Whistling Dixie: Dispatches from the South - Softcover

Reed, John Shelton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156961741 ISBN 13: 9780156961745

Publisher: Mariner Books, 1992

Synopsis

Reed dissects topics both whimsical and important, from university courses for eliminating one's southern accent, to northerners moving south, to the permutations of barbecue, to race....The South is a funny place, he says, now more than ever.

About this title

About the Author:

John Shelton Reed is William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was director of the Howard Odum Institute for Research in Social Science for twelve years and helped to found the university's Center for the Study of the American South. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, did his undergraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University before going to Chapel Hill in 1969. The eighteen books he has written or edited include 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South and (most recently) Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, both written with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed. His articles have appeared in professional and popular periodicals ranging from Science to Southern Living, and he was founding co-editor of the quarterly Southern Cultures.

Review:

"Reed knows his region intimately, probably as well as anyonearound, and manages the impressive feat of regarding it both seriouslyand lightly."  (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post)

"An H. L. Mencken of Dixie. . . . Witty, clever, irreverent. . . . His snappy, sassy comments will tickle your ear."
    (Bruce Clayton, Kansas City Star)

"Wry observations and tongue-in-cheek comments . . . .  Some of them willhave you shaking your head, some will bring a grin, and a few will leave you laughing out loud.  Every one, though, will start you thinking."
    (Southern Living)

"[Reed's] honesty and humor draw the reader in. . . . He provides the front-porch atmosphere of an unsappy Garrison Keillor. . . . And it's refreshing to hear a genuine Southern voice" (Rick Henderson, Reason)
 
"Provocative . . . . instructive and amusing. . . ." (Washington Post Book World)

"Funny and erudite and annoying." (San Francisco Review)

"He's not just whistling Dixie; he's singing four-part harmony." (Greensboro News and Record)

"Humorous, perceptive. . . . His recipe for Vienna sausage sandwiches will turnevery stomach north of Richmond - but otherwise readers will find thiscollection palatable." (Publishers Weekly)

"Good-natured wit and a practiced eye for the ridiculous. . . . Nearly always succeeds insaying something intelligent about even the silliest subject." (Journalof Southern History)

"[He] has chosen a section of the Americanlandscape and plowed it well. . . . He writes with a honeyed sarcasm."(Gary Alan Fine, Sewanee Review)

"A writer this funny is dangerous." (Michael Skube, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Infused with a sociological sensibility. . . hark[s] back to the pioneer daysof sociology when social criticism was acceptable. . . . Students ofsociology should be required to read this book . . . to convince themthat at least one sociologist can write clearly; has a sense of humor;and is not afraid to express opinion." (Choice)

"The work of awitty, clear-minded, well and broadly informed scholar, one blessed with the skill and daring to express himself without ambiguity orobfuscation . . . and an unabashed willingness to express independentjudgment." (Ernest Campbell, Contemporary Sociology)

"Reedstalks his . . . quarries with deft wit, outrageous assertions, and thesingle-mindedness of a pickup truck in search of a road kill. . . . Athoroughly enjoyable volume that will elicit laughter, second thoughts,and brisk discussion." (William Bruce Wheeler, Georgia HistoricalQuarterly)

"Few have contributed more to an understanding of the modern South than has Reed. Whistling Dixie . . . continues thetradition of excellence that characterizes his previous studies."
    (James O. Breedon, Mississippi Quarterly)

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0156961741
• ISBN 13: 9780156961745
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264