Author Spotlight: Nathaniel Philbrick

         Nathaniel Philbrick's latest book, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and his Legacy, is set to be released on September 14, and I've already pre-ordered my copy.  It seems to be a bit of a departure for him, but the description makes it sound like it's right up my alley: a historical travelogue. He and his wife setout in 2018 to follow routes traveled by George Washington as he navigated the unknown as first president of a brand new country and brand new form of government, one that had really never been tried before, successfully. Philbrick is one of my favorite writers, and I'm sure that this book will be insightful and very relevant for us in 2021.

    Philbrick is an award-winning and best-selling author of the narrative nonfiction genre, and he's written articles for numerous magazines. Born and living in New England, he has a true love of the sea and of sailing that comes through the pages of his books, but he writes about other topics as well, with the same skill.  I love his rich, detailed narrative style. It's dense, and it might require more attention than some other books, but it's always worth it. If you're interested in New England history, I highly recommend Mayflower, about the Pilgrims' voyage and settlement at Plymouth, and In the Heart of the Sea, the story of the whaler Essex, which was sunk by a whale, leaving the surviving crewmen drifting in a lifeboat and forced to result to cannibalism, inspiring Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.  For more info, his website is https://www.nathanielphilbrick.com/ .

  

 

Author Spotlight: Elie Wiesel

By Jeff Burns

Recently, the world mourned the passing of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel.  At age 16, Wiesel was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp.  His Romanian family perished in the Holocaust.  Wiesel survived and dedicated his life to educating the world about the Holocaust and to being a champion for the oppressed around the world.  He wrote 57 books over the course of his 87 years. Here are a few of my favorites, and I hope to re-read some of these soon.

Many of us are familiar with his first work, Night, published in 1960.  It is commonly read in high schools, and, if everyone had to read one book about the Holocaust, it would have to be this one.  Night is Wiesel’s memoir of his “life” in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Only about 120 pages, it is one of the heaviest books you will ever read. Many people do not know, however, that Night is the first work of a trilogy, and the other two books are just as powerful.  Dawn is the story of a young Holocaust survivor and Jewish guerilla fighting for independence in British Palestine.  Day centers on the death of a Holocaust survivor in New York City.  All three books poignantly explore life, death, guilt,  brutality, inhumanity, and humanity.

Wiesel’s two-volume memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea and And the Sea is Never Full, takes the reader from his childhood memories of his Romanian village through his career as spokesman for humanity.

The Gates of the Forest tells the story of a Jewish teenager who is the lone survivor of his family, wandering through caves, forests, and villages, seeking some sort of order or explanation. The Town Behind the Wall follows a Holocaust survivor as he returns to his home village in Hungary, now behind the Iron Curtain. As he finds himself imprisoned as a spy, he grapples with the bystander question:  what did the people of his village do as the Germans deported their Jewish neighbors to death camps? The Trial of God is a play, set in a Ukranian village in 1649 following a pogrom in which almost all of the Jewish residents had been murdered or driven from their homes.  A traveling group of actors arrives at an inn, and the Jewish innkeeper demands that they put God on trial for abandoning humanity.

Has God abandoned humanity?  How can God allow things like the Holocaust to happen?  How can human beings so cruel and brutal?  How can human beings stand by as brutality happens? How does humanity – and individual humans – survive such experiences?  How can such things be prevented?  These are all the questions that Wiesel addressed in his writing, and we would be hard pressed to find a better “spokesman for humanity.”

Author Spotlight: Rick Bragg

By Jeff Burns

Recently, the world of southern literature lost an icon when novelist Pat Conroy died.  Fortunately, there are others to pick up that banner, and I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite southern writers, Rick Bragg.  Bragg is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author who grew up in northeastern Alabama and has lived all over the South.  He is not a historian, but many of his books and articles are memoirs, stories of his family, his experiences, and his travels in the South. He is keenly perceptive and his stories are the stories of the South in the last half of the 20^th century.  He is a master storyteller, and his writing is entertaining and eloquent.  It resonates for me because I recognize many elements of his stories as similar to my family background, even though I grew up in small-town southeast Georgia. He is insightful and very humorous.  His stories are about the best of people, even when situations are not the best.

I’m currently listening to his latest, My Southern Journey: True Stories From the Heart of the South, a collection of essays written over a decade.  A plus is that Bragg reads the audiobook version himself, and that adds a whole new level of enjoyment.  The introduction hooked me from the start; it’s one of the finest pieces of writing about the South that I’ve ever read. 

 

I was first introduced to Bragg’s work by All Over But the Shoutin, published in 1998.  It is an inspiring story about growing up dirt-poor with an alcoholic father and a mother who worked hard in cotton fields and mills of Alabama to raise her sons and keep her family together. He followed up in 2002 with the story of his grandfather, Ava’s Man, the story of a moonshiner and hustler of the Great Depression.

The Prince of Frogtown was written for Bragg’s stepson, and it’s a memoir of his adolescence and especially his relationship with his father. It fits nicely as the third book of a trilogy, with Ava and Shoutin. The Most They Ever Had is a broader story but still set in his hometown of Jacksonville, Alabama. It’s the story of the community that was centered around the cotton mill that dominated the town for over a century. As the mill closes down, Bragg tells its story through in-depth profiles of the employees and families who worked there over the years.  It’s a fascinating story that is pretty much the same story as mill towns and factory towns across the country.  For a change of pace, I highly recommend Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, Bragg’s as-told-to biography of one of the greatest of rock and roll legends.  Bragg made a real connection with Lewis and allows him to truly tell his own incredible story.

Southerner or not, if you love great storytelling and great writing, I think you’ll love Rick Bragg’s works.

Author Spotlight: David O. Stewart

By Jeff Burns

David O. Stewart became a writer of history after a long legal career in Washington D.C., and his legal training and career provide an interesting perspective in his work.  His first book, The Summer of 1787, is about the tumultuous constitutional convention, and he was inspired to write it by a Supreme Court case he was working on.  His second book, Impeached, is about the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson and was inspired by a judicial impeachment case he worked on in 1989.  His third book, American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America, is about Burr’s alleged conspiracy to commit treason by creating his own personal empire in the Louisiana territory and the trial that resulted.

All three books were great sellers and accumulated praise and acclaim.  Summer was awarded the Washington Writing Prize for best book of 2007, and Stewart received the 2013 History Award of the Society of the Cincinnati as well.  In 2013, he released his first historical fiction novel, The Lincoln Deception, about the John Wilkes Booth Conspiracy.  His most recent book, Madison’s Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America is a unique biography of the fourth president, told in terms of five pivotal personal relationships, each of which was crucial in some way to the development of the United States.

Whether it’s the result of his own personality and interests or the result of his legal training and career, Stewart is not the typical historian.  His books are different and fresh, well worth checking out.

Author Spotlight: David McCullough

By Jeff Burns

David McCullough is one of the leading historians in America today, a multiple times winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history and the National Book Award.  He was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award that a civilian can receive.  He is also an accomplished narrator and lecturer.

His work includes highly acclaimed Presidential biographies Truman and John Adams, both Pulitzer Prize winners and both adapted into TV productions by HBO.  Mornings on Horseback is a fascinating account of seventeen years in the early life of Theodore Roosevelt.  1776 focuses on that pivotal year of independence and revolution, especially the life and leadership of George Washington.

However, he’s not just a presidential historian.  His most current book, just released recently, is   The Wright Brothers, which tells the story of the first flight with the same attention to detail that one expects from a McCullough book.   HBO and Tom Hanks just acquired the rights to produce a film based The Wright Brothers.   Other McCullough works include The Great Bridge, about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and The Path Between the Seas, about the building of the Panama Canal. The Greater Journey is the story of prominent 19^th century Americans who spent time in Paris and how that time affected and influenced their later achievements in life.   His first book is about one of the greatest natural disasters in American history, The Johnstown Flood.

 

For more information about McCullough’s books and short interview clips go to this site http://authors.simonandschuster.com/David-McCullough/938 .