Here are 66 books that Virginia Folk Legends fans have personally recommended if you like
Virginia Folk Legends.
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Long before I began writing my first fictional story and way before I researched for my first nonfiction paranormal book, I gave up ignoring the voices in my head and began writing horror, fantasy, and six nonfiction books on the paranormal in Virginia. Besides learning a new piece of history or legend I never knew before, the research for my nonfiction books and articles inspired me to incorporate it into my horror or fantasy fiction. I enjoy writing fiction, but I believe I learn as much as my readers when I write nonfiction.
Before other authors (including me) published books on Virginia’s ghosts and legends, it was L. B. Taylor who’d written many spooky tales that haunted the Old Dominion in a long span of books, including this one. Not just Virginians, but as someone who moved here in 1985, I learned about the state’s many ghosts, monsters, and legends that taught me a new view of the state. No one needs to live in Virginia to enjoy reading this book.
The Old Dominion has been one of the nation's most embattled states. Serving as center stage for both the American Revolution and the Civil War, it is also one of the most haunted. In addition to the sagas of the tragic spirits from these wars, this volume includes stories on the female stranger of Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria, the mysterious stone showers in Newport, the ghost hound of the Blue Ridge, Mad Lucy of Williamsburg, and the spirits of native sons Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Long before I began writing my first fictional story and way before I researched for my first nonfiction paranormal book, I gave up ignoring the voices in my head and began writing horror, fantasy, and six nonfiction books on the paranormal in Virginia. Besides learning a new piece of history or legend I never knew before, the research for my nonfiction books and articles inspired me to incorporate it into my horror or fantasy fiction. I enjoy writing fiction, but I believe I learn as much as my readers when I write nonfiction.
For centuries, Virginians have told, retold, and embellished terrific stories of their history, some based on truth, others more folklore than reality. As someone who has written her own myths and legends book, it was refreshing to read about them from another author’s viewpoint. Plus, I got to learn some new angles about the lore of Virginia.
For centuries, Virginians have told, retold and embellished wonderful stories of their history. Legends such as the "wild Spanish ponies" of Chincoteague, General Braddock's lost gold, the Mount Vernon Monster and the Richmond Vampire tug at the imagination. Revolutionary War heroes, Annandale's Bunny Man, the enslaved woman who became a Union spy in the White House of the Confederacy and many others left imprints on the Commonwealth of Virginia. Explore secret societies, hidden knowledge and the mysteries of the universe with author Chuck Mills.
Long before I began writing my first fictional story and way before I researched for my first nonfiction paranormal book, I gave up ignoring the voices in my head and began writing horror, fantasy, and six nonfiction books on the paranormal in Virginia. Besides learning a new piece of history or legend I never knew before, the research for my nonfiction books and articles inspired me to incorporate it into my horror or fantasy fiction. I enjoy writing fiction, but I believe I learn as much as my readers when I write nonfiction.
There are more than 160 tales from eighty tribal groups in this book. They are various tales of creation and love, heroes and war, animals, tricksters, and the world’s end, many from contemporary Indigenous voices. Hopefully, these stories enable others who are not Native American but still want to read what many indigenous tribes taught to their children as a reason for the history of their peoples.
More than 160 tales from eighty tribal groups present a rich and lively panorama of the Native American mythic heritage. From across the continent comes tales of creation and love; heroes and war; animals, tricksters, and the end of the world.
“This fine, valuable new gathering of ... tales is truly alive, mysterious, and wonderful—overflowing, that is, with wonder, mystery and life" (National Book Award Winner Peter Matthiessen). In addition to mining the best folkloric sources of the nineteenth century, the editors have also included a broad selection of contemporary Native American voices.
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.
Long before I began writing my first fictional story and way before I researched for my first nonfiction paranormal book, I gave up ignoring the voices in my head and began writing horror, fantasy, and six nonfiction books on the paranormal in Virginia. Besides learning a new piece of history or legend I never knew before, the research for my nonfiction books and articles inspired me to incorporate it into my horror or fantasy fiction. I enjoy writing fiction, but I believe I learn as much as my readers when I write nonfiction.
As I was working on a new nonfiction book, this time about werewolves, dogmen, and other types of shapeshifters in the United States, I read many books on the subject out there. One author. Linda S. Godfrey, had written many stories connected to the American Dogman/werewolf, beginning with the Beast of Bray Road. In this book, she also wrote about other American creatures, not just the dogman. She covers pre-Columbian to modern sightings. I believe, whether a fantasy/horror writer looking for their next monster for their short story or novel to the amateur cryptid hunter happy to explore these beasties from the safety of their seat, anyone will enjoy this book. I did.
From pre-Columbian legends to modern-day eyewitness accounts, this comprehensive guide covers the history, sightings and lore surrounding the most mysterious monsters in America—including Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, and more.
Bigfoot, the chupacabra, and thunderbirds aren’t just figments of our overactive imaginations—according to thousands of eyewitnesses, they exist, in every corner of the United States. Throughout America’s history, shocked onlookers have seen unbelievable creatures of every stripe—from sea serpents to apelike beings, giant bats to monkeymen—in every region.
Author, investigator, and creature expert Linda S. Godfrey brings the same fearless reporting she lent to Real Wolfmen to this essential guide, using…
As a former lawyer, I want young readers to understand the judicial system and to appreciate how the structure of our government, with its three branches, buttresses our freedoms. That's why I wrote The Supreme Court and Us. My book surveys the court, its function, and some of its important cases. Reading it together with the other recommended titles will offer a multi-dimensional picture of the Court, its Justices, and its work. Each Supreme Court case is a fascinating story. I want to share these stories with kids. We need a knowledgeable new generation to be engaged in civic life – and these books are a good place to start.
First of all, isn't that an awesome title? This narrative is a child-appropriate and compelling description of Mildred and Richard Loving and their path to the Supreme Court. The two got married in D.C. in 1958, when interracial marriage was illegal in their home state of Virginia. Returning home after the wedding, they were arrested, jailed, and told to leave the state. They took their case to court arguing that Virginia's ban on interracial marriage violated the Constitution, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. As described in the back matter, the creators of this book themselves have an interracial marriage. An author's note reflects on their lives and their perspective on the Lovings' story.
"I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about." -- Mildred Loving, June 12, 2007
For most children these days it would come as a great shock to know that before 1967, they could not marry a person of a race different from their own. That was the year that the Supreme Court issued its decision in Loving v. Virginia.This is the story of one brave family: Mildred Loving, Richard Perry Loving, and their three children. It is the story of how Mildred and Richard fell in love, and got married in Washington,…
Gwen Cooper is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoirs Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat, as well as the novel Love Saves the Day (narrated from a rescue cat's perspective) and The Book of PAWSOME: Head Bonks, Raspy Tongues, and 101 Reasons Why Cats Make Us So, So Happy--among numerous other titles. The first book in her forthcoming "Homer Whodunit" Cozy Mystery Series, You Only Live Nine Times, will be released in Summer 2022. Gwen's work has been published in more than two-dozen languages, and she is a frequent speaker at shelter fundraisers across the U.S. and Europe.
Not only is the Mrs. Murphy cozy mystery series written from the point of view of a sleuthing cat, it’s actually (allegedly!) written by a cat—the feline in question being Sneaky Pie Brown, author Rita Mae Brown’s real-life tabby companion, who supposedly makes use of Ms. Brown’s typewriter on the sly. Wish You Were Here is the first in a delightfully long series of cozy mysteries set in the fictional small town of Crozet, Virginia—where murders seem to happen with startling regularity, and where postmistress Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen’s beloved cat, Mrs. Murphy, always seems to be one step ahead of the official investigators. I fell hard for the acerbic, no-nonsense Mrs. Murphy and for this series, which was a direct inspiration for my own “Homer Whodunit” mystery series.
Curiosity just might be the death of Mrs. Murphy--and her human companion, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Small towns are like families: Everyone lives very close together. . .and everyone keeps secrets. Crozet, Virginia, is a typical small town-until its secrets explode into murder. Crozet's thirty-something post-mistress, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, has a tiger cat (Mrs. Murphy) and a Welsh Corgi (Tucker), a pending divorce, and a bad habit of reading postcards not addressed to her. When Crozet's citizens start turning up murdered, Harry remembers that each received a card with a tombstone on the front and the message "Wish you…
With Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Vice President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican leader on foreign policy, inherited a world in turmoil. With Europe flattened and the Soviets emerging as America’s new adversary, Truman and Vandenberg built a tight, bipartisan partnership at a bitterly partisan time…
I have taught history at the University of Alabama since the year 2000, and I have been working and writing as a historian of American slavery for more than twenty-five years. It is not an easy subject to spend time with, but it is also not a subject we can afford to turn away from because it makes us uncomfortable. Slavery may not be the only thing you need to understand about American history, but you cannot effectively understand American history without it.
As the domestic slave trade became more expansive alongside the growth of the cotton economy, it attracted the increased ire of antislavery activists in the United States and England alike. Using sketches and paintings of the slave trade made by British artist Eyre Crowe in the 1850s as an entry point, Maurie McInnis explores the landscape of the slave trade in major American cities such as Richmond and New Orleans. In the process, she also opens a fresh window onto the world of transatlantic abolitionism.
In 1853, Eyre Crowe, a young British artist, visited a slave auction in Richmond, Virginia. Harrowed by what he witnessed, he captured the scene in sketches that he would later develop into a series of illustrations and paintings, including the culminating painting, "Slaves Waiting for Sale", Richmond, Virginia. This innovative book uses Crowe's paintings to explore the texture of the slave trade in Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans; the evolving iconography of abolitionist art; and the role of visual culture in the transatlantic world of abolitionism. Tracing Crowe's trajectory from Richmond across the American South and back to London -…
I have a passion for Historical Fiction. It started when I was 12 years old. Before that, I never liked any kind of history. Then, in school, we started learning about King Tut, and I was fascinated. I started having frequent dreams that he would sit and tell me stories about our life together and he believed that I was his wife, Sunni. Into adulthood, I still had these dreams, so I decided to write about the stories that he would tell. Along with exhaustive research, I learned who Sunni (Anukshanamun) was. My book is based on facts mixed with my dreams.
Lu Ann Bell was a painter in the 1850s who became well known for painting servants. It was actually her housemaid that did the paintings. I liked how the story depicts a lawyer in 2004 that tries to help the housemaids' descendants get what is rightfully hers.
Our history is full of talented people that were taken advantage of because of their status or race. I loved the fact that there are still people today that are trying to right the wrongs of yesterday.
The House Girl, the historical fiction debut by Tara Conklin, is an unforgettable story of love, history, and a search for justice, set in modern-day New York and 1852 Virginia. Weaving together the story of an escaped slave in the pre-Civil War South and a determined junior lawyer, The House Girl follows Lina Sparrow as she looks for an appropriate lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking compensation for families of slaves. In her research, she learns about Lu Anne Bell, a renowned prewar artist whose famous works might have actually been painted by her slave, Josephine. Featuring two remarkable, unforgettable…
I’ve experimented with many careers during my adult life. I’ve been a nanny, high school Latin teacher, noontime talk-show hostess, computer instructor, college history professor, and president of a four-state charitable organization. But nothing has so occupied my passion as exploring and writing stories about America’s Civil War. Becoming an author was a career choice I made after I retired at the age of 65. I began with a small collection of letters written by my great uncle shortly before his death on a Civil War battlefield. My continuing inspiration comes from the enthusiasm of my readers who want to learn more than their history books offer.
The death toll of the Civil War was horrendous, the list of the wounded? Endless. Medical schools did not exist; doctor trained their assistants. There were no emergency rooms, no hospitals, no triage, and certainly no female nurses to care for those bleeding male bodies. In many respects, the medical profession was born on Civil War battlefields with the brave women who ventured among the dead and dying to staunch the flow of blood. So, who were the women who emerged from their sheltered lives to care for wounded soldiers in the Northern army? I wrote about one of them—Nellie Chase—but I thought she was an exception. These stories of the women who joined the Northern war effort expanded my knowledge beyond my wildest expectations.
A look at the lives of the real nurses depicted in the PBS show Mercy Street.
Heroines of Mercy Street tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, mansion turned war-time hospital and setting for the PBS drama Mercy Street. Among the Union soldiers, doctors, wounded men from both sides, freed slaves, politicians, speculators, and spies who passed through the hospital in the crossroads of the Civil War, were nurses who gave their time freely and willingly to save lives and aid the wounded. These women saw casualties on a scale Americans had never seen…
The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.
My passion for examining racism and identity has been lifelong, born out of my experience as the daughter of an Ecuadorian mother and a Jewish-American father, a native speaker of English and Spanish, and a citizen of three countries. I was born in La Paz, Bolivia, raised in NYC, and spent childhood summers in Guayaquil. My identity has been consistently questioned and challenged. This all led to a deep desire to understand the complexity of identity and the history and dynamics of systemic racism. My son, who is presumed to be white, enhanced this passion, and it is because of him that I wrote Strength of Soul.
I read Life on the Color Lineas a junior in high school. I was amazed by William’s intimate account of having lived, first as a white boy in America, and then, as a Black boy in America. His life story illuminates not only the fiction that “race” is biological and immutable, but the powerful reality of white supremacy. Little did I know when reading Williams’s book that I would one day give birth to a son this society deems to be white. This is, in many ways, a painful book, but it is also one about the power of love and community. The love and community Williams found is what led him to share his story, which is a necessary and crucial reminder to challenge racism at its root.
“Heartbreaking and uplifting… a searing book about race and prejudice in America… brims with insights that only someone who has lived on both sides of the racial divide could gain.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A triumph of storytelling as well as a triumph of spirit.”—Alex Kotlowitz, award-winning author of There Are No Children Here
As a child in 1950s segregated Virginia, Gregory Howard Williams grew up believing he was white. But when the family business failed and his parents’ marriage fell apart, Williams discovered that his dark-skinned father, who had been passing as Italian-American, was half black. The family split up, and…
