Meet Ken Butcher, of Hendersonville, author of Middle of the Air, on Friday, October 9th at 7:00 p.m. for a reading and autographing. This is a great book that both Joyce and Allen have enjoyed, and we’re excited to present this new author to our customers. Says Allen: “A truck loaded with nuclear fuel for a secret government program vanishes without a trace from an I-40 truck stop near the Appalachian Trail; a diversely-talented multi-generational family (including a precocious five-year-old girl) is harassed on suspicion of terrorism – and what, if anything, does the staff of a downtown chocolate shop have to do with all this? Kenneth Butcher has written a marvelously skewed adventure full of characters good, evil, brilliant and incompetent, in a setting recognizable to anyone who lives around here. It’s a hoot from start to finish.”

City Lights will host a poetry reading with Cathy Smith Bowers on Friday, October 16th at 7:00 p.m. The reading is a special event organized by local poet Cherie Dorondo of Cullowhee. Bowers’ new collection is entitled The Candle I Hold Up to See You and has just been published by Iris Press. Bowers lives in South Carolina and teaches at Queens University in Charlotte and at Wofford College in Spartanburg.

For a link to Cathy Smith Bowers' poems, click here:

http://www.irisbooks.com/bowers/bowers_port.htm

William A. Hart, Jr., has hiked, camped, and fished in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 40 years. His new memoir, 3000 Miles in the Great Smokies, is a delightful compendium of his expereiences. Anybody who has hiked anywhere in the Park will find something familiar and appealing in these pages. The author will be at the store for a reading, discussion, and autographing on Saturday, October 17th at 7:00 p.m. 

We are delighted to announce that on Tuesday,
October 20th at 7:00 p.m., City Lights will launch
Horace
Kephart's long-lost novel, entitled Smoky
Mountain Magic. The evening's program will
feature Kephart's great-granddaughter, Libby Kephart
Hargrave, who worked to
bring the book to print 80 years after the manuscript
was completed, and
artist Elizabeth Ellison, who painted the scene on the
book's cover. (It's a beautiful piece of artwork, as you
would expect from Elizabeth, but she had to paint it
with her
left hand because her right was injured during the time
she had to work on the project!)
Horace Kephart, one of the "founding fathers" of the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
worked on Smoky Mountain Magic
from 1920 to 1929, when it was rejected by the
publisher to whom he had submitted it. The Great
Smoky Mountains Association
recently took on the project, and Smoky
Mountain Magic is now available.
Featuring an introduction by naturalist George Ellison,
the book is a story of
romance and adventure. While Kephart is well-known
for his nature writings and
role in helping to establish the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park, his
novel shows another facet of his many talents.
Bestselling novelist and WCU
professor Ron Rash has praised the book, calling in
"a remarkable and illuminating read."

As
George Ellison points out in his introduction, Kephart
was an excellent listener,
and in his time in the Hazel Creek community, he
listened to residents tell
about their lives. Both his ear for dialogue and his
appreciation for a good
story are revealed in the novel, which is set in Deep
Creek, near Bryson City.
The story features Cherokee lore, as well, and some
fantastical elements. too.
According to Ellison, "Creating a dreamscape is not
the sort of stylistic
device a reader familiar with Camping and
Woodcraft and Our Southern
Highlanders would have expected from Kephart,
not even in a novel." But at its
heart, Smoky Mountain Magic is a story
of both romance and adventure.

At our
Tuesday night program (October 20th), Hargrave will
talk about
bringing the manuscript to publication and will read
selections from it. She and Elizabeth Ellison
will also take questions from the audience. For more
information, please don't hesitate to call the store at
586-9499.

WCU geoscientist Rob Young and Duke environmental scientist Orrin Pilkey will be at the store on Friday, October 23rd at 7:00 p.m. for a program based on their new book, entitled The Rising Sea. The book, which was prominently featured in a recent Sylva Herald story, documents rising global sea levels and projects their impact for people around the world. The book, published by Island Press, is an accessible treatment of the subject, aimed at the general public. The authors’ program at City Lights will be based on their research for The Rising Sea and will incorporate a general discussion of global climate change and the challenges it poses for nations around the world.

Cleveland Jones will be at the store on Saturday, October 24th from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. to autograph his new novel, The Firescalds: Road to the Sky. The book is in part a fictionalized account of his family’s life growing up on a farm in Jackson County’s  Barker’s Creek community in the 1950s.
Mr. Jones will be available to talk with customers and autograph copies. This is a drop-in event, so please come anytime during the two hours he’ll be here, visiting from his current home in Virginia. 

Bestselling novelist Silas House returns to City Lights for a special weeknight event on Monday, October 26th at 7:00 p.m. to read from his new novel for young adults, entitled Eli the Good. The book is his first novel in five years, and House calls it his best. His previous books include bestsellers The Coal Tattoo, A Parchment of Leaves, and Clay’s Quilt.

His new book looks at the summer of 1976 through the eyes of a 10 -year-old boy whose world is framed by his father’s experience in Vietnam and by his complicated relationships with his family and his best friend. Like all of the best young adult literature, Eli the Good will appeal to adult readers, as well. Attending a reading by Silas House is always a pleasure, and we hope we’ll see you there. If you can’t attend but would like to reserve an autographed copy of the book, please give us a call at 586-9499.