Press release from the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center:
The Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center will begin hosting a free book club once a month beginning Friday, February 10, 2017 at 11:30 am at the museum. The year-long series will continue every second Friday of the month. Participants are encouraged to bring along a bag lunch and a copy of the month’s chosen reading selection to participate in a casual discussion of themes, questions and musings. Coffee and tea will be provided.
The books in the series span a range of titles and include fiction, non-fiction, poetry and prose and focuses on themes related western North Carolina and the whole of the Appalachian region. Authors include Ron Rash, Sharyn McCrumb, Jim Wayne Miller, and more.
The first discussion will center on Corn From A Jar: Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains (Great Smoky Mountains Association 2013) by Daniel S. Pierce. Dr. Pierce is the NEH Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina Asheville where his work focuses primarily on the study of moonshining, NASCAR and the history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. SVM is excited to announce that Dr. Pierce will be joining us for this discussion and will be available to autograph books and serve as a moderator for our discussion.
Corn From A Jar is Pierce’s latest work following Real NASCAR: White Lighting, Red Clay and Big Bill France (UNC Press, 2010) and came directly as a result of his study of NASCAR. His goal for the work was to “humanize the moonshiner” and trace the development of moonshining in the mountains not as the practice of a handful of outlaws, but as an industrial business of what would become some of the region’s most well-known figures.
The club will meet at the Museum on the following dates:
Friday, Feb. 10 – Corn from a Jar: Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains, Daniel S. Pierce, 2013
Friday, March 10 – I am One of You Forever, Fred Chappell, 1987
Friday, Apr. 14 – The World Made Straight, Ron Rash, 2007
Friday, May 12- Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, Frank X. Walker, 2003
Friday, June 9 – A Land More Kind Than Home, Wiley Cash, 2012
Friday, July 14 – The Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter, 1976
Friday, Aug. 11 – The Ballad of Tom Dooley: A Ballad Novel, Sharon McCrumb, 2012
Friday, Sept. 15 – Creating the Land of the Sky: Tourism and Society in WNC, Richard D. Starnes, 2010
Friday, Oct. 13 – Nightwoods, Charles Frazier, 2012
Friday, Nov. 10 – Requiem by Fire, Wayne Caldwell, 2010
Friday, Dec. 15 – Every Leaf a Mirror: A Jim Wayne Miller Reader, 2014
Joining the club is free, and registration is preferred. You can register and find the full list of dates on the Museum’s website at www.swannanoavalleymuseum.org/calendar, by visiting the museum Facebook event page, or by calling the museum during their business hours Monday-Saturday 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
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