The Friends of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library launches its annual Table Talk series Wednesday with a visit by Alabama native Frye Gaillard, who will discuss “The Books that Mattered: A Reader’s Memoir” (2012) and preview his 2015 work, “Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War Letters.”
Writer-in-residence at the University of South Alabama since 2005, Gaillard has written extensively on southern race relations, politics and culture. He is former Southern Editor at The Charlotte Observer, where he covered that city’s landmark school desegregation controversy, the ill-fated ministry of televangelist Jim Bakker, the funeral of Elvis Presley, and the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Gaillard has written or edited more than 20 books, and his titles include: “Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America”; “The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina”; “Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music”; and “As Long As the Waters Flow: Native Americans in the South and East.”
“For anyone who loves to read, Gaillard’s ‘Memoir’ is an inspiration,” said Friends member Jo Shumake. “After reading it, you want to make your own list of the books that changed your life and explore when that happened and why they did so.”
“Another kind of remembering is found in his ‘Journey to the Wilderness,'” continued Shumake. “Using the extensive letters that his family wrote during the Civil War, Gaillard blends their recounting of the war with his own reflections of how we as Southerners remember the conflict that ripped our nation apart.”
Table Talks will be presented Wednesdays in February at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, 314 Seventh St. N. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. for those wishing to bring their lunch and socialize before the program begins at noon. The Friends will serve iced tea.
Book sale and Table Talks
For more information, contact the library, 662-329-5300.
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