North Carolina Bookwatch 2006-2007 (900) | UNC-TV

DG Martin interviews Pat Taylor - Fourth Down and Goal To Go

Part history and part autobiography, Fourth Down and Goal To Go is the humorous and telling narrative by North Carolina native Pat Taylor. A popular local storyteller, Taylor has recorded his life in the Old North State through tales that stretch back as far as the Great Depression.

Incorporating Southern humor and wit, Taylor’s accounts will spark laughter and recognition among any reader who grew up in the American South during the past seventy-five years. Reminiscing to a time when life was simpler, he elaborates on everyday details such as telephone party lines, ice wagons and milk delivery services. Still active in politics, law and academics, Taylor believes that studying our history is the key to a successful future.

DG Martin interviews Charles Frazier - Thirteen Moons

Like North Carolinian Charles Frazier’s memorable first novel, Cold Mountain-a romantic epic detailing a Civil War deserter’s homeward odyssey that won the 1997 National Book Award and inspired a haunting 2003 feature film- Frazier’s long-awaited second novel, Thirteen Moons is the story of one man’s remarkable life, spanning a century of relentless change. At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map and is sent on a journey through the wilderness to the edge of the Cherokee Nation, the uncharted white space on the map. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Will’s character. All the while, his love of Claire, the enigmatic and captivating charge of volatile and powerful Featherstone, will forever rule Will’s heart.

DG Martin interviews Lee Smith- On Agate Hill

It is 1872, Agate Hill, North Carolina. On her thirteenth birthday, Molly Petree peeps out the chink of a window from her secret hiding place up in the eaves of a tumbledown old plantation house to survey a world gone wild, all expectations overthrown, all order gone. “I know I am a spitfire and a burden,” she begins her diary. “I do not care. My family is a dead family, and this is not my home, for I am a refugee girl…but evil or good I will write it all down every true thing in black and white upon the page, for evil or good it is my own true life and I WILL have it. I will.” Carefully she places the diary in her treasured “box of phenomena” which will contain “letters, poems, songs, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and a large collection of bones, some human and some not” by the time it is found during a historic renovation project in 2003.

The contents of Molly’s box make up this extraordinary novel which chronicles her passionate, picaresque journey across” the whole curve of the earth” -through love, betrayal, motherhood, a murder trial---and finally back to Agate Hill to end her days under circumstances that even she could never have imagined.

DG Martin interviews Angela Davis-Gardner - Plum Wine .

Angela Davis-Gardner's novel Plum Wine features Barbara Jefferson, a young American teaching in Tokyo in the 1960s, is set on a life-changing quest when her Japanese surrogate mother, Michi, dies, leaving her a tansu of homemade plum wines wrapped in rice paper. Within the papers Barbara discovers writings in Japanese calligraphy that comprise a startling personal narrative. With the help of her translator, Seiji Okada, Barbara begins to unravel the mysteries of Michi's life, a story that begins in the early twentieth century and continues through World War II and its aftermath. As Barbara and Seiji translate the plum wine papers they form an intimate bond, with Michi a ghostly third in what becomes an increasingly uneasy triangle. Barbara is deeply affected by the revelation that Michi and Seiji are hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, and even harder for her to understand are the devastating psychological effects wrought by war.

DG Martin interviews Paul Leonard - Music of a Thousand Hammers-Inside Habitat for Humanity

In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, former Habitat for Humanity CEO Paul Leonard shares his book Music of a Thousand Hammers: Inside Habitat for Humanity. Part memoir, part history of Habitat, and part expose, the Davidson University graduate ’s work provides a glimpse into the shattered world of an organization built on a solid foundation of trust.

DG Martin interviews Mark Ethridge - Grievances

In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Charlotte resident and former Charlotte Observer reporter Mark Ethriddge shares his new novel Grievances —a story of newspapers, murder, and redemption— set in the rich scenery of a Savannah River town that time and justice have forgotten.

DG Martin interviews Art Chansky - Blue Blood

In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, veteran journalist and author Art Chansky details the colorful, revered, and respected rivalry. Chansky has seen every Duke-Carolina game since 1968 and now gives audiences the never-before-told story behind the story of a sporting challenge that has polarized the nation.

DG Martin interviews Will Blythe - To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever

What makes people invest their identities in what is elsewhere seen as "just a game"? What made North Carolina senator John Edwards risk alienating voters by telling a reporter, "I hate Duke basketball"? What makes people care so much? In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, author William Blythe explains that the answers have to do with class and culture in the South, and in his new book, To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry, he expands on the history of this epic grudge through an examination of family, loyalty, privilege, and truly Southern manners.

DG Martin interviews John Hart - King of Lies

In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, John Hart explains how he created a literary thriller that is as suspenseful as it is poignant—a riveting murder mystery layered beneath the southern drawl of a humble North Carolina lawyer. The Durham native who grew up in Salisbury, shares his mastery of prose and plot that belie his newcomer status. An illuminating anatomy of a murder and the ripple effect it produces within a family and a community, The King of Lies is a stunning debut, and now New York Times Bestseller, revealed in this one-on-one interview with the first-time author.

DG Martin interviews Sarah Dessen - Just Listen

In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Sarah Dessen shares this story of a year in the life of a family coming to terms with the imperfections beneath its perfect facade. During this special interview, the Chapel Hill native and University of North Carolina graduate reveals her unique perspective on the world of fiction for young adults and the local experiences that helped shape her latest best-selling work.