The Black Mountain Authors Guild will present the second annual Holiday Book Sale at the Monte Vista Hotel on Thursday, December 21st, from 5 until 7.  All books are written by local authors and cover genres from children’s picture books to memoirs to historical novels. This year, there will be a drawing, with the winner getting a box-o-books by the BMAG authors.  Authors include Amy Allen (“Summoning the Mountains”),  Lois Chazen (Loving Ruby, Maddy Magoo's Animal Rescues:Tugen),  Pat Christie…See More

100 years measures up to a shining example for Ruth Houstonby Rob Neufeld             One hundred years of experience, recalled with immediate clarity, has led Avery County native Ruth Greene Houston to come to certain conclusions about how a humane society works.            Having left her childhood behind at…See More

Immerse yourselves in WNC’s best literature, 2013by Rob Neufeld             The focus for this season’s pick-fest is on books by Western North Carolina authors who have struck out, this year, in new directions and harnessed powerful urges.             If you love books, you come to love authors, and follow them as if they are personal projects.            So, to begin: Guests on Earth by Lee Smith (Algonquin Books hardcover, 345 pages, $25.95)             All the promotion about this novel is…See More

Join us on Friday, December 20th at 6 p.m. as Gary Carden offers up Appalachian Christmas tales at City Lights Bookstore.  Carden will talk about old rituals still practiced and some of his own childhood memories of Christmas in the mountains, including some of the leaner years during WWII when rationing was at its peak.  He will also talk about some of the stories featured in Eliot Wiggington’s Foxfire Christmas.  Gary Carden is an award-winning Appalachian author, playwright and folklorist.…See More

WNC BOOK DISCUSSION CALENDAR, DECEMBER 2013Sunday, December 1ROYAL BOOK CLUB: The ROYAL Book Club meets to discuss “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak at Spellbound Books, 50 N. Merrimon Ave. Suite 107, Asheville, 4 p.m. Call 708-7570.Monday, December 2WAYNESVILLE BOOK CLUB: The Waynesville Library Book Club discusses a novel at…See More