| I can't say enough good things
| ... about Damon Tweedy's remarkable new memoir, Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflection on Race and Medicine. With great sensitivity, honesty, and excellent writing, Damon Tweedy shows that even at the highest levels of achievement, the color of your skin has a significant  effect on how other people react to you. The fact that Dr Tweedy did his medical training and continues to practice at Duke makes his book all the more fascinating for those of us who call this part of North Carolina home. Black Man in a White Coat is full of memorable stories, from one of Tweedy's med school professors mistaking him for a maintenance worker to his dealings with a white family from rural North Carolina who have a very hard time adjusting to the fact that a black doctor is in charge of treating their aging father. (The father announces in the ER that he doesn't want to be treated by any "n" doctor, then his daughter shows up in his hospital room wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag). Damon Tweedy, amazingly, carries on taking the best of care of the father, and in the end the family offers him heartfelt thanks for his efforts. The doctor will be seeing patients...er, let's make that the doctor will be reading from and and discussing his new book next Tuesday night, October 6, 7:00, at The Regulator. It's an event you're not going to want to miss. |
| Upcoming Events Highlights
| | The kids are alright this weekend, with two events on Saturday. At 11:00 a.m the younger set (ages 4 to 7?) will delight in Ellen Fischer's reading from her new picture book, If an Elephant Went to School. Then at 7:00, JJ Johnson will read from her new YA novel, Believarexic.
Things get mysterious with Karin Salvalaggio next Monday night, before Damon Tweedy restores us to health on Tuesday. Photographer John Rosenthal immerses us in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina next Wednesday, and with Lucy Rozier we host another event for younger children on Saturday afternoon (3:00) October 10.
Bland Simpson and his photographer wife Ann Cary Simpson take us on an expertly guided tour of eastern North Carolina's Little Rivers and Waterway Tales on Tuesday October 13.
See more on all these events below. |
Good Reading
| | Recent additions to our "Rave Reviews" include: Insightful, richly entertaining look at a woman who, very late in the game, finds that life remains full of surprises . . . Evison writes humanely and with good humor of his characters, who, like the rest of us, muddle through, too often without giving ourselves much of a break. A lovely, forgiving character study that's a pleasure to read.--Kirkus Reviews
Country Soul, by Charles L. Hughes is a brilliant new exploration of the racial politics of the southern music recording scene from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, paints a less black-and-white picture than Sweet Soul Music or any other book on southern music that's come before it...With its courageous, thoroughly researched, and deeply considered take on the racial politics of the southern music industry in a pivotal period for not just the music but the South and the nation at large,Country Soul claims its own essential place in the telling of that messy history.--Steve Nathans-Kelly, Paste Magazine
Open Grave, by Kjell Eriksson. Bitter academic resentment at the Nobel  Prize level, a wealthy laureate with a heritage of exquisite cruelty and unforgivable abuse, in a lonely society where kindness appears only by accident ... what could possibly go wrong, even in a well-tended, forested Swedish neighborhood? Here is fine crime writing that changes expectations. OPEN GRAVE is a character study, not a procedural - the ineffective police don't really appear until page 127 -- and the grave is not dug until the final pages. Yet by steady Scandinavian pondering and cogitation, the novel manages to address the grace of finding a clear path to living without bitterness and envy. Scholars, misers, and prize-winners beware; this book is for you.-David Carr, The Regulator's "Master of Mystery" Recent Staff Picks include: |
| Upcoming Events | ELLEN FISCHER Saturday, October 3, 11:00 a.m. Note the time. If an Elephant Went to School is a funny and factual book for children age 4-7 about new animals and their unique behaviors. While the elephant learns to use his trunk as a multi-tool, what will the owl learn? The folksy, sunny illustrations truly make this story shine. ELLEN FISCHER lives in Greensboro, NC and is a retired elementary school teacher who toured North Carolina previously for her last book, If an Armadillo Went to a Restaurant. If an Elephant Went to School came out this July. JJ JOHNSON Saturday, October 3, 7:00 p.m. Believarexic, JJ Johnson's new young adult novel, is a semi-autobiographical account set in the 1980s of Johnson's voluntary ten-week hospitalization for bulimarexia. Although Jennifer wants help before she can conquer her eating disorders, depression, OCD, and alcoholism, she must convince her family and friends that her problems, and their roles in exacerbating them, even exist. At its heart, BELIEVAREXIC is a stereotype-defying exploration of belief and human connection, punctuated by Johnson's dark humor, gritty realism, and profound moments of self-discovery. J.J. JOHNSON is the author of the young adult novels This Girl is Different and The Theory of Everything. She graduated from Binghamton University and worked as an internship coordinator for programs such as The Learning Web and Youth Advocacy before earning a Master of Education from Harvard University, with a concentration in Adolescent Risk and Prevention. JJ Johnson is a Durham native. KARIN SALVALAGGIO Monday, October 5, 2015, 7:00 p.m. In Bone Dust White, Salvalaggio's first novel, Grace sees a stabbing in her backyard, she's shocked to find the victim is not a stranger. Detective Macy Greeley is called back to Collier, Montana to investigate the crime. Greeley had a previous case in Collier and must find out what this new murder has to do with Grace. Montana is suffering from drought and wildfires. Tensions are high for a group of local residents who wonder if the water level in the lake will sink low enough to reveal their secret. When Detective Greeley is called in to investigate a murder, she brings her own issues as she's trying to balance motherhood and work and navigate an increasingly bumpy relationship with her boss. Burnt River is the second novel featuring Detective Macy Greeley.
KARIN SALVALAGGIO was born in West Virginia in the 1960s. Her father was career military and Karin has fond memories of her nomadic childhood. She's lived in places as diverse as Alaska, Florida, California and Iran. Karin attended the University of California Santa Cruz, graduating in 1989, but aside from two years in Italy, she has lived in London, England since 1994. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Her short story "Walleye Junction" was published in the Mechanics Institute Review in 2011. Bone Dust White is her first full-length novel. Her second novel Burnt River was published this year.
DAMON TWEEDY Tuesday, October 6, 2015, 7:00 p.m. Duke psychiatrist Damon Tweedy will read from and discuss his medical memoir Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine that examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. He writes about his own experience with medical training and practicing, as well as examining the factors that make it so difficult for African-Americans to seek and afford medical care. DR. DAMON TWEEDY has published articles about race and medicine in the Annals of Internal Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. His columns and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times and other newspapers. Dr. Tweedy is a graduate of Duke Medical School and Yale Law School. He is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center and staff physician at the Durham VA Medical Center. JOHN ROSENTHAL Wednesday, October 7, 7:00 PM As we mark ten years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, John Rosenthal will discuss and sign his powerful photographs of the Lower 9th Ward. His book, After: the Silence of the Lower 9th Ward, captures the working class community that took pride in their neighborhood before the hurricane. JOHN ROSENTHAL taught literature at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill and acted in summer stock theatre. He led protests at UNC-CH after the Kent State killings, and then left teaching rather than work with a less-than friendly administration. He lived in Crete for a time and that's where he picked up a camera and became a photographer.
LUCY ROZIER Saturday, October 10, 3:00 Note the time Jackrabbit McCabe and the Electric Telegraph is a handsomely illustrated tall tale for preschool and elementary grade children. McCabe is the fastest boy around. He runs errands and carries important messages in his town of Windy Flats. When the newest technology, the telegraph, comes to town, it's McCabe against the machine! Who will win the race? LUCY ROZIER was born in West Virginia but grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. Rozier grew up to be an artist, illustrator, and folk dancer in Boston and Philadelphia. In 2010, she moved back to North Carolina and began to write. She currently lives in Durham. BLAND SIMPSON and ANN CARY SIMPSON Tuesday, October 13, 7:00 pm In Little Rivers and Waterway Tales: A Carolinian's Eastern Streams, Bland Simpson presents the ways that waterways-- streams, creeks, and  rivers--shape coastal North Carolina's culture and geography. Simpson and his wife/photographer Ann Cary Simpson tell the stories of those who have lived and worked in this country, chronicling both a distinct environment and a way of life. With nearly sixty of Ann Simpson's photographs, Little Rivers joins the Simpsons' two previous works, Into the Sound Country and The Inner Islands, in offering a rich narrative and visual document of eastern North Carolina. BLAND SIMPSON is Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and pianist for the Red Clay Ramblers. Photographer ANN CARY SIMPSON is a consultant with Moss + Ross of Durham and interim director of NC Catch, a nonprofit supporting fishermen and local seafood. Learn more on these and all of our upcoming events |
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listeners with fascinating characters, compelling details, and sharp images of pivotal moments in American and African American history and culture. Williams draws on archives and hard-to-access family records, as well as interviews with family and colleagues like Studs Terkel and Toni Morrison, to illuminate Durham's astounding career. Durham paved the way for black journalists as a dramatist and a star investigative reporter and editor for the pioneering black newspapers the Chicago Defender and Muhammad Speaks. Talented and versatile, he also created the acclaimed radio series Destination Freedom and Here Comes Tomorrow and wrote for popular radio fare like The Lone Ranger . Incredibly, his energies extended still further--to community and labor organizing, advising Chicago mayoral hopeful Harold Washington, and mentoring generations of activists.
Josie is the newest bartender, just arrived from the Appalachian backwoods on a quest to discover who she is and where she belongs. What she finds is the Cave and the love of a charming regular named Danny. With Josie as our brave guide, we are submerged in a rarely explored subculture. Her journey into the Cave and back out is filled with trials and tragedy, but Josie is helped along by her newfound community of large-hearted hard drinkers. The Drunken Spelunker's Guide to Plato is a love letter to the families we build for ourselves and the unexpected ways life can answer the question, what if? Those of us who recall a dank basement bar in a small Southern town called Chapel Hill will have a special treat reading this book.
down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family - and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared. Girl Waits with Gun is a September IndieNext pick. 
people might have committed the crime. Charlie Moss was a handsome, charismatic man who unwittingly damaged almost every life he touched. Brett is determined to understand how such a tragedy could have happened--and whether she was somehow complicit. In 
the regions' varied geographies. Everything is explored, from regional obsessions from college football and fishing, to mayonnaise and spoonbread, to the simple beauty of a fish on the hook.
murderer who seems to be violently targeting Atlanta's wealthiest black entrepreneurs. The killer's method is both strange and unusually gruesome. On each victim's mutilated body is inscribed a letter of the alphabet, beginning with "M." The oligarchy of Atlanta's most prominent white businessmen--the same men who ran Canby out of town, known more openly before Reconstruction as "the Ring"--is anxious to solve the murders before they lose the money they've invested in both the exposition and the city's industrialization, even if resolution comes at the expense of justice. Guinn will be in the store for a reading and signing.