Blue Bicycle Books

Thurs., Dec. 10, 5 – 7 pm, award-winning Post & Courier writer Bo Petersen will be discussing and signing Washing Our Hands in the Clouds: Joe Williams, His Forebears, and Black Farms in South Carolina (USC Press, pb., $19.95).

In Washing Our Hands in the Clouds, Peterson offers a reflection on the Civil War, Emancipation, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement all filtered through the personal narrative of one man in one place. By fusing Joe Williams’ family genealogy with his neighborhood and, most importantly, his family’s farmland in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina, Petersen presents a state history beginning in the 1860’s and running through present day.

Bo Petersen is an award-winning reporter for the Post Courier and has additionally published poetry, short stories, and essays.

• $30 for the author talk and delicious three-course luncheon,
• $65 that includes lunch and a signed book.

Tickets may be purchased online here or through the 24/7 ticket hotline number 800.838.3006. For special requests call 843.303.1113. Doors open at 11:30 AM and lunch is served promptly at noon. Limited seating provides an intimate experience with the author.

 

Based on scores of never-before-published records drawn from archives across four continents as well as new interviews with survivors, Target Tokyo is World War II history of the highest order: a harrowing adventure story that also serves as a pivotal reexamination of one of America’s most daring military operations.

In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo. Four months later, on April 18, 1942, sixteen U.S. Army bombers under the command of daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle lifted off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to pummel the enemy’s factories, refineries, and dockyards and then escape to Free China. For Roosevelt, the raid was a propaganda victory, a potent salve to heal a wounded nation. In Japan, outraged over the deaths of innocent civilians—including children—military leaders launched an ill-fated attempt to seize Midway that would turn the tide of the war. But it was the Chinese who suffered the worst, victims of a retaliatory campaign by the Japanese Army that claimed an estimated 250,000 lives and saw families drowned in wells, entire towns burned, and communities devastated by bacteriological warfare.

James Scott is an award-winning writer and former reporter and investigative journalist with The Post and Courier. Scott is a recipient of the McClatchy Company President’s Award and was named the 2003 Journalist of the Year by the South Carolina Press Association. Wofford College honored Scott as its 2005 Young Alumnus of the Year. From 2006-2007 he was a Nieman Fellow for Journalism at Harvard University. In addition to Target Tokyo, Scott is the author of The Attack on the Liberty,  which won the prestigious 2010 Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Excellence in Naval Literature, and The War Below, both with Simon & Schuster. He is at work on a fourth book on the February 1945 Battle for Manila.  Scott lives with his wife and two children in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

Getting excited about YALLFest? We are too. You can now pre-order signed copies of your favorite books! Click here, and check it out!

Join us, Tues., Oct. 20, 5 – 7  pm as Ryan Graudin signs copies of her book, Wolf by Wolf. (Little Brown Books, hb., 400 pp., $18). Pre-order here to receive a limited edition post-card and button!

The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule the world. To commemorate their Great Victory over Britain and Russia, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor’s Ball.

Yael, who escaped from a death camp, has one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year’s only female victor, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele’s twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael’s every move. But as Yael begins to get closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?

Ryan Graudin grew up in Charleston and graduated from the College of Charleston with a degree in Creative Writing in 2009. She is the author of All That Glows and The Walled City. She resides near Charleston with her husband and wolf-dog. This is her fourth novel.

Tickets are on sale now to hear author  Nicholas Kristof at the Charleston Music Hall, Mon., Oct. 19, 10  am — a special event of the SC Community Loan Fund. After the talk Kristof will sign copies of his book A Path Appears (Knopf, hb., 400 pp., $28) as well as other titles including Half the Sky.  Tickets for the presentation are on sale for $25 and are available here. There is more information available about the event here.

At 12:00 pm at the Embassy Suites Historic Charleston we will host a luncheon featuring an interview with Nicholas Kristof, conducted by Charleston’s own Pulitzer Prize winner,Jack Bass. We will also unveil our 10th anniversary video at the luncheon which features key figures in our organization’s development. Limited seats to the luncheon are available for $100.

About the book: In their number one New York Times best seller Half the Sky, husband-and-wife team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn brought to light struggles faced by women and girls around the globe, and showcased individuals and institu­tions working to address oppression and expand opportunity. A Path Appears is even more ambi­tious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tap­estry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same—whether with a donation of $5 or $5 mil­lion, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.

Nicholas D. Kristof is a New York Times op-ed columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. With his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, he has written four best-selling books, including the No. 1 New York Times best-seller Half the Sky. Kristof and WuDunn were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism, for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in China and the massacre that followed. Kristof later won a second for his columns from Darfur. Kristof and WuDunn live in the New York area with their three children.