert Condrey; Solon Smart; and others. |
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Pamela Duncan “Plant Life is an American classic…it presents a compelling and moving portrait of an entire community. In this case, it is the life of a cotton mill (in Russell, N. C.) and three generations of women who work there…Stark, poetic, funny, gritty, and intense, their stories will move you to tears and make you laugh at the same time. Never have the lives of Southern working women been so well documented, their stories so truly told.” —Lee Smith, novelist [Pamela Duncan was born in Asheville and raised in Black Mountain, Swannanoa, and Shelby, N.C. She holds a B.A. in journalism from UNC Chapel Hill and an M.A. in English and creative writing from NC State University in Raleigh.] |
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Anita Price Davis, James M. Walker Rutherford County in World War II Rutherford County gave generously and selflessly to World War II. Local men and women participated in every significant engagement of the war, in every imaginable capacity, in every branch of service. Several Cliffside men are represented in the book, among them Grover Haynes, Jr. and James Price. |
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Anita Price Davis North Carolina During The Great Depression Through interviews with survivors of the Depression, the use of photographs taken by federally supported photographers and research into the history of the period, this work provides an accurate and even uplifting portrait of the people of the Mountains, Piedmont and Coastal areas of North Carolina in the 1930s. |
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Martha Mason Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung A memoir by an extraordinary Lattimore, N.C. women who has spent over 50 years in an iron lung. Famous author Patricia Cornwell says: “I have long been inspired by the way [Martha] has lived so courageously and gracefully above the tragedy of her circumstances.” |
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Doug Marlette A Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist, Marlette has written a first novel based on tidbits of family lore, primarily concerning his grandmother Gracie Pickard, who was involved in the bloody Great Textile Strike of 1934. This work of oppression, rebellion, family tradition, love, and death sheds light on a little-known chapter of North Carolina history and contains just the right mix of humor and dignity. |
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Jacquelyn Dowd Hall (Editor) Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World Drawing on oral interviews and workers’ letters, the authors re-create the village world of the cotton mills of the Carolina Piedmont region from its beginnings in the 1880s until this distinctive cultural fabric began to unravel in the 1930s. |
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Anita Price Davis and Barry E. Hambright Images of America— Chimney Rock and Rutherford County Contains more than 225 photographs of Rutherford County—and features many Cliffside scenes and people. The book is organized by townships, and includes many photographs of each township. |
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Rick Bragg Bragg’s memoir of a hardscrabble Southern youth pays moving tribute to his indomitable mother and struggles to forgive his drunken father. |
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Rick Bragg Bragg’s heartfelt biography of his maternal grandfather, Charlie Bundrum. Marvelous stories collected from various relative are not just snapshots of a colorful character. They’re also the author’s tribute to an oral culture with tenacious roots and powerful significance in the American South. |
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Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods – Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail You’re treated to both a very funny personal memoir and a delightful chronicle of the trail, the people who created it, and the places it passes through. |
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Olive Ann Burns A novel full of warm humor and honesty as told by Willy Tweedy, a fourteen-year-old boy living in a small, turn-of-the-century Georgia town |
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Anita Price Davis Real Heros: Rutherford County Men Who Made the Supreme Sacrifice During World War II A total of 149 service men from Rutherford County sacrificed their lives beteen Dec. 7, 1941 and Dec. 31, 1945. The book is a tribute to them and to their sacrifice. Contains photos and news accounts of each man’s background, his passing and his survivors. [The author, Dr. Anita Price Davis, Professor of Education at Converse College, Spartanburg, S.C., is a native and resident of Ellenboro, N.C. She is the granddaughter of P.R. Price, well-known owner of the large general store that stood for decades at the intersection of Highways 74 and 120.] |
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Clyde Edgerton She had as much business keeping a stray dog as she had walking across Egypt–which not so incidentally is the title of her favorite hymn. She’s Mattie Rigsbee, an independent, strong-minded senior citizen, who at 78, might be slowing down just a bit. When young, delinquent Wesley Benfield drops in on her life, he is even less likely a companion than the stray dog. |
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Fannie Flagg Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Fannie Flagg mixes direct and empowering confrontations with racism, sexism, and ageism with the colorful and endearing language of the depression-era South and the cafe’s recipes for grits, collard greens, and, of course, fried green tomatoes. |
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George P. Reynolds (Editor), Susan Walker (Editor), Eliot Wigginton (Contributor) An oral history of the Depression-era South presents the voices of Appalachian citizens and discusses folk arts, homespun crafts, Appalachian lore, boarding houses, railroad building, and the WPA. |
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Kaye Carver Collins (Editor), Lacy Hunter (Editor) Celebrates the rituals and recipes of the Appalachian homeplace, including a one-hundred page section on herbal remedies, and segments about planting and growing a garden, preserving and pickling, smoking and salting, honey making, beekeeping, and fishing, as well as hundreds of firsthand narrative accounts from Appalachian community members. |
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Charles Frazier In the waning months of the Civil War, a wounded Confederate veteran named Inman gets up from his hospital bed and begins the long journey back to his home in the remote hills of North Carolina. |
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Kaye Gibbons When Blinking Jack Stokes met Ruby Pitt Woodrow, she was twenty and he was forty. She was the carefully raised daughter of Carolina gentry and he was a skinny tenant farmer who had never owned anything in his life. They didn’t fall in love so much as they simply found each other and held on for dear life. |
