I was only fourteen when my father, a District Attorney in rural Georgia, was murdered by criminals later known as members of the Dixie Mafia. While I was reading a daily newspaper interview several weeks after the murder, I was surprised to find myself as a topic. My mother told a reporter that “(He) has his father’s gifts for words. Maybe one day he will write a book about it.” Nearly thirty years later, I did write the book. After the pain of that memoir, I turned to fiction, where I placed young protagonists coming of age who faced the corruption and murders of the rural south in the 1960s.
I love this nonfiction book because it reveals much about the history of Jackson County, Georgia, that I did not know when Floyd Hoard moved there in the 1950s.
Mike Buffington gives details of the corruption in the county, which was much deeper than Hoard knew when he continued making efforts to clean out the bootlegging and car theft rings in the area. Those criminal rings would later become known as the Georgia Dixie Mafia, the group that would order and carry out Hoard’s car bombing death in 1967.
On August 7, 1967, Floyd “Fuzzy” Hoard, the Solicitor General in rural Jackson County Ga., got into his car, turned the ignition switch and was assassinated with 10 sticks of dynamite that had been planted under the car’s hood the night before. For over two years, Hoard had been prosecuting local bootleg and car theft gangs and had gained a reputation as a crusading lawman. But there is more to the story than just Hoard’s murder. The widespread lawlessness in the community had compromised its voice, leading to inaction by its citizens. The result was widespread public corruption and incompetence.…
I love the nonfiction book because Phil Hudgins tells the story of Billy Sunday Birt, who killed more than fifty people in the 1970s in Georgia before his arrest. I was intrigued by the honesty of Birt’s widow as she told of the fear she lived with as the true character of her husband unfolded and why she stayed with him because of the threats of what would happen if she tried to leave. I was also interested in how she tried to keep her faith in God as she learned more and more about the killings.
I love the book because Hudgins shows Birt's gradual dehumanization until a spiritual awakening in prison brings him to a recognition of the pain he has caused others. However, the awakening does not bring about the happy ending people might expect of such a story.
Discover the power of faith and the human spirit through Ruby Nell Birt's inspiring memoir, which chronicles how one woman chose to "dance in a flood," work to provide for her children, and become a well-respected part of her community.
Marriage will always have its ups-and-downs - but the valley that Ruby Nell Birt had to walk through was something no one should have to experience.
Ruby Nell Birt was married to Billy Sunday Birt of Winder, Georgia - a man who authorities say killed at least 50 people between the late 1960s and 1974. Known as the deadliest man…
I enjoyed the atmosphere created by the author, a southern coastal swamp, and the depiction of this novel of cultural bigotry. The separation of the classes is not one of race but one of poverty and supposed ignorance, although the protagonist is a deeply intelligent artist.
The story is one of accusation against a young teenage girl and the mystery surrounding the two young men who love her or claim to love her. With the absence of her parents, I found myself strongly pulling for the underdog protagonist, Kya.
Again, this book is set in the fifties and sixties in the rural South, where I seem to find my most enjoyable plots because of my own growing up during those times.
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For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…
This novel by Alabama author Harper Lee is one of my favorite novels. Southern racial prejudice is exposed in the coming-of-age story of the young protagonist awakening to its ugliness and hypocrisy.
The mood is Southern Gothic as the childhood fears of Boo Radley turn out to be unfounded. I love how Lee gives us the perspective of the adult narrator while placing us fully in the world of the children. I love the evoking of childhood fears of the supernatural while learning that the world of living people is much more dangerous.
I consider it a novel that is worth reading every few years.
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…
Stuart Woods's first book may be his best. Again, the setting of the book is rural Georgia, describing the terrain where I grew up and even mentioning the real cities where the fictional events took place.
I love the story because of my own growing up in small-town Georgia where my uncle was Chief of Police and other members of my family were attorneys. The flavor of the politics and how a murderer is discovered reminds me of the willful blindness and corruption that must take place for such perverse murders to happen.
Stuart Woods’s Edgar Award-winning debut novel—a classic American mystery saga about three generations of lawmen tangled in a web of passion, secrets, destiny, and murder in their small Southern town...
In the winter of 1920, the first body is found in Delano, Georgie—the naked, brutalized corpse of a young boy. It is a crime too horrific to be ignored, the first of many that will span four decades—embroiling three police chiefs in a remarkable manhunt that will expose the hatreds, fear, and festering wounds beneath the surface of their sleepy God-fearing community.
In the past two years, four young men have gone missing from Tyson County, Georgia. When fourteen-year-old Ryan Westmore’s brother Phil abruptly flees home after taking a job hauling auto parts, Ryan suspects he has been murdered.
Phil’s former girlfriend is the next to suspect foul play. She and Ryan attempt to involve her father, District Attorney Monty Floyd, who is sympathetic to their fears but powerless without evidence. With the city pool closed for the summer, Ryan, a champion swimmer, must find another place to train. When he and his two friends discover a nearby secluded lake, Ryan stumbles upon the evidence needed to put an end to Tyson’s trail of tears, if he can survive, to tell the story.
I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up the East Face without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits and digs deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.
The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their…
