Books

Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life
Gryphons of the Sandhills: The Edgeworth Letters
Growing Up in Tallapoosa, Ga
Memories of an Appalachian Boyhood and Beyond
Maverick Among the Magnolias: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story
Dawn to Dusk
Bernice Kelly Harris: A Good Life Was Writing (Southern Biography Series)
Eudora Welty : A Writer's Life
A Journey from Slingshots & Marbles to Bottom Lines
The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolition
Charleston, a Golden Memory
Amelia Gayle Gorgas: A Biography
When the World Ended: The Diary of Emma Leconte
Captain Tom Ryman: His Life and Legacy
Short Of The Glory: The Fall And Redemption Of Edward F. Prichard Jr.
Travels With Rima: A Memoir
Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives
Voice of Georgia: Speeches of Richard B. Russell, 1928-1969
Brain, Brawn, and Will: The Turmoils and Adventures of Jeff Ross
Robert Stafford of Cumberland Island: Growth of a Planter
My World Is Gone: Memories of Life in a Southern Cotton Mill Town
Lugenia Burns Hope: Black Southern Reformer (Brown Thrasher Books)
Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives
Senhora: Profile of a Woman (The Texas Pan American Series)
Here Comes the Showboat! (Ohio River Valley)

Average customer rating:

Wellspring
Janice Holt Giles
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Hill Man
The Plum Thicket
A Little Better Than Plumb: The Biography of a House
The Land Beyond the Mountains
Miss Willie

ASIN: 0813190258

Book Description

“If you are already a committed Janice Holt Giles reader, in Wellspring you will be re-visiting familiar and hospitable territory. If you are a new reader, this book will be a solid introduction to the matter, manner and scope—the wellsprings—of an important American writer. . . . It is, indeed, a treasure box into which Janice Holt Giles has stored shining bits and pieces of her life and career.”—from the foreword by Wade Hall

The 19 selections that make up Wellspring, Giles's last published book before her death in 1979, are a microcosm of her large world. She brings together fiction, nonfiction, autobiography and fictionalized autobiography, revealing behind-the-scenes looks at her life, her family, her love for her adopted state of Kentucky and its people, her politics, her favorite authors, her thoughts on writing, and her views of her own work.

Long out of print, Wellspring is available again for old and new readers of Janice Holt Giles.

Average customer rating:

Truly A Gift
Beautiful Character Weaving
40 Acres and No Plot
What a wonderful book!
Catchy and Cool

40 Acres and No Mule
Janice Holt Giles
Manufacturer: Univ Pr of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

South | Regional U.S. | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Shady Grove
The Enduring Hills
The Plum Thicket
The Kentuckians
Hill Man

ASIN: 0813117925

Customer Reviews:

Truly A Gift.......2007-01-21

I purchased this book as a gift for my dad. Janis Holt Giles came to me while doing family research, The Kentuckians was resourced in one family's information so I purchased that book. My dad took it up and read it and has been a Giles fan ever since. From then on every month I have bought a new Giles book for him to read and he enjoys them so. He reads the books in one day then passes them along to anyone who will read them.
He believes Janis Holt Giles to be one of the most gifted writers of all times.I just simply get pleasure from finding him books he loves to read.

Beautiful Character Weaving.......2006-07-09

Janice Holt Giles takes you to a small place in Appalacia and begins weaving a picture of the people, the ways of life, the long time traditions, and the religion that is deep in the heart of the country. She does it in a way that actually made me fall in love with the people and yearn for a simpler life (even though logically, I know I would have a hard time adapting to such a life). It took me a long time to decide to read this book because the cover is not engaging, but once I had started, I had a hard time putting it down!

40 Acres and No Plot.......2004-07-23

This was the worst book I have ever had the misfortune of reading. You see, I had to read it for school. I am 13 years old. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not just a stupid 13 year old who hates everything to do with reading; I LOVE to read. I usually like all the books I read, this is the first one I absolutely hated. No offense to the author or anything, but do people really care how she likes her biscuts? Or does she really think we care about the music for the song "Jesus Hold My Hand"? I mean, give me a break! So those of you who want to read this book, please consider this before wasting your precious money on this excuse for a book.

What a wonderful book!.......2002-05-20

I loved this book because it took me on a journey to a part of the United States that is not known to most readers. And to a time that is not today. And to know people who are unlike any neighbors I have ever had.
I really enjoyed learning the landscape and the problems and the social activities of mountain people. Someone who lives in an urban area (or the suburbs of an urban area) may feel superior to these characters, feel privileged compared to such country types but I really admired many of the people for coping so well with their circumstances. Many seem heroic, even.
I'd like to say Thank You to this author!

Catchy and Cool.......2000-06-23

You will enjoy reading this.

I did.

A Little Better Than Plumb: The Biography of a House

Average customer rating:

A Little Better Than Plumb: The Biography of a House
Henry Giles , and Janice Holt Giles
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Rural Life | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Hill Man
The Plum Thicket
Shady Grove
Wellspring
Act of Contrition

ASIN: 0813118972

Average customer rating:

Beautiful story of childhood innocence and heartbreak
I read Plum Thicket

The Plum Thicket
Janice Holt Giles , and Dianne Watkins Stuart
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Kentuckians
Miss Willie
Run Me a River
The Land Beyond the Mountains
Hill Man

ASIN: 0813119472

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful story of childhood innocence and heartbreak.......2006-03-03

"The Plum Thicket" is a beautiful book. In the tradition of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," Giles takes readers on a journey through a child's innocent point of view. By the novel's end, however, that innocent view of the world has been shattered. Set in the early twentieth century in rural Arkansas, the first-person narrator is Katie Rogers, a middle-aged woman visiting the town where her grandparents lived when she was a child. Katie spent many summers at her grandparents' farm, and the entire novel is a flashback to the summer when Katie was 8 years old.

Katie is a bright, intelligent child, the daughter of rather progressive thinkers of the time. She absolutely adores her grandfather, a sweet-natured man who is a veteran of the Civil War, something that Katie is very proud of. However, Katie does not like her grandmother, a cold, bitter woman who resents anything sexual about life. (This fact is a very important part of the plot.) Also present on the Rogers farm is Aunt Maggie, whom Katie idolizes. Aunt Maggie is 30 years old and engaged to the local banker, Adam. However, Aunt Maggie is not eager to marry. She regrets never having attained her dream of being an opera singer, despite the years she spent studying voice in New York City. But Aunt Maggie is a fun, cheerful soul, despite that disappointment. Rounding out the farm are Lulie, the cook/maid of both black and white ancestry, and Choctaw, the farm hand who is three-quarters Choctaw Indian and one-quarter black. (Racial and ethnic heritage also play a role in the book's plot.)

The character that the book's climax hinges on, however, is the new physician in town, Doctor Jim. Jim is a restless, immoral soul who dreamed of being a famous concert pianist but, like Aunt Maggie, was not successful in his attempt at a musical career. Maggie and Jim share that common ground, and Maggie feels attracted to Jim, but she is also repulsed by his drinking, womanizing, and lack of respect for others.

Katie sees a lot of things during that life-changing summer, and to me it's always fascinating to read a novel told from a child's point of view. Katie muses on the differences between Lulie's black Baptist brush arbor meetings and her own family's traditional Methodist church services; her Aunt Maggie's love and respect for Adam versus her love/hate relationship with Doctor Jim; Lulie's comments about the wilder side of life; her grandmother's bitterness; her grandfather's comments about the Confederacy; and a host of other topics.

This novel was one of those books that made me sit and think after I'd read the last page. The novel was bittersweet with a heartbreaking turn of events at the end, but it's definitely an excellent work.

I read Plum Thicket.......2005-05-21

I was enthralled by this book, and literally could not put it down...the beautifully descriptive writing, the sensitivity of the real life characters, the drama in the book. The book kept me spell-bound to the end, and the last fifty pages was a novel in itself. Blew me out of the water. Writing at its best. I highly recommend it!

Average customer rating:

Janice Holt Giles: A Writer's Life
Dianne Watkins , and Dianne Watkins Stuart
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

South | Regional U.S. | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women Writers & Feminist Theory | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Women Writers | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Hello, Janice: The Wartime Letters of Henry Giles
Hill Man
Run Me a River
The Land Beyond the Mountains
Miss Willie

ASIN: 0813120950

Books:

Books