Folks, Holy Smoke is hot! Thank you! The book popped up in the #15 spot in hardcover nonfiction on SIBA’s (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Southern Indie Bestseller List for the week ending November 2. This morning’s News & Observer featured an interview with the Reeds. Today, John and Dale Reed talked to Frank Stasio on The State of Things. (Podcast… Continue Reading Ssssmmmokin’!
Well, it’s the semi-annual “clean-up day” here at UNC Press. That means everybody (except Courtney, whose office is always clean) takes some time to get their offices in order, thin out their email archives, and purge outdated files. A few extra HUGE recycling bins are brought in and are often filled to overflowing. Oh, the paper! Remember when everybody started… Continue Reading John and Dale Reed brighten UNCP clean-up day
If you’ve already gotten your hands on a copy of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, you’ve seen that the book opens with the lyrics of a song penned in the book’s honor by Tommy Edwards, lead singer and guitarist for The Bluegrass Experience, based in Chatham County. Well, folks, Tommy’s recorded it for us and I… Continue Reading Holy Smoke – the song!
Three UNCP authors deserve special cheers for winning awards recently: Rob Christensen, author of The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics, has been awarded the 2008 Ragan Old North State Award for Nonfiction by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. The successor to the organization’s Mayflower Cup, the Ragan Old North State Award honors Sam Ragan: poet, critic, publisher, and… Continue Reading Christensen, Shelby, Hogan earn awards
This weekend is the 25th annual Lexington Barbecue Festival! Hit the road and head on down to Lexington, North Carolina, “the barbecue capital of the world,” for food, fun, and entertainment. Exhibits open at 8:30 a.m. Barbecue tents open at 10:00 a.m. Our very own Will McKinney, coauthor of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, will be… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #10: Lexington Barbecue Festival
Before the week gets away from me, I wanted to be able to share some more of the online buzz UNC Press books have gotten lately. It’s all about FOOD . . . Nancy Carter Crump’s Hearthside Cooking: Early American Southern Cuisine Updated for Today’s Hearth and Cookstove is hitting bookstores now. Get an early taste over at Gherkins and… Continue Reading Online book buzz: the food’s the thing
If the subject of economics isn’t your strong suit, welcome to the majority! That’s why North Carolina is lucky to have Mike Walden, a professor at NC State and economist with the NC Cooperative Extension Service. Walden is especially good at talking about economics in terms the rest of us can understand. His new book is North Carolina in the… Continue Reading “Meet Mike Walden” on the State of Things
I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, the eldest child of parents who’s idea of gastronomic adventure was going out to the local Hot Shoppes Cafeteria (you southerners just think the K&W and you’ll get the idea). It wasn’t until I was eighteen, when I grew my hair long, pierced my ear, and became a vegetarian that… Continue Reading A Yankee Vegetarian Considers North Carolina Barbecue
Less than a week after Hurricane Gustav kept many of us watching The Weather Channel, hoping New Orleans would be spared a repeat of the flooding damage brought by Hurricane Katrina, those of us in North Carolina are now watching as Tropical Storm Hanna is taking aim at the Carolina coastline. Many of us here at the UNC Press have… Continue Reading Hurricane Season Comes to the Carolinas
As an editor at UNC Press, my professional rhythms are mostly dictated by the academic calendar. So with colleges and most public school systems in North Carolina quickly getting back to business, I often have to remind myself that summer is still going strong. And the great news for those of you who aren’t bound to the school year–and even… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #8: Fly to the Beach!
Last night I had a problem many can relate to—all I wanted was something CHOCOLATE. Seeing as how I was too tired to run to the store for a sweet tooth fix or even try and attempt something overly complicated at home, I turned to Mama Dip’s Family Cookbook to see if there was something simple yet delectable to get… Continue Reading What’s Cooking? Mama Dip’s Baked Fudge!
Sunset on the Ferry (photo by Chor Ip via Creative Commons) Don’t worry, just because I had another post this morning doesn’t mean I forgot that this is Thursday, the highly anticipated day of the weekend roadtrip post! Fear not, dear Tar Heel roadtrippers, we’ve got a special “oke”-alicious lineup for this last segment of our Beach Book Grab Bag… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #7: Roanoke and Ocracoke
Yesterday’s All Things Considered on NPR aired a story about recent efforts by marine preservationists to survey and document sunken German U-boats off Cape Hatteras, NC. Adam Hochberg talks to both a former German sailor and a local Hatteras resident who recalls hearing the torpedoes from the u-boats attacking American vessels. This is the history in which UNCP’s Taffy of… Continue Reading Exploring Torpedo Junction
As I was driving to work this morning and listening to NPR, WUNC‘s Leoneda Inge was reporting from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where locals are eager to draw more visitors now. (Forget what I said before about it being too late to plan a trip! It’s not too late!) The economies of beach communities depend on a thriving… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #5: The Outer Banks
Continuing the Beach Book Grab Bag series that began last week, this week’s picks are all about things that go splash in the night. North Carolina’s coastline slips into some treacherous waters — making them a perfect hunting spot for the pirates of yore who preyed on stranded ships. Six books with some spine-tingling tales of coastal haunts after the… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #3: Pirates and shipwrecks and ghosts! Oh my!
And now, back to our regularly scheduled program. Chances are, if you don’t already have a beach trip lined up this summer and you plan a road trip now, you’ll probably have to camp out in a tent or in your car, because North Carolina beaches are awesome and everyone wants to go and they make reservations early. But hey,… Continue Reading Weekend Roadtrip #2: Beach book grab bag (it’s educational!)
Sunday’s Raleigh News & Observer began a four-part series on the development of North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which stretches from the Smoky Mountains to coastal dunes. UNC Press has published the only comprehensive hiking guide to this 900+ mile trail, written by Allen de Hart, who has been hiking, designing, constructing, maintaining, and writing about southeastern trails for more than… Continue Reading NC Mountains-to-Sea Trailblazing Underway
Once a week the UNC Press blog will feature a tantalizing and adventuresome “Weekend Roadtrip” to a place featured in a UNC Press book. We’ll post them on Thursdays, so there’s still time to make last-minute weekend plans if you feel inspired. Mountains, Piedmont, Coast; hiking, birding, swimming, playing, learning; half-day trips, weekend jaunts, week-long adventures. We’ve got tons of… Continue Reading Introducing a new weekly feature: Weekend Roadtrip!
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