The University of Alabama Press has just released its catalog of offerings in its fall issue and there’s plenty to choose from.
“Thirteen Loops” is an account of three lynchings in Alabama, written in a journalistic style and using primary sources of information such as rarely examined court documents, newspaper reports, and first-hand accounts to tell the stories.
Written by B. J. Hollars, “Thirteen Loops” tell the stories of the lynchings of Vaudine Maddox in 1933 in Tuscaloosa, Michael Donald in 1981 in Mobile and Sgt. Gene Ballard in Birmingham in 1979.
“Facing South” brings forth the stories of Alabama artists, with photographs from Jerry Siegel, who has been photographing Alabama artists for more than 15 years.
Essays on the artists are by Julian Cox and Dennis Harper.
Siegel’s uncle and namesake, Jerry Siegel, was one of the earliest collectors and promoters of Southern artists.
Artists profiled in the book include Kathryn Tucker Windham of Selma and Thornton Dial of Bessemer.
Alabama historian and Distinguished Professor of History for Auburn University Wayne Flynt’s “Keeping the Faith, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives” gives the account of the inner workings of his academic career along with his contributions to the general history of Alabama.
Flynt’s accounts are not “whitewashed,” but tell in a straightforward manner how some of Alabama’s institutions are manipulated and why its residents should care.
David Robertson tells the story of W.C. Handy in “The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues.”
Handy was the child of former slaves in rural Alabama, and was musically inspired by spirituals and folk songs.
He eventually found his place in Memphis, where he settled in 1905.
Robertson’s book tells the story of how the culture of the blues evolved and takes readers through a course in the history of American music.
With “The Other Movement,” historian and lecturer at Arizona State University Denise E. Bates tells of Indian rights and civil rights in the Deep South.
Her book examines the most visible outcome of the Southern Indian Rights Movement, state Indian Affairs Commissions.
Retired University of Alabama professor of English Ralph F. Voss brings “Truman Capote and the Legacy of ‘In Cold Blood,’” a look at Capote’s way of telling the story of the 1959 murders in Holcomb, Kansas.
Voss was a junior in high school in Plainview, Kansas when the murders of four members of the Herbert Clutter family were killed.
Voss looks at the way Capote manipulated facts, circumstances and style in his book and why certain details were told, and some weren’t.
W. Stuart Towns, professor and department chair for the Communications Studies Department at Southeast Missouri State University, studies the role of rhetoric and oratory in creating and propagating a “lost cause” public memory of the American South.
It analyzes rituals such as Confederate Memorial Day, Confederate veterans’ reunions, and dedications of Confederate monuments and how they have contributed to creating and sustaining a lost cause effect for Southern identity.
The fall selections also include “Butterflies of Alabama,” written by Alabamians Paulettte Haygood Ogard and photography by Sara Bright; “A Birder’s Guide to Alabama,” edited by John F. Porter Jr. with a foreward by Thomas A. Imhof.
Also this fall, is former Daily Home photographer David Haynes’ book, “Motorcyling Alabama,” which explores some of Alabama’s little known backroads and by ways.
Haynes’ adventures await for others to enjoy, taking readers on trips from the tops of the state’s Appalachian views to the edges of its white sandy beaches.
The collection also includes a new one from former Birmingham News sports writer Clyde Bolton, titled “Stop the Presses (So I Can Get Off).”
Bolton’s book relates his many entertaining stories from 40 years of sports writing.
For Alabama football fans, Winston Groom’s “The Crimson Tide” is the official illustrated history of Alabama football, and is a National Championship Edition.
Groom’s book received the 2011 Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year.
The fall catalog contains dozens of other books, too.
You may contact The University of Alabama Press online at www.uapress.ua.edu or orders may be placed by calling the UA Press office at 1-800-621-2736.
