A Modern Southern Reader: Major Stories, Drama, Poetry, Essays, Interviews, and Reminiscences from the Twentieth-Century South

Being a Southerner myself, I have always been interested in southern writing. This book brings together an excellent diversity of material that shows the range of talent produced by Southern writer's. An added benefit is the poetry section with poems from little known, at least to me, writer's. Try James Whitehead's "About a Year After He Got Married He Would Sit Alone in an Abandoned Shack in a Cotton Field Enjoying Himself," and yes, that really is the full title of the poem. There is a nice selection of poems by John Crowe Ransom, a poet whose books I've had trouble finding. One can read interviews with Shelby Foote, Walker Percy, and Faulkner that are fasinating in the little known tidbits of informaton about themselves and others. All in all, this is a very good book to have for the reading enjoyment of some of the best writer's America has produced. The reminiscences by Willie Morris about his high school baseball team will bring back memories of anyone who has ever played a pickup ball game in a cow pasture. You'll find stories by Reynolds Price,Peter Taylor,Thomas Wolfe, and others.