AMERICUS — OK, OK. So I did backslide a few times during 2012, which I had pledged would be “The Year of Non-Fiction” in my personal reading life. But I’m not any more perfect that any other human. And I really don’t believe I need to apologize for reading a few works of fiction. It is far better to read that to overdrink, overeat, smoke or break the law. Reading is a worthy pursuit!

Here are the works of fiction I read between the other non-fiction books during 2012.

• “Margaret’s Story” — Eugenia Price — Bantam — 1982

• “Maria” — Eugenia Price — Bantam — 1978

• “Don Juan McQueen” — Eugenia Price — Thorndike Press — 1993

All three of these books were intermingled along with lots of other good reads in the Americus Times-Recorder’s Perpetual Book Sale available in the front lobby where paperbacks are half a dollar and hard covers are a buck each. Thesethree  books compose Price’s Florida Trilogy.

I can’t resist a Eugenia Price book. Her writing is so beautiful and evokes her love for the Georgia Coast as well as all of the south. Historical in nature, her books tell the stories of real people and are well researched and make for compelling reading.

• “Beauty from Ashes” — Eugenia Price —Doubleday — 1995

This wonderful door-stopper of a book, weighing in at 600 pages-plus, was a gift to me from one of my favorite people, Dr. Robert Waller. Doc and his wife knew Price and have read her books as well. Doc says he loves to read my book columns and immediately thought of me when he and his wife were purging their household of some books, etc.

What a treasure and what a sweet gift from Dr. Waller, who I believe is one of biggest fans.

This book is the last in Price’s Georgia Trilogy. Not only is it an interesting story that takes place before, during and after the Civil War, this was Price’s last book. She died on May 28, 1996, and is buried in Christ Church, Frederica cemetery where she was inspired to research the lives of the people whose gravestones she read back in the early 1950s.

So now, back to non-fiction books I read during 2012.

• “Save the Last Dance for Me: A Love Story of the Shag and the Society of Stranders” — Phil Sawyer and Tom Poland — The University of South Carolina Press — 2012

I found this book mentioned on Likethedew.com, my fav source for southern writers, music and other topics.

It’s always amazing to read about something you have an interest in and then discover so many facts you never knew! That proves that reading expands the mind.

I never knew, for instance, that this dance, The Shag, actually was born of white kids dancing to the music of black performers such as Little Richard. Of course most native Carolinians probably already know this.

But the history of the dance is also the history of the era and of the place: the Atlantic beaches such as Carolina Beach, Cherry Grove, Ocean Drive and North Myrtle Beach and the “hang-outs” that started in the late ‘40s. Many lucky teens snagged jobs on the beach so they could spend their summers life guarding or selling sno-cones by day and shagging by night.

The groups of people who seek to preserve The Shag and its traditions are serious players. They spend big bucks on their conventions and are territorial creatures.

This book is simply delightful. I’m passing it along now to my publisher, a South Carolina native who probably was born knowing how to dance The Shag.

• “Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O’Neill” with William Novak — Random House — 1987

My friend and fellow Kiwanian Dr. Robert Waller gave me this book. And with it, of course, an interesting story.

Doc, a retired radiologist, was on call at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany one weekend when O’Neill came into the ER. Seems the Speaker was hunting over at a nearby plantation and took ill. He was treated and released. Doc said O’Neill sent him the book later.

Thomas T. “Tip” O’Neill was certainly a colorful character and his political career spanned a half-century.

He came up the hard way, from a family of modest means. He started working early in life in North Cambridge, Mass. It was at Harvard University where he had a summer job as a groundskeeper that he decided to go into politics. Why? Because one day as he worked, he noticed the Class of 1927 gathered under a huge tent toasting one another with champagne. You have to remember that this was during Prohibition yet these well-dressed  and privileged young men flouted the law.

O’Neill, of Irish descent, believed that “all politics is local.” When he graduated Boston College in 1936, he was voted class politician because of his social nature.

He lost his first bid for public office but later spent decades in the Massachusetts State House before being elected to Congress and ascending to the Speaker’s seat.

While he may have rubbed shoulders with captains, kings, prime ministers and presidents, O’Neill never lost his sense of who he was and where he came from. While he was the “go-to guy” on the Hill, he still represented the American citizen, John Q. Public.

Reading this book made me feel like I knew Tip O’Neill. He recalled so many events of my own life such as Vietnam, Watergate, etc.

Although he penned the book with someone else, I sense that O’Neill held sway in the telling of his own life story.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in politics.

• “127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place” — Aron Ralston — Atria Paperback — 2004

Yep, this New York Bestseller was made into a “major motion picture” which I have not seen, but the read is excellent. I ordered my copy from Amazon.

Ralston’s writing about the beauty of nature is awesome and poetic. The reader can clearly sense that he is deeply enmeshed in a life-long love affair with the natural world and all it holds.

The lesson learned from his book is that he has not allowed the loss of one of his hands to keep him away from his love of the outdoors. He continues hiking and climbing today.

That Ralston possessed the mental and physical fortitude to live through his ordeal is amazing, and that he actually amputated one of his arms to free himself from a rockfall in order to escape his “prison” is incomprehensible to most people. Had he not been able to perform this act, he most certainly would have died in the slotted canyon he was exploring.

Highly recommended reading! It’s suspenseful, even when you know how the story ends.

• “My Reading Life” — Pat Conroy — Doubleday — 2010

Another Amazon find, my love affair with Conroy’s writing continues to grow.

I first read my mother’s copy of “The Water is Wide” back in high school and continued through the year with “The Great Santini,” “The Prince of Tides” and “Beach Music.” I have missed a few of his works but have them ready to roll on my bookshelves.

I made a very poor judgment a few years back when I allowed one of my employees to borrow my Conroy books. When her employment was terminated, she took them with her: i can only suppose as a parting gift though I view it as theft. Bad behavior on her part; bad mistake on mine. But books can be replaced after all.

When my best friend  Melissa Dickens Wolverton and her husband Ed lived in Savannah, she ran into Conroy in a hotel lobby in that most beautiful of southern cities. Knowing how much I admire and respect his talent and also because I am a writer as well, she walked right up to him, told him all about me and asked for his autograph for me. He wrote, “Write well” and I’m still working on his admonition. I still treasure that little card from Pat Conroy and I will forever hold dear my wonderful and thoughtful friend Melissa.

This little tome is simply charming. Conroy reveals how he came to discover the books he has loved all his life. It is a deeply personal account of his mother’s love of reading and learning which she instilled in her only son.

I plan to keep this jewel on my bookshelves for good.



Beth Alston, an award-winning journalist, is executive editor of the Americus Times-Recorder. Contact her at 229-924-2751, ext. 1529 or beth.alston@gaflnews.com or read her other columns at www.americustimesrecorder.com