Blue Bicycle Books

Join us Tues., Feb 25, 5 pm for Jane Kleeb, chair of the Democratic Party of Nebraska, as she talks about her new book Harvest the Vote (Ecco, hb, 224 pp., $26.99) before the SC Democratic debate.

The Democratic Party has lost an entire generation of rural voters. By focusing the majority of their message and resources on urban and coastal voters, Democrats have sacrificed entire regions of the country where there is more common ground and shared values than what appears on the surface.

In Harvest the Vote, Jane Kleeb brings us a lively and sweeping argument for why the Democrats shouldn’t turn away from rural America. As a party leader and longtime activist, Kleeb speaks from experience. She’s been fighting the national party for more resources and building a grassroots movement to flex the power of a voting bloc that has long been ignored and forgotten.

Jane Kleeb is an American political activist. She is the founder and president of Bold Alliance, Chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and a board member of Our Revolution and Matriarch PAC. She lives in Hastings, Nebraska with her husband Scott Kleeb and their three daughters.

Join us Thurs., Mar. 5, 5:30 pm as College of Charleston professor Dr. Adam H. Domby will be here to discuss his book The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory (UVA Press, hb., 272 pp., $30).

The Lost Cause ideology that emerged after the Civil War and flourished in the early twentieth century in essence sought to recast a struggle to perpetuate slavery as a heroic defense of the South. As Adam Domby reveals here, this was not only an insidious goal; it was founded on falsehoods. The False Cause focuses on North Carolina to examine the role of lies and exaggeration in the creation of the Lost Cause narrative. In the process the book shows how these lies have long obscured the past and been used to buttress white supremacy in ways that resonate to this day.

Domby explores how fabricated narratives about the war’s cause, Reconstruction, and slavery―as expounded at monument dedications and political rallies―were crucial to Jim Crow. He questions the persistent myth of the Confederate army as one of history’s greatest, revealing a convenient disregard of deserters, dissent, and Unionism, and exposes how pension fraud facilitated a myth of unwavering support of the Confederacy among nearly all white Southerners. Domby shows how the dubious concept of “black Confederates” was spun from a small number of elderly and indigent African American North Carolinians who got pensions by presenting themselves as “loyal slaves.” The book concludes with a penetrating examination of how the Lost Cause narrative and the lies on which it is based continue to haunt the country today and still work to maintain racial inequality.

Adam H. Domby is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Charleston.

Thurs., Feb. 27, at 5:30, help us celebrate the release of local nonprofit Enough Pie‘s book, Tales from the Manor, a counterpart to their popular podcast of the same title.

Enough Pie’s mission is to use creativity to connect and empower the community in Charleston’s Upper Peninsula. With this mission at its heart, Tales from the Manor discovers and projects the stories from residents of Joseph Floyd Manor, a twelve-story building on Upper King that serves low-income, elderly, and disabled residents, creating in the process, a dynamic and oft-overlooked history of Charleston. More than 5,000 listeners have enjoyed the radio show and podcast, and the goal of the book is to get these important stories out even wider. The book features the complete interviews from each show (10 episodes), photographs of the residents by local photographer Vintage Noir, and opening and closing chapters from the show’s hosts, Summer Anderson and Jae Smith and Enough Pie’s project lead Bennett Jones.

Renowned silhouette artist Clay Rice returns to Blue Bicycle Books, Sun., Feb. 9, 2-5 pm to cut children’s silhouettes and sign his latest books, At the Stroke of Goodnight and The Stick (Familius, hb, $17).

Taught by his grandfather, Carew Rice, Clay is a 21st-century folk artist and a Lowcountry treasure. Cutting a child’s silhouette in under five minutes is a performance in itself. You’ll be amazed when he captures a recognizable profile of your squirming two-year-old in less time than it takes to get her shoes on. His national touring schedule keeps him on the road often, cutting more than 10,000 children’s silhouettes a year, so events back home in Charleston are rare!

Personal silhouettes start at $48 for two copies. We expect slots to fill up quickly; to book an appointment, just register here!

Join celebrated local author Brad Taylor at Uptown Social (587 King St.), Sat., Jan. 18, 7 pm. Brad will talk and sign copies of his latest thriller Hunter Killer (William Morrow, hb., 432 pp., $28.99).

The fourteenth installment of his New York Times bestselling Pike Logan Series, Hunter Killer finds Logan and his team entangled in a byzantine scheme involving Russian and Israeli assassins, Brazilian politics, a cut-throat battle for control of offshore oil fields, leading to an attack on his team both in Brazil and Charleston, SC.

Brad Taylor served for more than twenty years in the U.S. Army, including eight years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta, commonly known as Delta Force. He retired as a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel and now lives in Charleston.