Drop us a message online at: staff@thepress-sentinel.com or visit our Web site at: www.thepress-sentinel.

com

Jesup, Georgia 31545

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

75

Five recommended after-supper reading snacks

My Opinion
MMM
If words packed calories, Id be in trouble. As many newspapers, magazines and books that I stuff into my diet, Id be a candidate for Fat Man at the Circus. If Im traveling, I usually opt for my Kindle or iPad, but what I like most is a stack of reading material within arms reach. My bedside table looks DINK like a triple tower of books. NeSMITH If I had to choose between ficChairman tion and non-fiction, Id skip the novelsmost of the time because I like history and real people. But a tasty novel is hard to beat, kind of like an irresistible dessertsay, a just-out-of-the-oven banana pudding. Evening is my favorite reading time. I have no must-see TV programs, so here are five recommended after-supper snacks: Cotton Tenants, Three Families By James Agee with photographs by Walker Evans When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he didnt end servitude down on the farm. Sharecropping, often with unscrupulous landowners, enslaved familiesblack and white. Times were desperate in 1936, and Agee chronicled the plight of three families in rural Alabama. The telling photographs of Walker Evans spoke volumes beyond Agees 30,000-word manuscript produced for Fortune. The magazine never published the article. But 50 years after Agees death, Cotton Tenants rolled off the press. Dont be surprised if these pages haunt you. The One, The Life and Music of James Brown By R.J. Smith My generation grew up listening to the Godfather of Soul scream and watching him shimmy. R.J. Smith proclaimed, Forget Elvis Presley. Forget Bob Dylan. Forget the Beatles. The most important musician of the 20th century was James Brown. Maybe. Maybe not. The Hardest Working Man in Show Business was complicated. James Brown did some dumb things, but he was no dummy. His influence swayed more than hips. Brown rose from an Augusta ghetto to be a force. Ignore his music, if you like. You cannot ignore his impact on music, politics and the civil rights movement. A Killing on Ring Jaw Bluff, The Great Recession and The Death of Small Town Georgia By William Rawlings When cotton was king in Georgia, Dr. William Rawlings hometown of Sanders-ville and its sister city, Tennille, were near the agricultural epicenter. Today, the small-town physician divides his time between medicine and writing. His latest novel weaves fact with fiction to create graphic insight into the devastation delivered by the boll weevil and the Great Recession of 1920-1921. Mansions sprung out of the red clay, just like cotton. I was enthralled by the parallel of then and nowthe rise and fall. Before the plunge, Washington County had 21 banks. Toss in greed and murder, and youll discover a Middle Georgia pageturner. One Summer, America, 1927 By Bill Bryson On Oct. 1, this book hit the stores. By bedtime, I was chomping into what happened that summer of my parents childhood. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs. Charles Lindbergh flew over the Atlantic to Paris. Mobster Al Capone broke into the big time. The unlikely Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray murder trial captivated America. President Calvin Coolidge appointed Herbert Hoover to oversee the relief efforts of the horrific Mississippi River flood, and that catapulted Hoover into the White House. Shipwreck Kelly sat on top of a flagpole for 12 days. Jack Dempsey knocked out Gene Tunney. And the list goes on. I couldnt put it down. By Walter Isaacson By most peoples standards, Steve Jobs was one weird, unwashed hippy and a genius who soaked his dirty bare feet in his employers toilets at Atari. Thats strange, but it didnt stop him and Steve Wozniak from creating a computer company that revolutionized the technology world. Isaacson, a former chairman of CNN, has also written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. One day, Ill add those to my stack. But for now, Im gorging myself on his 571 pages about the co-founder of Apple. When I turn the last page, I will feel like Ive just eaten an orchard of apples. But its good. Good enough to crank up my iPod and let James Brown wail, I feel good! dnesmith@cninewspapers.com Steve Jobs

If I had to choose between fiction and non-fiction, Id skip the novelsmost of the timebecause I like history and real people. But a tasty novel is hard to beat, kind of like an irresistible dessertsay, a just-out-of-the-oven banana pudding.