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  A Palmetto Boy - Civil War–Era...

  Bobbie Swearingen Smith

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  These diaries and family letters reveals the experiences of Senator Benjamin Tillman’s brother as a Confederate captain during and after the Civil War. 
   
  Though the Tillman family of Edgefield, South Carolina, is important to Palmetto State history, James Adams Tillman never became a politician like his famous brothers Ben and George. Instead, at the age of twenty-four, James died from injuries sustained during the Civil War. Now, in this collection of diary entries and family letters, James’s story is finally told. Edited by Bobbie Swearingen Smith, this collection offers a significant historical record of the Civil War era as experienced by a member of this prominent South Carolina family. 
   
  At nineteen, Tillman enlisted with the Twenty-fourth South Carolina Volunteer Infantry of Edgefield. He served on the coastal defenses south of Charleston and fought in both battles of Secessionville, as well as at Chickamauga, where he was wounded. Under the command of General Johnston in Tennessee and North Carolina, Tillman retreated from General Sherman’s advance. At the war’s end, Tillman wrote about the onset of Reconstruction and those he saw as descending on South Carolina to profit from the defeated South. 
   
  A Palmetto Boy shares both the immediacy of Tillman’s thoughts from the war front and his contemplative expressions of those experiences for his family on the home front. Tillman’s personal narrative adds another layer to our understanding of the historical significance of the Tillman family and offers a compelling firsthand account of the motivations and actions of a young South Carolinian at war.

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  My Midsummer Morning:...

  Alastair Humphreys

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  A Financial Times Summer Book of 2019 
  Seasoned adventurer Alastair Humphreys pushes himself to his very limits – busking his way across Spain with a violin he can barely play. 
  In 1935 a young Englishman named Laurie Lee arrived in Spain. He had never been overseas; had hardly even left the quiet village he grew up in. His idea was to walk through the country, earning money for food by playing his violin in bars and plazas. 
  Nearly a century later, the book Laurie Lee wrote – As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – inspired Alastair Humphreys. It made him fall in love with Spain – the landscapes and the spirit – and with Laurie's style of travel. He travelled slow, lived simply, slept on hilltops, relished spontaneity, and loved conversations with the different people he met along the hot and dusty road. 
  For 15 years, Alastair dreamed of retracing Laurie Lee’s footsteps, but could never get past the hurdle of being distinctly unmusical. This year, he decided to go anyway. The journey was his most terrifying yet, risking failure and humiliation every day, and finding himself truly vulnerable to the rhythms of the road and of his own life. But along the way, he found humility, redemption and triumph. It was a very good adventure. 
  This biography is not just about a man and his violin, it's about the spirit of adventure that pushes us to explore beyond our comfort zones. Humphreys personal journey, filled with the music of strings and the rhythm of walking, is a testament to the human spirit. 
  For fans of Anna Mcnuff (Bedtime Adventure Stories for Grown Ups), Jenny Tough (SOLO), Charlie Walker (On Roads That Echo), Jenny Graham (Coffee First, Then the World), and Levison Wood (The Art of Exploration).

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  Not My Boy! - A Father a Son and...

  Danelle Morton, Rodney Peete

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  "Like most fathers, I'd dreamt of doing all sorts of things with my son. I had so many plans, but when I was told my son was autistic, those plans seemed more like a fantasy. Well, eight years after that dreadful diagnosis, I am writing this book to let every father know that your plans for you and your son can still be a reality. It's just the path that takes you there that has to be altered." 
   
  Autism affects four times as many boys as it does girls. For their fathers, expectations and hopes are drastically changed—NFL star Rodney Peete's were when his son R.J. was diagnosed at the age of three. After a period of anger and denial, an all-too-common reaction among fathers, Rodney joined his wife, Holly, in her efforts to help their son. With determination, love, and understanding, the family worked with R.J. to help him once again engage with the world. Eight challenging years later, R.J. has gone from the son one doctor warned would never say, "I love you," to a thriving, vibrant boy who scored his first soccer goal while his dad cheered from the sidelines.

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  27 Club The: The Lives and...

  Editors Charles River

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  It is rare in the world of music for a general consensus to form over who was the best at anything. Many would call The Beatles the greatest rock band, but it’s easy to find strongly opinionated dissenters. However, when it came to playing a guitar and laying the soundtrack for the psychedelic era, just about everyone agrees there was Jimi Hendrix and then there was everyone else. Anyone arguing otherwise either never heard his music or saw him perform. In fact, Jimi Hendrix is one of the few musicians known primarily for his sound and what he could do with a guitar than for his discography. A part of that is due to his untimely death and entry into the 27 Club, but it is also due to the fact that he was so revolutionary with the use of an electric guitar and so skilled at playing it that the effects have largely not been duplicated since.  
  The life and career of Janis Joplin marks such a stark departure from the blues, rock and soul traditions as American society has come to know them that her brief and tempestuous career defies artistic analysis, if only because there is so little precedent aside from the great African-American blues and jazz singers that influenced her. For a woman born in 1943 and coming into her professional prime in the 1960s, Joplin stood as a mesmerizing and baffling foil to the female tradition in non-classical music, which had previously been symbolized by pure, mellow voices singing thoughtful texts.  
  Jim Morrison accomplished just about everything by being extreme, in every sense of the word. His poetry was assaultive, blatant and graphic, a sign of the times, and his voice was mystical and haunting, lacking any sense of what was previously or typically considered vocal beauty. Whether intentional or not, Morrison also led the charge of excessive defiance toward anything hierarchical or rule-laden, and the acting out of his subconscious urges on public stages around the world surpassed all previous artists.

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  Michigan's Strychnine Saint -...

  Tobin T. Buhk

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  "A historically accurate picture of the characters involved in the complicated frontier-era poisoning investigation" (MLive.com). 
   
   
    
  The spring of 1903 proved disastrous for the Murphy family. On April 22, the infant Ruth Murphy died in her crib. Within an hour, her mother, Gertrude, experienced a violent spasm before she, too, died. Ten days later, John Murphy followed his wife and child to the grave after suffering from a crippling convulsion. While neighbors whispered about a curse and physicians feared a contagious disease, Kalkaska County sheriff John W. Creighton and prosecuting attorney Ernest C. Smith searched for answers. As they probed deeper into the suspicious deaths, they uncovered a wicked web of intrigue. And at the center stood a widow in a black taffeta dress.

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  For the Love of Books -...

  Elizabeth Lane, Thatcher Wine

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  Explore the significance of the home library, embellished with alluring photography and illustrations, in a keepsake worthy of any bibliophile’s collection. Instructive chapters provide useful details for creating and curating a home library, whether it be a single shelf or multiple rooms. You will never look at your bookshelves the same way again.

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