Few Americans will admit to not having read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a classic tale of childhood by Mark Twain, literary icon. And though decades may have passed since readers discovered Twain’s characters, they still can recall vividly the memorable fence-whitewashing scene, the witnessing of a murder by Tom and his friend Huck, the fear of Tom and Becky Thatcher while lost in the cave where the murderer is hiding. Published in 1876, Twain’s depiction of the adventures of childhood—both fantasy and real-life—has become much more than “a book for boys, pure & simple,” as he had planned. The story has survived as a tribute to the innocence of childhood, as a reflection on the pains of growing up, as a recollection of the rural and small-town life of a now-distant past. The Big Read: Alabama Edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer invites all Alabamians, young and old, to rediscover and to revisit this treasure of American literature.

Hank Lazer’s fifteenth book of poetry, Portions, is a “language house a / moving place that / feeds & carries,” a linguistic portioning that addresses how it is “to be”; it is “a way / to see out / to learn of / the world we / miraculous stand upon” (“House,” “Nature”). The book is an “invitation into a / new way of / saying (“Invitation”) that is in keeping with Heidegger’s claim that “language is the house of Being” (On The Way To Language). Portions is a “secret & saving / way through the / world in a thin book” (“Way”).

The French noun "memoir" looks and sounds mysterious and inviting. It’s all but replaced the solid term "autobiography." Yet frequently, the most attention-getting books in this genre present a victim’s viewpoint of a life filled with horrific situations. That is not the case here. Enchanted Evening Barbie and the Second Coming is a testimonial of life as an optimistic, ambitious adventure from a spunky, greatly gifted and disciplined writer. It’s also a paean to a nurturing circle of family, lovers and friends, mentors and colleagues.

Donald Staffo is chairman of the Department of Health and Physical Education at Stillman College and this is his seventh book in the field of sport and physical fitness. Staffo has covered the Alabama football program for more than twenty-five years for local publications and for the Associated Press, and he is undoubtedly knowledgeable. He is also the author of a previous Alabama book, Bama After Bear, that covers the years under Curry and Perkins. Here, I thought, might be a volume that was not a 200-page hallelujah chorus of praise for the wonders of the Alabama football program. And this is to some extent the case.

Talk about the idol with feet of clay: Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard’s character flaws were in proportion to his virtues. The Beitos have painted their portrait of this mesmerizing man without trying to gloss over his flaws.

From the publisher: Edited by Alabama native and Lee scholar Don Noble, this volume brings together some of the very best criticism available on Lee’s timeless classic. Overview essays by Nancy Grisham Anderson and Gurdip Panesar consider the cultural contexts surrounding the novel and the critical reception of Lee’s work. Neil Heims offers a close examination of the novel as wisdom literature while Teresa Godwin Phelps and Thomas L. Shaffer consider the lessons being taught in the novel. Critic Matthew J. Bolton suggests looking at Lee’s novel as an introduction to life in the South with an eye towards understanding Faulkner while Laurie Champion examines the notion of visual perception as a metaphor that is carried throughout the novel.