2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge: Hillbilly Highway -- a 20th century migration

 Number one among my posts in the  the 2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge.  My category is that of a Nonfiction Grazer, the description of which is: "Read & review any nonfiction book. Set your own goal, or none at all, just share the nonfiction you read through the year." This best fits my nonconformist style.

A new cousin with whom I share eastern Tennesee/western Virginia roots recommended Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class by Max Fraser (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2023) when I told her that my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Nave moved from eastern Tennessee to South Bend, Indiana.  I didn't give any details; I just mentioned in passing one of the links between her family and mine.

The "Hillbilly Highway" is a series of routes from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia to cities in the upper midwest: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana figure largely in the destinations of this migration.  The author, Max Fraser, attributes this migration to the changing economic conditions in the upper south, including the shrinking of family farmland, which was being bought up by mining, transportation, and government interests (the latter being mainly the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority for the purposes of rural electrification).  The migrants looked for factory work and mining in the upper midwest, where they could make a great deal more money than on hardscrabble farming. 

This phenomenon of forced migration due to economics took place in the years encompassing World War II, according to Fraser, and lasted into the 1960s.  In that, this theory covers a time period fifty years too late to include my family.  My great-grandparents Nave were in South Bend, Indiana, by 1892, which is when my grandmother was born in that city.  Fraser sees the people affected by the changing economy of the southern areas as farmers, suffering the loss of farmlands to the interests mentioned above.  My great-grandfather and many men in the Nave family were merchants.  Great-grandpa was a grocer.  He was one in Tennessee and in Indiana.

Fraser sees a pattern in that the people, mostly men, who made this change from the south to the upper midwest did not stay permanently there.  Many returned to their southern homes for planting season or harvest, or for family celebrations.  I have found no indication that my great-grandfather and great-grandmother ever made any return trips to Tennessee.  That raises a question of whether their hegira to Indiana might have been motivated by personal reasons, some sort of difficulty within the family.  Once in Indiana, they stayed there, first in South Bend and then in Logansport.

 While this particular theory does not appear to apply to my family, it is an interesting look at the middle of the 20th century.  The Dust Bowl was not, apparently, the only motivation that put people on the road from one section of the country to another.  Fraser's research supports his theory.  He includes some individual histories of some who found themselves in this migration.  Some of the people involved, either as migrants or as entrepreneurs who provided the transportation for these migrants along the "Hillbilly Highway" routes delineated by Fraser, were indeed colorful characters.  That gives an engaging leavening to the statistics and dates and facts that makes the book readable.  It is an excellent example of the trend away from the Great Man sort of history to history of ordinary people who really build the United States.

The author is a former journalist and currently is an assistant professor of history at the University of Miami. 

Recommended to readers with an interest in History and fans of the 20th Century.

 

 

My Life in Books 2025

 

 

This is a fun little exercise devised by Shellyrae at Book'd Out

Here are the instructions:  

Complete the prompts using titles from the books you have read in 2025 to complete the sentence to describe your life in the past year.   NB Some of these statements aren’t true. The prompts are bold; my responses in plain text.  It isn't as easy as it seems . . .  We're asked to tag others.  Nah.  Participate if you wish to.  

2025 was the year of  Straight Shooting by Robert Stack.

In 2025 I wanted to be What's Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy, by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack.

In 2025 I was Making It So: A Memoir, by Sir Patrick Stewart.

In 2025 I gained Ten Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent from Hell, by Jim Fisher.

In 2025 I lost Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink.

In 2025 I loved my Puritan Pedigrees: the Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England, by Robert Charles Anderson. 

In 2025 I hated Jack Ruby: the Many Faces of Oswald's Assassin, by Danny Fingeroth. (Actually, I liked the book; I can't say I have any positive feelings for the subject person.)

In 2025 I learned We Carry Their Bones: the Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys, by Erin Kimmerle.

In 2025 I was surprised by What Really Happened to the Class of '65, by Michael Medved and David Wallechinsky.

 In 2025 I went to Secret Jacksonville: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure, by Bill Delaney.

In 2025 I missed out on It All Makes Sense Now: Embrace Your ADHD Brain to Live a Creative and Colorful Life, by Meredith Carder.

In 2025, my family were Wild Things Are Happening: the Art of Maurice Sendak, edited by Jonathan Weinberg. 

In 2026, I hope it will be The Honeycomb, by Adela Rogers St. Johns.

We are what we read!

 

 

2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge: I'm Gonna Do It!

 

 Shellyrae at Book'd Out is hosting  the 2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge.  Since I so enjoyed Nonfiction November, I'm signing up for this one, in the form of a Nonfiction Grazer, the description of which is: "Read & review any nonfiction book. Set your own goal, or none at all, just share the nonfiction you read through the year."  The other forms of participation require choice each month of a book from 12 different specific categories, something I find too restrictive.  I'd rather be at liberty to read whatever attracts my attention.  I'm a maverick, an opinionated old lady, and a nonconformist.  The Nonfiction Grazer describes me well.  I'll read darn near anything!  Just let me be the one to choose what I'll read.

I prefer reading nonfiction, though I will also read fiction.  In fact, I'd be happy to also sign up for a fiction reading challenge.  As long as I can pick what I will be reading.  In the fiction category, please don't ask me to read romance!  Definitely not my cup of tea.

Onward!

Sunday Salon: The Last Few Days Before Christmas

 These last few days before Christmas my husband and I have been:

Wrapping Christmas presents and getting some in the mail.  The mail-out presents don't have far to go, just from here in north Florida to our friends Tom and Amanda in central Florida, and should arrive Wednesday.  Others are local.  Some have already been given, to our nephew Paul who visited us from Australia, where he lives.

Watching NFL football, particularly games in the AFC South conference.  Our team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, have been tearin' up the pea patch and finally getting some recognition.  We watched them beat the Denver Broncos yesterday, 34-20, after almost every prognosticator had predicted they'd lose.  Not the first time the Jaguars have been underrated against the Broncos.  The first time was 4 January 1997, when the Jaguars were dissed as "jagwads" by Denver sports writer Woody Paige.  That fired up the team enough that they won, 30-27.  The effect on the fans was electrifying, and we were among the throng who flocked to the stadium in the dark of night to welcome the team home.  Their airplane received permission to divert to a circle path over the stadium before landing at Jacksonville International Airport.  And when they arrived, and quarterback Mark Brunell said into the microphone, "Jacksonville, do you believe in miracles?" -- Pandemonium!

Reading.  I'm into a book titled Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class, by Max Fraser.  It was suggested by a newly-found distant cousin when I mentioned to her that my maternal ancestors had gone from eastern Tennessee, one location of our mutual roots, to Indiana.  Cousin Nancy suggested they may have been part of this migration.  I'm also reading, via Kindle, You Went to Emergency for WHAT?, a hilarious yet somewhat acerbic account by Australian paramedic Tom Booth of the ridiculous demands often made on hospital emergency departments.  

 Doing genealogy.  One way I'm hoping to preserve my family history and that of my husband is to contribute to the collaborative family tree at WikiTree, which is for genealogists by genealogists.  It strictly requires that members provide source citations to reliable sources, an aspect that I am 100% behind.  I've just ordered a book on how to see to it that one's family history is preserved after one has shuffled off this mortal coil.

Celebrating.  Our grandson Victor just turned 21, and we had a small family celebration.  He's in college now, and is planning on moving to North Carolina next year.

Next week, I think we'll spend most of our time recovering!

Happy Holidays to all!

#Sunday Salon 

 

Three Book Journals for Recording Your Reading

 As I grow older, and as I have ADHD, my memory is not so good these days.  For that reason, I look for ways to record my reading, so I can see what I've read in the last couple decades, and some from before that.  I like to go back and look at what I've already read.  I also use these book journals to be sure I don't buy a book I've already read years before!

I have, since the late 1990s, found three book journals for recording my reading.  Here are my reviews of them.

The first one I found is Bookography: The Journal and Journey of my Well-Read Life, from Levenger, a website for readers and writers, with all sorts of gadgets, paper, pens, and other items related to reading and writing (www.levenger.com).  This record is letter-sized (8.5 x 11).  It is bound with Levenger's clever disk binding, with a special hole-punch and disk arrangement, making the record ultimately flexible in the way you can arrange the pages.  That is a key to the use of this particular format.

There is an introduction, instructing the user on how to use this journal.  This format is divided into several sections: List of Candidates (books you want to read), Library of Candidates (your TBR or TRQ), Now Reading (what you're reading at the moment), Apres Reading (first reactions to having read the book), Living Library (those you've read, and liked, and wish to keep, perhaps to re-read), and Castaways (the ones you simply could not finish).  Each page, which is the record of the individual book, reflects these divisions.  As the user progresses through these stages with each book, he or she fills in the page, section by section.

 As the user fills in the page, he or she migrates the page through the divisions of the journal, which are marked by dividers.  Each page will find its final place in either the Living Library section, or among the Castaways.  Information recorded includes title, author, date acquired/read, why you want to read the book, how it fits into each of the divisions of the record, and any other aspect the user cares to mention.

For the way I operate, this format is confusing and cumbersome.  It is not easy to use, and therefore, I did not use it effectively.  It just doesn't fit my personal style.  One thing offputting to me is that, while the back of each page has ample note space for recording my reactions to a book, the format requires flipping back and forth from the front of the page, the starting place for notes on specific aspects of the book, to the back of the page for more space in which to continue to record these reactions.  It's a great idea, and may work for some people.  It just doesn't work for me.

The second format I encountered is one I picked up at a local independent bookseller.  It is Book Lover's Journal, produced by Cachet Products, Inc., of Fairfield, New Jersey.  They may not be in business any more.  This record is small, 5 inches by 8 inches.  There is little room to record a reaction to a book, and the front of the page is one individual record, and the back of the page is another record.  This forces each review to be too brief for my taste.

Information asked for on each record page is title, author, publisher, date, where bought or borrowed from, recommended by, date read, recommended to, subject, and comments.  My chief complaint, again, is the lack of enough space to write what I consider to be a good, informative, full review.

The third and last journal format is one more suited to my style.  It is the Premium Reading Journal, by Clever Fox.  I found this one on Amazon.com.  It is also smaller than the Levenger journal, this one being 5x8.  The accompanying material says this journal is of European manufacture.  The whole package is elegance itself: the journal is in book form, with a traditional binding.  It comes in a lovely little box that closes magnetically.  There is a brochure which describes in detail how to use this journal.  In the box is a ribbon, to be placed under the journal, for ease in lifting the journal out of the box!  That is elegance.  

For all that elegance, I found the price quite reasonable, and I'm a direct descendant of Massachusetts Puritans, with a strong streak of that penny-pinching New England thrift in my bones.  

The journal begins with an index.  The user writes the journal page number and the title of the book reviewed on that page.  The user can rate the book from one to five stars in the third column of the index.  Next is the To Be Read (TBR) list, where the user writes the title of the book in the first column, and, in the next three, records whether the book is a "want" or a "have," and whether the user finally got around to reading it.   Next is a section "to help you track your daily reading habit and ensure you regularly read all year long."  You get the sense that They're Watching You!  The user simply places a check mark in the box under each month and day.  

In the next section, the user records his or her favorite authors, with name, the user's favorite book or series by that author, other books in the series (if it is in a series), and what the user likes about the author's books.  The next two-page spread presents a reading challenge, where the user enters their selection under a variety of criteria, for example, a book by an author from a marginalized community, or a graphic novel.  Next, under Literary Highlights, the user can comment on such aspects of reading as the Most Unexpected Gem they found in their reading, or the Most Immersive Worldbuilding.  After that comes My Favorite Quotes, where the user can record bon mots from their reading, with the quotation, the book, the author, and the page number on which the quotation appears.

Then comes the list of books the user just could not force themselves to finish, giving the book, the author, the last page read, and the reason they stopped reading it.  Here's the place where the user can -- in a sentence or two -- let the author of dreck have it with both barrels.  One must have one's standards.

The comes the meat of the journal: the area where the user records each book they have read.  This section consists of two-page spreads for the user's reviews.  At the top of the left-hand page is a section for recording the basic information: author, title, genre, year published, number of pages, whether fiction or non-fiction, and format (book, audiobook, or e-book).  The user may also enter the date begun and the date finished, and may fill in a pie chart for rating the writing, characters, plot, readability, setting, and enjoyment, and can also indicate how many stars they give each book.  The pie chart is skewed toward fiction, but may also be used for non-fiction.  The segments of the pie chart are graduated, so the user can indicate how good or how bad each aspect on the pie chart seemed to them.  On the rest of the left-hand page, the user may record their first impressions of the book, how the book may have challenged their beliefs or ideas, and the key takeaway they'll remember about the book.  On the right-hand page is ample space for "Thoughts and Notes."  The layout of the two-page spread in this section means the user does not have to keep flipping the page back and forth to fill in everything.   This journal is definitely more suited to my style.

There certainly are other book journals out there, in a variety of formats.  I don't think I'll be looking anymore, unless it comes to pass that I can't get the Clever Fox journal anymore.  I'm probably going to have to buy one each year!

Happy reading!

 

Nonfiction November Week 5: My Choices from the Blog Posts

Oh, what a delicious smorgasbord of books we have been served this month!  It has been really difficult to winnow the offerings for the ones that appeal the most to me.  I've already bought one.  It's on my Kindle, ready to read.  Which one?  Read on. 

The others are on my Amazon.com wish list.  Christmas is a-comin' and the geese are gettin' fat . . . 

Here is the list of the books that made it onto my TBR, TRQ, or whatever you may want to call it.  I have seen that most of the other participants in this challenge use TBR (to be read, I presume).  A bunch of aspiring writers, some of whom have since been published (including me) I hung around with in cyberspace for some 30 years use TRQ (to-read queue).  It's all the same.  (Should I confess my TRQ would make a stack oh, I guess . . . six feet high?  H'mm.  I have some reading to do.) 

 1.  Come, Tell Me How You Live, by Agatha Christie.  Recommended by Mary Elizabeth at She Reads Novels.  I read just about everything Agatha Christie wrote when I was just a kid, encouraged by the example of my mother reading them.  I became a fan of mysteries.  I'm curious to learn what she was willing to reveal about herself.

2.  Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History, by Lytton Strachey, recommended at What? Me Read?  I'm rather intrigued by Elizabeth, and have a copy of Elizabeth I: Collected Works, her own writings.  I've known about Elizabeth and Essex for a long time, and have decided to read it.

3.  The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede, recommended by Deb at Reader Buzz.  I never have been much for daytime TV, so my television was off that awful morning.  My younger daughter drew my attention to the horror occurring in New York City when she called me from her workplace.  Later, when I learned of the wonderful support and hospitality shown to passengers on those diverted U.S.-bound airliners by the people of Gander, Newfoundland, I was eminently proud of being part Canadian.

4.  Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights, edited by Ashley Hope Perez, recommended by Anne at Head Full of Books.  As a former librarian, I have no use for book-banning, censorship, fools who rail against books they have NOT read, and other nonsense.   

5.  The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen, recommended by Mark at Mark Joseph Jochim.  As a historian and a genealogist (retired), I'm a note-taker supreme.  I'm looking forward to reading this book.  I hope it will have some good tips for me. 

6.  The Ship Beneath the Ice by Mensun Bound, recommended by Angela at Musings of a Literary Wanderer. Among the many jobs I've had, and this one the best by far, I served 15 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, active duty and reserve, enlisted and officer.  Therefore, things of a maritime nature intrigue me.  I'm adding this story of the discovery of the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic exploration ship, Endurance.     

7.  The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano that Darkened the World and Changed History by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman, recommended by Harry at Unsolicited Feedback. I expected this book was about Krakatoa, but the 1816 date told me I was wrong.  Tambora, a volcano in the Indonesian archipelago, exploded with more force and volume than Krakatoa and affected the weather around the world.  This is another must-read for me.

8.  Who Owns this Sentence: A History of Copyrights and Wrongs by David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu, recommended by Nicky at The Bibliophibian (isn't that a wonderful blog title!).  This appeals to the word nerd and writer in me. 

9.  Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench, recommended by Annabel at AnnaBookBel.  I do like Dame Judi, and am looking forward to reading this book!

10.  Advice for Future Corpses (And Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying by Sallie Tisdale, recommended by Lisa at Lisa Notes on Life &Love.  I've read a good deal on death and dying, as I was a registered nurse many years ago.  Also because I've had many losses over my lifetime, beginning with my father's passing in 1954, when I had just turned 7 years old. 

11. Being Mortal: Medicine And What Matters In The End by Atul Gawande recommended by Aj at Read All the Things. The author is an oncologist and surgeon; our younger daughter has cancer.  Rather than fear it, I choose to master it by learning all I can about it.  Our daughter has already mastered it, and I tell people she is not afraid of the cancer.  The cancer had better be afraid of her.

12.  And finally, the one I have already bought for my Kindle: You Went to Emergency for WHAT? by Tom Booth, recommended by Shellyrae at Book'd Out.  As a nurse, I worked for a while in a rather large city hospital's emergency room.  I hope this is as intriguing a read as it seems to be.

So there's the beginning of my nonfiction reading for next year.  See you in November, 2026.  And a good bit before, too, I hope.

 

 

 

Nonfiction November Week 4: Diverse perspectives

 We've passed the halfway mark in this challenge month.  Week 4 asks us which book we read this past year from a diverse author, or one that changed our perspectives.  The host this week is Rebekah at She Seeks Nonfiction. 

 I've done both. 

Diverse authors:  I picked George Takei, Japanese-American (nisei), reading his graphic novel They Called Us Enemy, about his family's experience being interned by the government during World War II.  I think he picked the graphic novel format to appeal to readers younger than I am, though the format has an immediacy that mere words cannot achieve, even for an old fogey like me.  We see the degradation these thousands upon thousands of loyal American citizens suffered, the indignity of being considered "enemy aliens."  Ever since I first learned about the internment, when I was in high school, it has been something I consider to have been offensive.  Do I not get the concept of "national security?"  Yes, I do, having served in the military and having taken a seminar in national defense taught by a retired Navy admiral with wide experience in the concept.  The mass labeling of people who don't deserve the label is offensive to me.  If there are a few security risks, concentrate on them.  Don't throw innocent and loyal folk into concentration camps.  War hysteria is a thing.  It is not a good thing.

For a book that changed my perspective, it is Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital, by Sheri Fink.  Fink, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, demonstrates the horrible lack of preparedness for Hurricane Katrina.  The subject hospital, in New Orleans during and after that storm, was cut off by flood waters.  Services -- electricity, supply, rescue -- were unavailable for a period during and after the storm.  Medications and other supplies were running out.  Patients who needed machines -- respirators, monitors, IV pumps -- had to depend on the failing generator capacity of the hospital.  Finally, the staff were presented with the extreme of triage, having literally to decide which patients could be saved and which could not.  Having been a registered nurse, I had to conclude that I don't know how I'd have reacted in such a situation.  But I think the staff made the only choice they could make, under those incredibly horrid circumstances.  Where lies the blame, if any is to be assessed?  I think it belongs to those who made paper promises of rescue and restoration, and failed miserably to keep them.