Books in the Country

Tom Maxwell "A Strange and Wonderful Time"

Kimberly Daniels Taws interviews Tom Maxwell in The Country Bookshop in front of a grou of attendees, talking about his book A Strange and Wonderful Time THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF THE THRIVING AND INFLUENTIAL ROCK SCENE IN CHAPEL HILL, WHICH GAVE THE WORLD ARTISTS LIKE BEN FOLDS FIVE, SUPERCHUNK, AND SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS. North Carolina has always produced extraordinary music of every description. But the indie rock boom of the late 1980s and early '90s brought the state most fully into the public consciousness, while the subsequent post-grunge free-for-all bestowed its greatest commercial successes. In addition to the creation of legacy label Merge Records and a slate of excellent indie bands like Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and Polvo, this was the decade when other North Carolina artists broke Billboard 's Top 200 and sold millions of records--several million of which were issued by another indie label based in Carrboro, Chapel Hill's smaller next-door neighbor. It's time to take a closer look at exactly what happened. A Really Strange and Wonderful Time features a representative cross section of what was being created in and around Chapel Hill between 1989 and 1999. In addition to the aforementioned indie bands, it documents--through firsthand accounts--other local notables like Ben Folds Five, Dillon Fence, Flat Duo Jets, Small, Southern Culture on the Skids, The Veldt, and Whiskeytown. At the same time, it describes the nurturing infrastructure which engendered and encouraged this marvelous diversity. In essence, A Really Strange and Wonderful Time is proof of the genius of community. OM MAXWELL is a writer and musician. A product of the fertile Chapel Hill music scene, he was a member of the Squirrel Nut Zippers from 1994 to 1999. Tom's song "Hell" peaked at Number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, propelling the band to multi-Platinum status. His songs have appeared in dozens of movies and television shows, a Super Bowl commercial, an Academy Award-nominated documentary, and a Tony Award-winning soundtrack. He has also scored for movies, television, and commercials. Maxwell's writing has appeared in Slate, Salon, Longreads, The Bitter Southerner, Our State Magazine, College Music Journal, Southern Cultures, The Oxford American, and The Library of Congress, among other places. He is a member of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

Sean Zak "Searching in St. Andrews: Finding the Meaning of Golf During the Game's Most Turbulent Summer"

When Sean Zak arrived in St. Andrews, Scotland—the mecca of golf—he was determined to spend his summer in search of the game's true essence. He found it everywhere—in the dirt, firm and proper, a sandy soil that you don't see in America. He found it in the people who inherited the game from their grandparents, who inherited it from their grandparents. He found it in the structures that prop up the game—cheap memberships and “private courses” that aren’t private at all. At every turn he also found LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed entity which descended on the professional circuit during that summer of the 150th Open Championship. Zak's personal personal pilgrimage now offered him a front-row seat at a cultural reckoning, one which pitted the game's longstanding customs against a divisive new force. Searching in St. Andrews is the vivid chronicle of an unforgettable sojourn in the birthplace of golf, informed by sublime mornings on the Old Course playing with just four clubs, evenings spent analyzing legal documents riddled with greed, and the singular characters he encountered along the way. Readers will meet a 92-year-old who just learned how to putt, explore the many differences between Golf Over There and Golf Over Here, and even experience caddying on the PGA Tour, from deciphering the yardage books to keeping your player on time to drinking until sunrise after you’ve missed the cut. Written with heartfelt curiosity and charm, this is an essential portrait of golf amid the crosswinds of tradition, progress, and power. https://www.thecountrybookshop.biz/book/9781637273326

Ward Clayton "The Legendary Caddies of Augusta National: Inside Stories from Golf's Greatest Stage"

Starting in the 1930s, the Black caddies of Augusta National walked the course with the world’s greatest golfers. Clayton's book tells their stories, forever entwined with the history of the game. They used nicknames like Stovepipe, Burnt Biscuits, Skillet, Skinny, and Marble Eye. They worked for presidents of the United States, captains of industry, and the greatest golfers in the world. Their real names were Carl Jackson, Willie Perteet, and Matthew Palmer—and they witnessed every great moment, both private and public, at Augusta National beginning in the1930s—from Gene Sarazen's "shot heard 'round the world" to Jack Nicklaus winning a record five of his six Masters. Read why Nicklaus said he wouldn’t trade caddie Willie “Pete” Peterson “for a million dollars” and what Willie “Cemetery” Perteet really thought of President Eisenhower’s golf game. The Black caddies of Augusta National also endured, in their own ways, the racist social order of the sport and at the same time participated, albeit vicariously, in its many thrills. Ward Clayton documents their stories—history as compelling as the game of golf itself. Ward Clayton has been in and around the game of golf since growing up blocks from Hillandale Golf Course, a public facility in Durham, North Carolina. He continued to pursue the game as a competitive amateur and newspaper writer. He was the sports editor of the Augusta Chronicle from 1991 to 2000 and was responsible for what Golf World magazine called "the best coverage of a golf tournament of any newspaper in the world." Ward has been the Director of Editorial Services for the PGA Tour, and his work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, The First Call, and elsewhere. He lives, writes, and plays golf in the Jacksonville, Florida, area. https://www.thecountrybookshop.biz/book/9781958888179

David Wright Faladé on "Black Cloud Rising"

The Country Bookshop welcomes David Wright Faladé to talk about his book "Black Cloud Rising." "Black Cloud Rising" is a historical novel that takes us back to an extraordinary moment when enslaved men and women were shedding their bonds and embracing freedom.

Daniel Wallace on "This Isn't Going to End Well"

If we're lucky, we all encounter at least one person whose life elevates and inspires our own. For acclaimed novelist Daniel Wallace, he had one hero and inspiration for so much of what followed: his longtime friend and brother-in-law William Nealy. Seemingly perfect, impossibly cool, William was James Dean, Clint Eastwood, and MacGyver all rolled into one, an acclaimed outdoorsman, a famous cartoonist, an accomplished author, and a master of all he undertook, William was the ideal that Daniel sought to emulate. But when William took his own life at age 48, Daniel was left first grieving, and then furious with the man who broke his and his sister's hearts. That anger led him to commit a grievous act of his own, a betrayal that took him down a dark path into the tortured recesses of William's past. Eventually, a new picture of William emerged, of a man with too many secrets and too much shame to bear. "This Isn't Going to End Well" is Daniel Wallace's first foray into nonfiction. Part love story, part true crime, part a desperate search for the self and how little we really can know another, This Isn't Going to End Well tells an intimate and moving story of what happens when we realize our heroes are human. Daniel Wallace is the author of six novels, including Big Fish, which was adapted and released as a movie and a Broadway musical. His novels have been translated into over three-dozen languages. His essays and interviews have been published in The Bitter Southerner, Garden & Gun, Poets & Writers and Our State magazine, where he was, for a short time, the barbecue critic. His short stories have appeared in over fifty magazines and periodicals. He was awarded the Harper Lee Award, given to a nationally recognized Alabama writer who has made a significant lifelong contribution to Alabama letters. He was inducted into the Alabama Literary Hall of Fame in 2022. He is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.