literature

Two fine novels for spring reading

Two novels, one a classic Western set in 1885 Nevada, the other centered on Barcelona and the aftermath of the Spanish Civil war, snagged my attention this past week. I was busy, but every time I caught a break, I was on the front porch, enjoying the May weather and turning the pages.

City Lights poetry reading

Benjamin Cutler will launch his new book of poetry, “Wild Silence,” at 6 p.m. Friday, May 31, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

Building a world beyond

Having just recently written a review for these pages of an anthology made up of multiple writers published in 2023 with a similar title that was edited by Ervin Laszlo, I am taking the liberty to review the much more singular and shorter primer that Laszlo wrote in 2022 prior to putting together his large anthology.

City Lights poetry reading

Poets Jane Hicks and Thomas Alan Holmes will present their latest book of poems, “The Safety of Small Things” and “In the Backhoe’s Shadow,” at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

Discounted preorder for Gary Carden’s memoir now available

Legendary Western North Carolina storyteller Gary Carden is at it again, this time, with a new memoir due out from UNC press later this year.

Good medicine and Mother’s Day — a book, a poem

All of us, to one extent or another, make our way through a world of unexamined phenomena.

It’s a complex world, and we generally glide through it without thinking too much of its parts and machinery. We all carry mini-computers in our pockets, but ask us to explain how we can look at the screen of our phone and read a newspaper from New Delhi, and the best most of us can do is shrug.

‘The Violent World of Broadus Miller’

Dr. Kevin Young will present his new book, “The Violent World of Broadus Miller: A Story of Murder, Lynch Mobs, and Judicial Punishment in the Carolinas” at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 5, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

The path toward a brighter future

Ervin Laszlo (Nobel Peace Prize nominee, science philosopher and founder of the Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research) and David Lorimer (chair of the Galileo Commission and editor of Paradigm Explorer) are the authors of the anthology “The Great Upshift” (Light On Light Press, 2023, 384 pages), a book that author Gregg Braden says “… reveals practical steps to awaken a heartfelt world based in love rather than a bleak future born of fear.”