RALEIGH – Many vacationers look forward to tossing a couple of books in the beach bag and relaxing with a good read. A sample survey of mostly N.C. Department of Cultural Resources employees yielded a varied reading list. Works of fiction, faith, history, or self-help were enthusiastically recommended. In a department that includes historians, librarians, preservationists, archaeologists, artists, writers, musicians, and more, the great variety is no surprise.
Selections from Cultural Resources Secretary Linda Carlisle were “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen Covey and “Look Homeward Angel,” by Thomas Wolfe – that after a trip to the Thomas Wolfe Memorial in Asheville. Chief Deputy Secretary Debra Derr endorsed “Passing Strange,” by Martha Sandweiss, the story of a white intellectual and geologist who chooses to pass as a black Pullman porter; and Deputy Secretary Jeffrey Crow read up on Andrew Jackson in “American Lion,” by John Mecham.
Other classics on the reading list include “Les Miserables,” by Victor Hugo, “Sense and Sensibility,” by Jane Austen, and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee. Of 62 respondents and 135 titles, only five occurred twice. They are the Bible, “Look Homeward Angel,” “The Last Days of Blackbeard the Pirate,” by Kevin Duffus, “Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory,” by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, and a Cultural Resources Book Club selection, “A Walk in the Woods,” by Bill Bryson.
Several other books on the topic of slavery were on the reading lists. Selections included “The Slave Ship,” by Marcus Rediker, “From Slavery to Freedom,” by John Hope Franklin, and “Slaves in the Family,” by Edward Ball.
Among books on the lives of women listed were “Elizabeth I,” by Anne Somerset, “Mrs. Lincoln: A Life,” by Catherine Clinton, and “Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp.” Other titles are “Work and Women in Southern Colonies,” by Julia Cherry Spruill, “Governess: The Lives and Times of Real Jane Eyres,” by Ruth Brandon, and “The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women,” by Susan J. Douglass.
Among books of Faith on the list, other than the Bible, are “A Moment of Weakness,” by Karen Kingsbury, “Release Your Anointing: Tapping the Power of the Holy Spirit Within You,” by T.D. Jakes, “God’s Problem: Why the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer,” by Bart Ehrman, and “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch.
North Carolina topics also made the list. “The North Carolina Gazetteer: A Dictionary of Tar Heel Places,” by William S. Powell, “Home to Holly Springs,” by Jan Karon, and “The USS Albemarle During World War II,” by Everett Green.
Self-help and How-to books are represented. “Eat this and Not That: A Supermarket Survival Guide,” by David Zinczenco, “How Parents Can Ignite the Hidden Strength of Teenagers,” by Peter L. Benson, “Genesis: The Single Woman’s Guide to Real Estate,” by Donna Raskin and Susan Hawthorn, and
“Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” by Steve Harvey.
Summer reading is great for all ages, and there are scores of titles waiting to temp vacationers and stay-cationers as well. The public library has many books to loan to the truly budget conscious. The State Library is within the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Now podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources available at www.ncculture.com.