Blair imprint: 92 books

In his introduction to Prayin’ to Be Set Free, Andrew Waters likens the personal accounts of former Mississippi slaves to the music of that state’s legendary blues artists. The pain, the modest eloquence, and even the underlying vitality are much the same. What is now Mississippi wasn’t acquired...

During the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project engaged jobless writers and researchers to interview former slaves about their experiences in bondage. Most of the interviewees were by then in their eighties and nineties, and their memories were soon to be lost to history. The effort was...

From the time they established formal ties with Great Britain in 1730, the Cherokees had a rocky relationship with white settlers. They found grounds for dispute over trade practices, territorial control, and the complicated loyalties among the various Indian tribes and European powers. Over the years,...

There is an island at the remote southern end of North Carolina’s Outer Banks where you might see wild horses playing in the surf, or grazing within view of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse, or scattering into a rare, weather-beaten maritime forest. The horse herd on Shackleford Banks has long been a...

Ironclads and Columbiads recounts the exciting battles and events that shook the coast of North Carolina during America's bloodiest war. Throughout the Civil War, North Carolina's coast was of great strategic importance to the Confederacy. Its well-protected coastline offered a perfect refuge for...

Many historians believe the fortunes of the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War turned dramatically on the battlefields of North and South Carolina. This guide travels to such sites in South Carolina as Cowpens, Ninety Siz, Camden, Eutaw Springs, and Kings Mountain. It also includes relevant...

In the introduction to Soul Food Odyssey, Chef Stephanie Tyson describes her early feelings when people assumed her Sweet Potatoes restaurant was a “soul food” establishment. “Soul food was like the boxer George Foreman,” she says. “He would stand there and go toe-to-toe. It wasn’t pretty,...

When Wilbur and Orville Wright arrived on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the year 1900, they were unknown bicycle mechanics who dreamed of powered flight. Even after they achieved the first heavier-than-air, powered flight in the dunes of Kill Devil Hills on December 17, 1903, they remained obscure....

Thanks to well-known fishing expert Mike Marsh, North Carolinians finally have a definitive guide for the entire state in one handy volume. Fishing North Carolina is the only book that covers the multitude of fishing opportunities in all of the state’s regions: mountains, Piedmont, and coastal plain....

From 1971 to his retirement in 2011, Woody Durham was the “Voice of the Tar Heels,” the radio play-by-play man for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this autobiography, Woody takes the reader on a nostalgic stroll down memory lane—from his descriptions of a sleepy Franklin...

From Blackbeard's den at Ocracoke, to the Hills of the Seven Sisters at Nags Head, to the misty swamps of Shallote, there is hardly an inch of territory along North Carolina's coast without a legend attached to it. Inlanders may be skeptical regarding the sometimes miraculous, often horror-filled...

In September 1996, Cumberland Island blasted onto the national news scene when it was revealed that John Kennedy, Jr., and Carolyn Bessette were married on the island in the First African Baptist Church—a simple one-room frame structure with eight handmade pews. When the flotilla of writers and...

Whedbee's collections of legends and folklore have become regional classics. The continuing popularity of these books stems from the author's intimate knowledge of the places, people, and events of which he writes. He gathers the mysteries, tales, legends, and lore that have been handed down for generations...

In his first new book in six years, Donald Davis, considered by many to be the father of family tales, returns to recollections of growing up in the southern Appalachians, and especially of his relationship with his sibling Joe. Davis has remarked that he “didn’t learn stories, I just absorbed...