Have you ever begun reading a book to realize a few pages later than you already read it years ago? Do you remember if it’s worth re-reading or wish you had picked up something totally new?
Fiction or non-fiction readers sometimes keep a running list of book titles and/or authors. Sometimes that list is useful when shopping for more by a favorite author and for avoiding duplications.
Some readers write reviews to post online for benefitting the author and letting others know their thoughts about the books they read. Then some readers forget about a book as the last page turns.
Use this journal for keeping a list, also for recording a few thoughts about what you liked or disliked about each book. Use a page per book or more if you want.
Click any journal image to go directly to its Amazon page for ordering.
Meal Planning Journal
Easy Meal Planning 2 editions
Meal planning can be easy and fun, whether you like to cook or not. Use this journal to plan for a day or a week or to jump ahead with holiday or special event ideas.
Keep it handy for trips to the store so you will have notes of exactly what is needed for the coming days. The better you can plan a few days, or even weeks, in advance, the more likely you can reduce the number of trips to the store.
This is also helpful for planning what to do with leftovers, whether you want to freeze them for next week or repurpose them for another day. You won’t put something in the freezer or back of the fridge and let it be forgotten if you already have a plan for it.
Health Notes Journal
My Health Notes
This journal will be a helpful tool for keeping health and medical information all in one place.
Seniors or anyone undergoing surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or other ongoing treatments will need to keep track of appointments, medications and changing conditions.
Pregnant women and new parents often experience daily physical or emotional changes and frequent medical appointments.
Anyone can benefit from recording daily health conditions and even emotions. The healing power of writing can be useful for someone who doesn’t want to talk to a professional or even a friend about feelings and health issues.
Use a page or two a day or whenever you think of a question or learn something new as well as when you can express your thoughts or describe your health issues.
You might be surprised at how much it helps you daily, and then again at the end of a year or the end of a treatment routine when you can look back at your changing conditions.
Your journal will also be useful if you should need a caregiver to assist you in keeping track of appointments or medications.
Travel Notes Journal
Travel Notes
Use this journal first for your notes while planning a trip. It’s always helpful to have contacts and information in one place. Your advance research might reveal some sightseeing, shopping or dining which shouldn’t be missed.
Then use the journal during the trip itself to record a few details, memories or surprises. You will undoubtedly be shopping or eating at unexpected places or finding treats along the way. Saving a record of the good and the bad will help you when returning to the destination or when planning a different trip.
You might even meet people you want to remember, or you can start on ideas for the next trip.
Use a page for each trip or a page for each day, whatever works for you. It’s going to provide valuable information along with memories as you look back.
You can also use a section of this journal for your bucket list as you encounter ideas to be researched for your future travel.
Literary luncheons with exciting authors at area restaurants
For 25 years, the Moveable Feast has been held at area restaurants throughout the year on Fridays (and some Tuesdays), 11 AM-1 PM. The author’s presentation precedes the meal. For each Feast, the chef prepares an exquisite menu, typically unavailable during the restaurant’s public hours. Food allergies are accommodated with advance notice. Individuals, couples, friends, book clubs and other small groups are assigned table seating at four-, six- and eight-tops. Most Feasts are $35, with books available for purchase and signing at the event.*Exceptions are noted for additional venue, author or book-included costs. For reservations, 843.235.9600 or visit www.ClassAtPawleys.com.
April 1 ~ Karen White (The Shop on Royal Street) at 21 Main, NMB ($60 w/bk)
Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past—as well as new ones—in this first book in a spin-off series of Karen White’s New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels. After a difficult detour on her road to adulthood, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated when the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart. Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to—even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to do with ever again. Beau Ryan comes with his own dark past—a past that involves the disappearance of his sister and parents during Hurricane Katrina—and he’s connected to the unsolved murder of a woman who once lived in the old Creole cottage Nola is determined to make her own…whether the resident restless spirits agree or not.
Tuesday, April 5 ~ Sally Hepworth (The Younger Wife) at The Village House, Litchfield ($35)
(Sally will be joined by Emily Giffin, bestselling author of The Lies That Bind)
Stephen Aston is getting married again. The only problem is he’s still married to his first wife, even though she is in a care facility for dementia. But he’ll take care of that easily, by divorcing her—even if his adult daughters protest. Tully and Rachel Aston look upon Heather as nothing but an interloper. Heather is the same age as Rachel and even younger than Tully. Clearly she’s a golddigger and after their father’s money. Heather has secrets that she’s keeping close, and reasons of her own for wanting to marry Stephen. With their mother unable to speak for herself, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is. But will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses…in all of them? Author Hepworth is based in Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of seven books, most notably The Secrets of Midwives (2015) and The Good Sister, which won the 2021 adult crime novel Davitt Award.
April 8 ~ Kristy Woodson Harvey (The Wedding Veil) at Pawleys Plantation ($60 w/bk)
The New York Times bestselling author of Under the Southern Sky and the Peachtree Bluff series brings “her signature wit, charm, and heart” (Woman’s World) to this sweeping new novel following four women across generations, bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family. Present Day: Julia Baxter’s wedding veil, bequeathed to her great-grandmother by a mysterious woman on a train in the 1930s, has passed through generations of her family as a symbol of a happy marriage. But on the morning of her wedding day, something tells her that even the veil’s good luck isn’t enough to make her marriage last forever. Overwhelmed and panicked, she escapes to the Virgin Islands to clear her head. Meanwhile, her grandmother Babs is also feeling shaken. Still grieving the death of her beloved husband, she decides to move out of the house they once shared and into a retirement community. Though she hopes it’s a new beginning, she does not expect to run into an old flame, dredging up the same complicated emotions she felt a lifetime ago. 1914: Socialite Edith Vanderbilt is struggling to manage the luxurious Biltmore Estate after the untimely death of her cherished husband. With 250 rooms to oversee and an entire village dependent on her family to stay afloat, Edith is determined to uphold the Vanderbilt legacy—and prepare her free-spirited daughter Cornelia to inherit it—in spite of her family’s deteriorating financial situation. But Cornelia has dreams of her own. Asheville, North Carolina has always been her safe haven away from the prying eyes of the press, but as she explores more of the rapidly changing world around her, she’s torn between upholding tradition and pursuing the exciting future that lies beyond Biltmore’s gilded gates.
Tuesday, April 12 ~ Jane Green (Sister Stardust) at The Village House ($35)
Jane Green reimagines the life of troubled icon Talitha Getty in this transporting story from a forgotten chapter of the Swinging ’60s. Claire grew up in a small town, far from the glitz and glamour of London. On the cusp of adulthood, she yearns for the adventure and independence of a counterculture taking root across the world. When she’s offered the chance to start anew in Morocco, in a palace where famous artists and musicians—even the Rolling Stones—have been known to visit, she seizes the chance. Arriving in Marrakesh, she’s quickly swept up in a heady world of music, drugs and communal living. And Talitha Getty, socialite wife of a famous oil heir, seems to preside over the whole scene. As Claire is pulled into her orbit, the realities of Talitha’s precarious existence set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire’s life forever.
April 15 ~ Kimberly Brock (The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare) at Litchfield Country Club ($35)
What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured Commonplace Book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped. In the waning days of World War Two, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare. In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.
Tuesday, April 19 ~ Taylor Brown (Wingwalkers) at Ocean One ($35)
A former WWI ace pilot and his wingwalker wife barnstorm across Depression-era America, performing acts of aerial daring. Wingwalkers is one-part epic adventure, one-part love story, and, as is the signature for critically-acclaimed author Taylor Brown, one large part American history. The novel braids the adventures of Della and Zeno Marigold, a vagabond couple that funds their journey to the west coast in the middle of the Great Depression by performing death-defying aerial stunts from town to town, together with the life of the author (and thwarted fighter pilot) William Faulkner, whom the couple ultimately inspires during a dramatic air show―with unexpected consequences for all. Brown has taken a tantalizing tidbit from Faulkner’s real life―an evening’s chance encounter with two daredevils in New Orleans―and set it aloft in this fabulous novel. With scintillating prose and an action-packed plot, he has captured the true essence of a bygone era and shed a new light on the heart and motivations of one of America’s greatest authors.
April 22 ~ Kathleen West (Home or Away) at Kimbel’s, Wachesaw ($35)
Two friends, one Olympic dream, and the choice that stood in the way. Once Leigh and Susy were close friends and teammates bound for Olympic hockey gold, but when Leigh’s sure-fire plan to make the final roster backfired, she left everything behind to start over, including the one person who knew her secret. Two decades later, Leigh’s a successful investment banker, happily married, and the mom of a hockey prodigy, so when a career opportunity lands the family back in Minnesota, Leigh takes the shot for her kid. Back in the ultra-competitive world she left behind, the move puts her in Susy’s orbit, a daily reminder of how Leigh watched from the sidelines as her former teammate went on to Olympic glory.
April 29 ~ Ellery Adams (The Vanishing Type) at Litchfield Country Club ($35)
Bookstore owner Nora Pennington and the rest of the Secret, Book, and Scone Society must solve a murder as cold as the winter in a new mystery from New York Times bestselling author of 50 cozy mysteries. While January snow falls outside in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, Nora Pennington is encouraging customers to cozy up indoors with a good book. Even though the shop and her bibliotherapy sessions keep Nora busy during the day, her nights are a little too quiet—until Deputy Andrews pulls Nora into the sci-fi section and asks her to help him plan a wedding proposal. His bride-to-be, Hester, loves Little Women, and Nora sets to work arranging a special screening at the town’s new movie theater. But right before the deputy pops the question, Nora makes an unsettling discovery—someone has mutilated all her store’s copies of The Scarlet Letter, slicing angrily into the pages wherever Hester Prynne’s name is mentioned. The coincidence disturbs Nora, who’s one of the few in Miracle Springs who knows that Hester gave up a baby for adoption many years ago. Her family heaped shame on her, and Hester still feels so guilty that she hasn’t even told her future husband. But when a dead man is found on a hiking trail just outside town, carrying a rare book, the members of the Secret, Book, and Scone Society unearth a connection to Hester’s past. Someone is intent on bringing the past to light, and it’s not just Hester’s relationship at stake, but her life …
Jan. 14 ~ Diane Chamberlain (The Last House on the Street) at Pawleys Plantation ($35)
1965 – Growing up in the well-to-do town of Round Hill, North Carolina, Ellie Hockley was raised to be a certain type of proper Southern lady. Enrolled in college and all but engaged to a bank manager, Ellie isn’t as committed to her expected future as her family believes. She’s chosen to spend her summer break as a volunteer helping to register black voters. But as Ellie follows her ideals fighting for the civil rights of the marginalized, her scandalized parents scorn her efforts, and her neighbors reveal their prejudices. And when she loses her heart to a fellow volunteer, Ellie discovers the frightening true nature of the people living in Round Hill. 2010 – Architect Kayla Carter and her husband designed a beautiful house for themselves in Round Hill’s new development, Shadow Ridge Estates. It was supposed to be a home where they could raise their three-year-old daughter and grow old together. Instead, it’s the place where Kayla’s husband died in an accident―a fact known to a mysterious woman who warns Kayla against moving in. The woods and lake behind the property are reputed to be haunted, and the new home has been targeted by vandals leaving threatening notes. And Kayla’s neighbor Ellie Hockley is harboring long buried secrets about the dark history of the land where her house was built. Two women. Two stories. Both on a collision course with the truth—no matter what that truth may bring to light–in Diane Chamberlain’s riveting, powerful novel about the search for justice.
Jan. 21 ~ Kerri Maher (The Paris Bookseller) at Kimbel’s, Wachesaw ($35)
Discover the dramatic story of how a humble bookseller fought against incredible odds to bring one of the most important books of the 20th century to the world in this new novel from the author of The Girl in the White Gloves. When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the course of literature itself. Shakespeare and Company is more than a bookstore and lending library: Many of the most prominent writers of the Lost Generation, like Ernest Hemingway, consider it a second home. It’s where some of the most important literary friendships of the twentieth century are forged—none more so than the one between Irish writer James Joyce and Sylvia herself. When Joyce’s controversial novel Ulysses is banned, Beach takes a massive risk and publishes it under the auspices of Shakespeare and Company. But the success and notoriety of publishing the most infamous and influential book of the century comes with steep costs. The future of her beloved store itself is threatened when Ulysses’ success brings other publishers to woo Joyce away. Her most cherished relationships are put to the test as Paris is plunged deeper into the Depression and many expatriate friends return to America. As she faces painful personal and financial crises, Sylvia—a woman who has made it her mission to honor the life-changing impact of books—must decide what Shakespeare and Company truly means to her.
Jan. 28 ~ Fiona Davis (The Magnolia Palace) at Pawleys Plantation ($62 incl. book)
Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue, returns with a tantalizing novel about the secrets, betrayal, and murder within one of New York City’s most impressive Gilded Age mansions. Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, twenty-one-year-old Lillian Carter’s life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists’ models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge. But with her mother gone, a grieving Lillian is rudderless and desperate—the work has dried up and a looming scandal has left her entirely without a safe haven. So when she stumbles upon an employment opportunity at the Frick mansion—a building that, ironically, bears her own visage—Lillian jumps at the chance. But the longer she works as a private secretary to the imperious and demanding Helen Frick, the daughter and heiress of industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick, the more deeply her life gets intertwined with that of the family—pulling her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels, and family drama that runs so deep, the stakes just may be life or death. Nearly fifty years later, mod English model Veronica Weber has her own chance to make her career—and with it, earn the money she needs to support her family back home— within the walls of the former Frick residence, now converted into one of New York City’s most impressive museums. But when she—along with a charming intern/budding art curator named Joshua—is dismissed from the Vogue shoot taking place at the Frick Collection, she chances upon a series of hidden messages in the museum: messages that will lead her and Joshua on a hunt that could not only solve Veronica’s financial woes, but could finally reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder in the infamous Frick family.
For reservations, 843.235.9600 or visit www.ClassAtPawleys.com.
For 24 years, the Moveable Feast has been held at area restaurants throughout the year on Fridays (and some Tuesdays), 11 AM-1 PM. The author’s presentation precedes the meal. For each feast, the chef prepares an exquisite menu, typically unavailable during the restaurant’s public hours. Food allergies and Lent are accommodated with advance notice. Individuals, couples, friends, book clubs and other small groups are assigned table seating at four-, six- and eight-tops. Through 2021, most Feasts are $30, with books available for purchase and signing at the event. *Exceptions are noted when the book is included in the ticket. Beginning in 2022, each Moveable Feast is priced individually. The base price will be $35, however increased venue costs, book with ticket, and author fees will be accommodated.
For reservations, 843.235.9600 or visit www.ClassAtPawleys.com
Dec. 3 ~ Kevin Mitchell and David Shields (Taste the State: Signature Foods, Recipes and their Stories) at The Village House, Litchfield ($30)
From the influence of 1920s fashion on asparagus growers to an heirloom watermelon lost and found, Taste the State abounds with surprising stories from South Carolina’s singularly rich food tradition. Here, Kevin Mitchell and David S. Shields present engaging profiles of eighty-two of the state’s most distinctive ingredients, such as Carolina Gold rice, Sea Island White Flint corn, and the cone-shaped Charleston Wakefield cabbage, and signature dishes, such as shrimp and grits, chicken bog, okra soup, Frogmore stew, and crab rice. These portraits, illustrated with original photographs and historical drawings, provide origin stories and tales of kitchen creativity and agricultural innovation. Historical “receipts” and modern recipes, including Chef Mitchell’s distillation of traditions in Hoppin’ John fritters, okra and crab stew, are also provided. Kevin Mitchell is a 2020-21 SC Chef Ambassador and the first African-American instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston.
Tues, Dec. 7 ~ Roger Newman (Will O’ the Wisp: Madness, War & Recompense), Ocean One ($30)
Polarizing, fire-eating discourse, propaganda, and aversion to reason bred secession madness in Charleston, S.C. and sold rebellion to a population with virtually nothing to gain and everything to lose. Men who should have known better and had become inured to the abomination of human bondage failed to step up. As Southern nationalists raced into Civil War, blockade runner Jack Holmes and wealthy Charleston shipping magnate, George A. Trenholm, do what they can to sustain their city and the Confederacy. Their actions and experiences result in a sweeping adventure story played out on both the land and sea. With the outcome of the war obvious, Jack Holmes and George Trenholm conspire to steal the Confederate gold as Jefferson Davis flees a burning Richmond. The two men accept their responsibility for what proved to be a misguided and tragic rebellion and seek to adapt and redeem themselves in a post-slavery South.
For 24 years, the Moveable Feast has been held at area restaurants throughout the year on Fridays (and some Tuesdays), 11 AM-1 PM. The author’s presentation precedes the meal. For each feast, the chef prepares an exquisite menu, typically unavailable during the restaurant’s public hours. Food allergies and Lent are accommodated with advance notice. Individuals, couples, friends, book clubs and other small groups are assigned table seating at four-, six- and eight-tops. Through 2021, most Feasts are $30, with books available for purchase and signing at the event. *Exceptions are noted when the book is included in the ticket. Beginning in 2022, each Moveable Feast is priced individually. The base price will be $35, however increased venue costs, book with ticket, and author fees will be accommodated.
For reservations, 843.235.9600 or visit www.ClassAtPawleys.com.
Nov. 26 ~ Robert McAlister (Wooden Ships on Winyah Bay) at Caffe Piccolo ($30)
Local author (Pawleys Island: An Old Man’s Love Story) and wooden boat enthusiast (Cruising Through Life) “Mac” McAlister shares the epic history of Winyah Bay’s wooden boats, stretching back to 1526 when Spanish explorers sailed through the inlet and were greeted by Native Americans in dugout canoes. Spanning the beginnings of the legacy of rice and indigo plantations in the early 1700s to Lafayette’s landing at Winyah Bay in 1777, the book covers the end of the lumber boom from the end of the Civil War until the beginning of World War II when hundreds of wooden schooners loaded lumber in the Port of Georgetown and braved storms off Cape Hatteras to deliver cargo to northern cities, while fishermen fished the rivers and the bay in wooden dories, bateaux, and skiffs. Historic photographs, restored by Anne Swift Malarich, illustrate the fascinating history of the rare ecological treasure that is Winyah Bay.
Nov. 28, 1-4 PM: Book Signings at Pawleys Island Old Town Hall
The Waccamaw Neck Arts Alliance is holding a Christmas exhibit at the Old Town Hall, Nov. 19-29, 10 AM-3 PM daily, with terrific artwork by local artists at reasonable prices. The two Sundays will feature book signings with Tanya Ackerman (Chasing the Light and Seasons of Light), Marc Davison (Beach House Card Tricks and More …), Millie Doud (Caretta’s Great Adventure), Mac McAlister (Pawleys Island: An Old Man’s Love Story and Wooden Ships on Winyah Bay) and Billy Woodson (Waccamaw Gold).
Tuesday, Nov. 30, 5-7 PM: Special Dessert Party at Litchfield Books
Best-selling “Cake-Mix Doctor” Anne Byrn presents her newest baking book – New Take on Cake: 175 Beautiful, Doable Cake Mix Recipes for Bundts, Layers, Slabs, Loaves, Cookies, and More! Icing demonstrations, coffee, desserts, a book signing, and a presentation by the author. $5, purchase tickets ahead or at the door at Litchfield Books (11421 Ocean Hwy, in the Fresh Market Commons).
Friday, Dec. 3, Noon-4 PM: FOWL Holiday Book Sale at Waccamaw Library
Wonderful like-new holiday books, puzzles, cookbooks, coffee table books and children’s books. Noon-2 PM, Cindy Hedrick will be signing her books Tails from SC CARES and Love at First Sight. At 2:30 PM, join us for Story Time with Lee Brockington reading Caretta’s Great Adventure, written and illustrated by Millie Doud and published by CLASS LLC as a fundraiser for the Friends of Waccamaw Library. Books will be available for purchase ($15) and signing.
CLASS Publishing is pleased to announce the release of Faux Finished, a cozy mystery by Dawn Dixon, winner of Malice Domestic’s William F. Deeck Grant for Unpublished Writers. She’s written for local, regional and national publications for more than 20 years and worked as a communications specialist and financial editor in corporate America.
Faux Finished is her first novel. In it, decorative painter Bridget O’Brien is working late at the Magnolia Blossom Country Club when she hears noises in the dark deserted clubhouse. Investigating, she stumbles over a body in the men’s locker room. A business woman in Chapel Hill, N.C., Bridget’s neglected her family as she dealt with personal demons. But when her estranged teenage daughter confesses to the murder, Bridget finally gets her priorities. She charges into a wacky, reckless investigation to clear her daughter’s name. But is the child really innocent? Dodging police, Bridget blitzes through clues and suspects, managing to stay on the right side of the law … just.Despite family secrets frustrating her efforts, and bonding and redemption with loved ones almost out of reach, Bridget targets the killer amid the March Madness of a UNC-Duke basketball game. The teams battle. The crowd erupts. Is Bridget in over her head?
“Faux Finished delivers what makes a cozy mystery fun: interesting characters to spend time with, a peek behind the scenes of a decorative painter’s life, loads of true Southern zaniness during a college basketball season, and a puzzle worth solving,” writes author Cathy Pickens, winner of St. Martin’s Malice Domestic Award for Best Traditional Mystery.
Dixon claims Charlotte, N.C., as home, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as her own personal utopia, although she’s residing in South Carolina’s Lowcountry for the time being. Visit her website at www.DawnDixon.net.
The book will be featured at a Moveable Feast on Tuesday, Aug. 17, 11 AM-1 PM at The Village House in Litchfield. Tickets are $30 per person and include a presentation by the author followed by lunch catered by the Divine Group of Murrells Inlet.
Reservations may be made by calling 843.235.9600 or online at www.ClassAtPawleys.com. Books will be available at the event ($20) for signing, or in advance from Litchfield Books or the publisher at www.ClassAtPawleys.com.
Feb. 5 ~ Horace Mungin (Notes from 1619: A Poetic 400-Year Reflection) at Hot Fish Club
A writer and poet, born in South Carolina and raised in New York City, Horace Mungin has published two collections of poetry and several other books. He was a paratrooper with the 82nd airborne division and attended college at Fordham University in NYC. Mungin’s brave attempt to fight against the multiple manifestations of injustice imposed by the conscious erasure of African American history is in keeping with the best of contemporary African American literature. Like Daniel Black in his poetic and powerful novel, which deftly imagines the horrors of the Middle Passage, Mungin takes us back to the Cape Coast of Africa and tells the story of Khadija, “born to a time of trouble,” who was captured, imprisoned and carried on the last known slave ship, Clotilda “to look upon the world/That dark day of the/Darkest days in America.” And so it begins, the narrative journey that sweeps through these poems describing the African experience in America, “in this vacuum where there is no God.” In the pivotal poem “America,” Mungin lays it all out for us, echoing Langston Hughes’s famous poem: “Let’s start at the beginning – America/ Has never been America…..It was a mirage from the very/ Beginning – maybe even a deception, a hoax/A Myth and an elegantly grand dishonesty.” From the “hocus pocus” of the ways in which the Constitution did not apply to black people, to the failures of Reconstruction and all that follows, Mungin weaves our history together until the present day. This is a narrative we’ve never heard told in quite this way, and it provides a context and an understanding long missing from our national conversation.
Feb. 12 ~ Kathryn Smith and Kelly Durham (FDR’s Convention Conspiracy, A Missy LeHand Mystery) at Ocean One, Litchfield
When Presidential Secretary Missy LeHand receives a bombshell photo and attached note in the mail revealing the full nature of FDR’s disability, she knows trouble is brewing. And then another picture with the same message arrives, and another. With the Democratic National Convention just days away, President Roosevelt calls in FBI Special Agent Corey Wainwright to help with the investigation. Meanwhile, Hollywood reporter Joan Roswell has a new boss, a charismatic media mogul who sends her to Washington to procure an interview with the President about the exact nature of his disability. Are the two related? And what’s the end game here? Kathryn Smith and Kelly Durham deliver again – with a little help from Bette Davis – in this history-spiced mystery, their fourth in the Miss LeHand mystery series. You’ll remember Kathryn from prior Moveable Feasts featuring her biographies of Marguerite LeHand and Gertrude Legendre. *Feb. 19 ~ Susan Meissner (The Nature of Fragile Things) at Kimbel’s, Wachesaw ($58 incl. book) A mail-order bride desperate to get out of New York marries a mysterious San Francisco widower whose 5-year-old child does not speak, but her hastily cobbled-together happiness is forever changed by a massive earthquake that shakes up everything… 1905 – Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so anxious to get out of a Lower Manhattan tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin’s silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin’s odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn’t right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. Here is a novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity…
Feb. 26 ~ Carl DiLorenzo (How to Keep Your Faith) at Caffe Piccolo
Written for his children and grandchildren to prevent them from experiencing the confusion he felt about his own father’s religious beliefs, DiLorenzo’s memoir How to Keep Your Faith, When all Around You are Losing Theirs, is an honest recollection of his childhood growing up as an Italian and Catholic kid in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Documenting the hilarious and tragic events that made him believe in God one minute and doubt His existence the next, he examines the people and events that helped shape his faith and the valuable lessons learned from those on his block who were of different religious and ethnic backgrounds.
For 3 years, the Moveable Feast has been held at area restaurants throughout the year on Fridays (and some Tuesdays), 11 AM-1 PM. During the Covid-19 re-opening, we will be observing several precautions: half-capacity at the restaurants, social distancing, as well as masks required on entrance and through the author’s presentation and book signing. The presentation precedes the meal. For each feast, the chef prepares an exquisite menu, typically unavailable during the restaurant’s public hours. (Food allergies are accommodated with advance notice. Also, if you observe Lent, we need to know in advance.) Individuals, couples, friends, book clubs and other small groups are assigned table seating in fours and sixes. Most Feasts are $30, with books available for purchase and signing at the event. *Exceptions are noted when the book is included in the ticket. For reservations, 843.235.9600 or visit ClassAtPawleys.com.
For 23 years, the Moveable Feast has been held at area restaurants throughout the year on Fridays (and some Tuesdays), 11 AM-1 PM. During the Covid-19 re-opening, we will be observing several precautions: half-capacity at the restaurants, social distancing, as well as masks required on entrance and through the author’s presentation and book signing.
The presentation precedes the meal. For each feast, the chef prepares an exquisite menu, typically unavailable during the restaurant’s public hours. (Food allergies are accommodated with advance notice. Also, if you observe Lent, we need to know in advance.) Individuals, couples, friends, book clubs and other small groups are assigned table seating in fours and sixes. Most Feasts are $30, with books available for purchase and signing at the event. *Exceptions are noted when the book is included in the ticket. For reservations, 843.235.9600 or visit ClassAtPawleys.com.
Jan. 29 ~ Steve Schonveld (Front Row on Death Row) at Inlet Affairs A young middle-school vice principal is encouraged to join a prison volunteer program by the father of one of his students, an ex-con who has turned his life around. They arrive at South Carolina’s Lieber Correctional Institution, and with very little preparation, the author finds himself admitted as a visitor to Death Row. He begins having personal conversations with the condemned inmates, and over the course of six different visits and numerous frank discussions, finds his beliefs about the death penalty, incarceration, and indeed the human condition – changed forever. Born and raised in West Michigan, Steve moved to Charleston, S.C., to accept a teaching position upon graduation from Western Michigan University. He received his Master’s Degree from The Citadel. Currently, Steve is an Assistant Principal in the Charleston County School District and is active in the community.
Authors and publishers of International Show and Tell Liz and Charlie Mitchell have written two travel guidebooks: Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach.
Part of the Tourist Town Guides® series, published by Channel Lake, Inc., both guides offer honest, independent travel advice for visitors to South Carolina’s most popular tourist hotspots.
Myrtle Beach: A Guide to South Carolina’s Grand Strand (Channel Lake, Inc., $14.95) takes vacationers on a tour of the Grand Strand. Recommendations are offered for families, golfers, anglers and a wide range of vacationers. The book provides seasonal event information and tips for restaurant specialties, plus helpful advice for planning before and during the trip.
Hilton Head: A Guide to the South Carolina Lowcountry (Channel Lake, Inc., $14.95) explores Hilton Head Island and the Sea Islands of Beaufort County. The guide covers restaurants, hotels, golf, events and historic touring to help visitors decide what to see and do.
Both titles hit bookstores in May 2010. For more information about the books or to order visit Tourist Town or call the publisher Dirk Vanderwilt at Channel Lake at 800.592.1566.
The authors are available for media appearances, book signing and for speaking about the coastal destinations and their writing process. Contact the authors directly via their website: The Mitchell Group International.
