Hank Hung The Moon And Warmed Our Cold Cold Hearts

Nationally syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s Hank Hung the Moon is more of a musical memoir than a biography: the author’s evocative and personal stories of 1950s and ’60s musical staples—elementary school rhythm bands, British Invasion rock concerts and tear-jerker movie musicals. It was a simpler time when Hank roamed the Earth; the book celebrates a world of 78 rpm records and 5-cent Cokes, with Hank providing the soundtrack and wisdom. A Cajun girl learns to understand English by listening to Hank on the radio. A Hank impersonator works by day at a prison but, by night, makes good use of his college degree in country music. Hank’s lost daughter, Jett, devotes her life to embracing the father she never knew. Finally, stories you haven’t heard a thousand times before about people who love Hank, some famous, most not. This lively little book uses Hank as metaphor for life. You’ll tap your toe and demand an encore.

Alabama joins Mississippi as fertile Deep South soil for the Noir Series. “The Good Thief” by Ravi Howard has been selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021! "A beautifully engineered anthology of 16 crime and mystery stories that are heavy on setting, atmosphere, and human emotion." --Mystery Scene "Each story springs from a particular place, actual streets, honkytonks or stomping grounds any Alabamian may have walked." --Tuscaloosa News One of the Southern Review of Book's Best Southern Books of April 2020 One of Alabama.com's 10 recent books with Alabama ties you'll want to read "Alabama Noir is known for its fertile deep-south perspective and encounters troubles and foibles galore as well as darkness in many forms." --Birmingham Times "Short fiction is alive and well in Alabama...There is not a single story unworthy of this collection infused with Alabama settings, and all readers will find tasty literary morsels to their liking." --Alabama Writers' Forum "If the darkness suits you, there's a new anthology to suit your shadowy heart...[Alabama Noir] holds 16 tales packed with sinister ambition, iniquity, revenge and the prices we pay for our schemes." --Lagniappe Weekly "Alabama Noir presents a group of stories diverse in their approach, their subject matter, their sub-genre, their influences, and their political perspective, and it can be fascinating to see how those varied influences intersect." --Another Chicago Magazine "Banish any boredom with a descent into Alabama Noir." --Southern Review of Books "The 16 tales in this entertaining Akashic noir anthology cover the entire state of Alabama...The flaws are few and far between, and as is so often the case for the series, each contributor consistently embraces the setting." --Publishers Weekly "Especially and unreservedly recommended." --Midwest Book Review Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct location within the geographic area of the book. Brand-new stories by: Ace Atkins, Tom Franklin, Anita Miller Garner, Suzanne Hudson, Kirk Curnutt, Wendy Reed, Carolyn Haines, Anthony Grooms, Michelle Richmond, Winston Groom, Ravi Howard, Thom Gossom Jr., Brad Watson, Daniel Wallace, D. Winston Brown, and Marlin Barton. From the introduction by Don Noble: Some locales seem to come with their own soundtrack. Don Ho and his tiny bubbles provide the background music for Hawaii, Edith Piaf for Paris. The reggae of Bob Marley evokes Jamaica. The soundtrack for Alabama is without question provided by our troubled troubadour Hank Williams. The 2016 biography Hank by Mark Ribowsky paints a dark picture of the musician's short, alcoholic, drug-filled life: a life of loneliness and pain. He goes so far as to call Hank's life story "noir-ish"... In Alabama Noir we encounter "troubles and foibles" galore, darkness in many forms. The stories range from the deadly grim to some that are actually mildly humorous. We see desperate behavior on the banks of the Tennessee River, in the neighborhoods of Birmingham, in the affluent suburbs of Mobile, in a cemetery in Montgomery, and even on the deceptively pleasant beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. Fans of noir should all find something to enjoy.

When Hank Williams died on New Year's Day 1953 at the age of twenty-nine, his passing appeared to bring an abrupt end to a saga of rags-to-riches success and anguished self-destruction. As it turned out, however, an equally gripping story was only just beginning, as Williams's meteoric rise to stardom, extraordinary musical achievements, turbulent personal life, and mysterious death all combined to make him an endlessly intriguing historical figure. For more than sixty years, an ever-lengthening parade of journalists, family and friends, musical contemporaries, biographers, historians and scholars, ordinary fans, and novelists have attempted to capture in words the man, the artist, and the legend. The Hank Williams Reader, the first book of its kind devoted to this giant of American music, collects more than sixty of the most compelling, insightful, and historically significant of these writings. Among them are many pieces that have never been reprinted or that are published here for the first time. The selections cover a broad assortment of themes and perspectives, ranging from heartfelt reminiscences by Williams's relatives and shocking tabloid exposés to thoughtful meditations by fellow artists and penetrating essays by prominent scholars and critics. Over time, writers have sought to explain Williams in a variety of ways, and in tracing these shifting interpretations, this anthology chronicles his cultural transfiguration from star-crossed hillbilly singer-songwriter to enduring American icon. The Hank Williams Reader also features a lengthy interpretive introduction and the most extensive bibliography of Williams-related writings ever published.

"By the 1850s Yancey was a key leader in the movement for disunion, proclaiming himself the defender and embodiment of the South. He defied Northern Democrats at their national nominating convention in 1860, rending the party and setting the stage for secession after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Selected to introduce Jefferson Davis in Montgomery as the president-elect of the Confederacy, Yancey went on to serve as the Confederacy's first diplomatic commissioner to England and France and then as a senator from Alabama before his death in 1863, just short of his forty-ninth birthday.".

"An unforgettable work of art."—The National Post Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man. Drawing on his great-grandfather's mystical gift of vision, Saul Indian Horse comes to recognize the influence of everyday magic on his own life. In this wise and moving novel, Richard Wagamese shares that gift of magic with readers as well.

A collection of dharma talks, Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains explores the life of passionate commitment that lies at the heart of the formal practice of Zen meditation. Reb Anderson draws on over thirty years of experience as a Zen priest, exploring Buddhist yoga and psychology and the relationship of wisdom and compassion to the personal, social, and ecological crises of our time. At once inspirational and practical, he bows to an ancient tradition as he helps us to forge a modern-day Buddhism that urges us "to sit still in the middle of all living beings."