Table of Contents

• Introduction to the Collection
• Frye Gaillard
• Civil Rights
  Introduction
• 1. Arna Bontemps: Frederick Douglas. Great Slave Narratives.
• 2. John Egerton: Speak Now Against the Day.
• 3. John Lewis: Walking Against the Wind.
• 4. David Halberstam: The Children.
• 5. Frye Gaillard: Cradle of Freedom.
• Literature
  Introduction
• 1. Jesse Hill Ford: The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones.
• 2. Pat Conroy: The Death of Santini.
• 3. Ann Patchett: The Patron Saint of Liars.
• 4. Dori Sanders: Clover.
• 5. Alice Randall: Wind Done Gone.
• 6. Nikki Giovanni: Chasing Utopia.
• Music
  Introduction
• 1. Marshall Chapman: Goodbye, Little Rock n’ Roller.
• 2. Marty Stuart: Country Music: The Masters.
• 3. Rodney Crowell: Chinaberry Sidewalks.
• 4. Waylon Jennings: Waylon: An Autobiography.
• 5. Kinky Friedman: Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover.
• Sports
  Introduction
• 1. Charles Fountain: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice.
• 2. William Marshall: Baseball’s Pivotal Era, 1945-1951.
• 3. William Price Fox: Satchel Paige’s America.
• 4. Pat Toomay: On Any Given Sunday.
• The Presidency
  Introduction
• 1. Jon Meacham. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.
• 2. Doris Kearns Goodwin: Team of Rivals and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.
• 3. David Maraniss: Barack Obama: The Story.
• 4. John Seigenthaler Sr. interviewed by son John Michael Seigenthaler: James K. Polk.
• Closing/Epilogue
• Andrew Maraniss, son of David: Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South. Singled Out: The Story of Glenn Burke

About the Author

Frye Gaillard, writer-in-residence at the University of South Alabama, is the author of seventeen other works of non-fiction, including Prophet from Plains: Jimmy Carter and His Legacy; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina; Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America; and Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music.

Andrew Maraniss is the New York Times–bestselling author of Strong Inside, the only sports-related book ever to win two prestigious civil rights awards—the Lillian Smith Book Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Awards Special Recognition Prize. Andrew is a contributor to ESPN's sports and race website, TheUndefeated.com, and helps run Vanderbilt University's Sports & Society Initiative. He also writes nonfiction for young readers.

Marshall Chapman moved to Nashville in 1967 to attend Vanderbilt University, and wrote her first song in 1973. Her songs have been recorded by Conway Twitty, Jimmy Buffett, and many others. She is a contributing editor for Garden & Gun magazine and the author of Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller, which was a finalist for the 2004 SEBA Book Award and Book Critics Circle Award.

Reviews

Only Seigenthaler could get these esteemed writers to open up and loosen up to discuss writing, art, and their life experiences."—Beverly Keel, Dean of the College of Media and Entertainment, Middle Tennessee State University

“This book captures my father’s passion for literature and highlights his interviews with some of the most famous authors of our time. He used A Word on Words to encourage his viewers to ‘keep reading,’ a message that is as important today as it was when he started the program more than four decades ago."—John M. Seigenthaler