A little while ago, we posted a call for guest blogs about Gov. Winter in honor of the new biography, William F. Winter and the New Mississippi by Charles C. Bolton.  Almost immediately, an email appeared in my box from Dewitt Spencer in Vardaman, MS with this reminiscence of Gov. Winter.

Our great Vardaman friend Earl Gilder went to Jackson in the late 60’s, early 70’s and landed a job at the State Treasurer’s Office. On every occasion he was home, we heard about his boss William Winter, about what a great man he was both personally and professionally. Even though Mr. Winter was from neighboring Grenada County, and, I think, had relatives down around Big Creek in Calhoun, we’d never heard of him. I can’t remember when my wife, Zilla, and I first met Mr. Winter or even if it was Earl who introduced us. From the moment we met, however, we were staunch supporters and friends. What Mr. Winter would think became–and really still is–a standard by which we try to gauge our actions.

Even in those hard old days, Mr. Winter stood out as a “moderate” on issues, especially race. Moderate back then meant flaming liberal, and his stance gave us the courage to speak out too. He influenced a generation of young people for the right values and kept it up with succeeding generations. Our two daughters revere Mr. Winter as much as we.

What can you say about such a man? I’ve often thought of writing him and trying to express the thanks in my heart for what he’s done for our state and nation and for us—Zilla, our girls and me– but it never can be enough. What wonderful people he brought into government and public life: Dick Molpus, Ray Mabus and on and on. I’m also thinking now of the local people he influenced in government, politics, and business. What a difference they have made just in good ole Calhoun County!

Well, I can’t begin to sum him up, just in my little corner of Mississippi, but the thought that keeps coming to mind is a paraphrase of the poet’s: “Here is a Man.” It seems so trite and falls so far short of what should be said but “Thank you, Mr. Winter, from Dewitt and Zilla Spencer of Vardaman, and Leah Spencer of Pittsboro, North Carolina, and Morgan Spencer Cutturini of Oxford. Thank you, and we love you.”

Dewitt Spencer

Vardaman, MS

Gov. William Winter and Charles C. Bolton will be signing on October 9, 2013 at 5:00 pm and reading at 6:00 pm at Lemuria Bookstore.

If you would like write a guest blog on Gov Winter please click here.

The last couple weeks, I have been flying through books…literally. When it came time to write this blog, I thought I would share with you my latest flights of fancy:

Andrea Barrett’s newest novel, Archangel, is constructed of short stories spanning the late 19th and early 20th century, each a diorama of the scientific atmosphere.

Henrietta Akins, a small-town school teacher, enrolled in a natural-science course off the coast of Massachusetts, collects barnacles and sea anemones and is introduced to Darwin’s new theory of evolution. Constantine Boyd, visits his eccentric uncle for the summer–a scientist knee deep in evolutionary experiments. Blind catfish propagate the pond, cross-pollinated and grafted plants march through the orchard, and from the neighbor’s farm, an airplane buzzes and tries to catch flight. As the stories progress, science and invention rupture the known reality–what is known, and what could be known are only one discovery away.

Thor Hanson’s Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle couldn’t be more perfect to pair with Archangel. Hanson describes everything you could ever want to know about feathers: from the first fossilized record (it’s pretty rare for delicate feathers to survive the heat and pressure of fossilization) to how exactly they keepan animal in the air.

I have a customer to thank for introducing me to Beryl Markham’s wild life in West with the Night. It is the stuff of a good story–raised in Kenya by her father in the early 20th century, she hunted wild boar with a spear (as a child, I might add), trained racing horses, flew elephant hunting reconnaissance as an African bush pilot, and was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic East to West. West with the Night was so good, I don’t even care if she made it all up.

The memoir is not a tell-all (none of her affairs or marriages or even her son make an appearance) rather Markham carefully pieced together a finely wrought coming-of-age story of a girl in the last days of a wild Eastern Africa.

The newest collection of British poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry isn’t so much about bees, but about our own bee-ish nature. It is fair to say that there is a poem in here for everyone–a sonnet on an English examination in Shakespeare, a handful of haiku, and even bee Christmas carol. Carol Ann is beyond a doubt one of the wittiest poets–her lines always seem to have  a bit of a sting.

Here are my bees,
brazen, burs on paper,
bessotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps.

Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide,
gilded, glad, golden, thus–

wise–and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart,
and honey is art.

We’re so excited about Ree Drummond’s visit to the bookstore today!

Here’s everything you need to know.

At 5:00 Ree will sign her new kids book Charlie Goes to School in the bookstore. She will also sign any of her Pioneer Woman books which we also have for sale.

At about 5:30, she will read Charlie Goes to School in our Dot Com events building (adjacent to Banner Hall). You can also get your books signed after the reading/talk.

Triage is the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients. Especially in battle or disaster, victims are accorded priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors.

In 1998, I read and chose Scott Anderson’s first novel, Triage as our December First Edition’s Club choice. Scott’s fine novel dealt with war trauma in Kurdistan and the Spanish Civil War. Triage focuses on the way people rationalize wartime horrors and the affirmation of life that comes to those who can deal with the aftermath in an honest way.

In May 2013, I read Jeffrey Shaara’s novel,  A Chain of Thunder. (also a First Editions Club pick) About the seige of Vicksburg 150 years earlier, one of the most interesting aspects of Jeff’s book was the way he treated the practice of medicine in the Rebel hospitals trapped by Grant’s army.

With her new book, Sheri Fink, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, describes five hard days and the realities of triage during hurricane Katrina’s siege on New Orleans; New Orleans Memorial Medical Center became a hospital fighting for its life in the days after the storm.

Reading this book, I relived the decisions the nurses and doctors had to make. Fink explores the consequences of the life and death decisions on the doctors and nurses who are forced to make them. Dr. Anna Maria Pou, a specialist in cancer surgery, is a primary figure in Five Days. As a reader, I followed Pou through the days after the storm. The difficult situations she found herself in, and the decisions she made are related honestly and in real-life detail. I felt the emotions and stresses of her time. Other major hospital personalities are explored as chaos was breaking out in the disaster. Memorial’s nurses, staff, and doctors were challenged as their strengths and weaknesses came to the surface through their decision making.

After the five-day ordeal, Fink covers how the journalistic and legal systems interpreted the hospital’s process of providing adequate disaster healthcare. Triage became a major focal point. Five Days then delves into how the doctors and nurses handled the aftermath of their decisions. Fink explores a broad range of perspectives as she takes the trial and press of Pou through the courts. As a legal treatise, for me, a Mississippian, the format reminds me of reading Wilke’s House of Zeus. I suggest this study of a Katrina trial for the same reader.

This fine book on a challenging subject is good reading–a thought provoking study of a miserable time.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink, New York: Crown Publishers (September 2013)

I usually don’t like to write blogs about books that I haven’t finished yet but I feel really, really good about Moonrise by Cassandra King.  I read the description of the book and it really is spot on saying that Moonrise is a homage to Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier with a southern gothic twist.  It is a story of love, friendship, secrets, betrayal and forgiveness.

Helen Honeycutt and Emmett Justice meet in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida after both moving there to escape their pasts.  After a whirlwind romance they are married much to the shock of Emmett’s friends since his wife, Rosalyn, was killed in a car accident only months before.  Helen becomes fascinated with Emmett’s previous life and his group of friends especially the time that they spent in Highlands, North Carolina.  Rosalyn’s family home, “Moonrise”, is a mysterious house full of ghosts and secrets of the past, and Helen, after much cajoling, talks Emmett into spending the summer there.

Helen soon realizes that she will never fit in with Emmett’s “jet-set” friends and when she discovers a the truth about a secret of the past will her new found happiness soon come to a end.

I love how Cassandra King has structured the telling of this story.  Each chapter is written from the perspective of three different characters: Helen, the newcomer, Tansy, an old friend to Emmett and Rosalyn, and Willa, a property manager but insider to this group of friends.  Since the book is written this way the reader is given different perspectives as the story unfolds.  I highly recommend Moonrise for your next read and I have to sign off now so I can finish the book on my lunch break!

Cassandra King will be at Lemuria tonight, September 18, signing Moonrise at 5 pm and reading at 5:30.