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Southern Bound: Recommended gift books for men

John Sledge By John Sledge
on December 06, 2009 at 1:47 PM, updated January 14, 2010 at 1:43 PM

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If you have a man or men with any interest in books to buy for this holiday season, allow me to make a few humble recommendations, broadly divided into some typical Southern male categories. Though many of these titles are not new, and some are decades old, all are still in print and available from area bookstores or online retailers like Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com (Christmas delivery by standard shipping is guaranteed if ordered as late as December 20 in most cases).

Sports

“The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” (Norton, $24.95) by Michael Lewis — The inspiration for the current hit movie, this book is ostensibly about the position of left side tackle in football, but in actuality the author deftly interbraids this with larger issues of race, class, the South and modern culture.

“Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and a Dream” (Perseus, $28.95) by Buzz Bissinger — An unsettling portrait by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist of Middle America through the lens of high school football. Bissinger nailed it, and the result made him the most hated man in Odessa, Texas, where the story is set. Sports Illustrated ranks this the fourth-best-ever football book.

John Sledge Column Head
“Ball Four” (Bulldog, $24.95) by Jim Bouton — This baseball classic by a former major league pitcher from the early 1970s is a riot from first to last page. Odds are, your guy read it in high school, but I’ll bet he’s lost that well-thumbed copy. A new one will have him laughing out loud under the tree.

“Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last String Quarterback” (Lyons, paper, $15.95) by George Plimpton — A small masterpiece. What it’s like to suit up and take the field with men who are bigger, better trained and faster than you.

“The Crimson Tide: An Illustrated History of Football at the University of Alabama” (Alabama, $37.95) by Winston Groom — Though now almost 10 years old, there is no better or more colorful introduction to the subject that interests so many men (and women) in this state.

“The Courting of Marcus Dupree” (Mississippi, $27) by Willie Morris — A fascinating up-close and personal look by a master Southern storyteller at how a black high school athlete was recruited. ESPN will air a Dupree documentary in 2010.

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Hunting

“Tenth Legion: Tips, Tactics and Insights on Turkey Hunting” (Lyons, paper, $12.95) by Tom Kelly — If your loved one doesn’t already have this classic by Spanish Fort’s own Tom Kelly, buy it. There is not a better written or funnier analysis of turkey hunting in the Deep South.

“Game Bag: Tales of Shooting and Fishing” (Freeman, $39.95) by Nash Buckingham — These old-time classics of field and stream by a master of the genre are pure joy for any outdoorsman.

“Go Down, Moses” (Vintage, paper, $14.95) by William Faulkner — This 1940s novel contains the famous set piece “The Bear,” perhaps the best deep South hunting yarn ever spun. The men, the dogs, the whiskey, the drizzly cold November woods — Faulkner brilliantly captures them all. And then there’s the subtext.

“Hemingway on Hunting” (Lyons, $29.95) — A fine selection of the great American writer’s best prose on hunting and fishing, selected and edited by his grandson Sean.

Civil War (general interest)

“Battle Cry of Freedom” (Oxford, $19.95) by James M. McPherson — This beautifully written history was widely acclaimed when first published in 1988, and it remains the best one-volume introduction to the subject.

“The Civil War: A Narrative” (Vintage, paper, $78) by Shelby Foote — This three-volume boxed set offers meatier fare for those who want more. It is an acknowledged masterpiece, an American epic rendered in the fluid prose of a gifted stylist.

“Company Aytch” (Plume, paper, $16) by Sam Watkins — What some of the big Western battles were like from the perspective of a Confederate common soldier. Watkins’s voice is simple and sincere, yet riveting.

“Vicksburg, 1863” (Knopf, $30) by Winston Groom — A fine campaign history that details the travails of soldiers and civilians alike. There is no better book on the siege of the Mississippi River stronghold.

Civil War (for the connoisseur)

“I Rode with Stonewall” (North Carolina, $45) by Henry Kyd Douglas — This firsthand account by one of Stonewall Jackson’s young staff officers is filled with detail and insight into the eccentric general’s personality.

“Yankee Blitzkrieg: Wilson’s Raid Through Alabama and Georgia” (Kentucky, paper, $19.95) by James Pickett Jones — First published in 1976, this fast-paced battle narrative details how Union cavalry overwhelmed the badly outnumbered Rebels led by General Forrest and burned the University of Alabama, captured Selma and Montgomery, and thrust into Georgia at Columbus.

“A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom” (Houghton, $25) edited by David W. Blight — Presents two accounts in the words of ex-slaves who escaped their bondage. One of them, Wallace Turnage, was in Mobile and vividly describes the local slave market, the city’s defenses, the bay, and, incredibly, given his predicament, the profusion of flowers in people’s yards.
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