BOOKS
Biscuitville: The Secret Recipe
for Building a Sustainable
Competitive Advantage
by J. Phillips L. Johnston ’ 63 (JD)
Johnston traces the restaurant chain’s
beginnings from its opening in Danville,Va.,
in 1975 to meeting its 1,000th employee.
For Johnston, Biscuitville serves as a model
for growth in a small business with its commitment to employees and community, ethical business practices and “people first”
philosophy. Johnston recalls the Biscuitville
story to illustrate the secret to achieving
“the Holy Grail
sought by all businesses,” a sustainable
competitive advantage. In Johnston’s
coverage of topics
such as branding,
ethics, private ownership and taking
care of employees,
the Biscuitville story
becomes a
case study
of how
companies
can succeed
and restore
trust in
business.
Crisscrossing America: Discovering
America From the Road
by John Gussenhoven ’ 69
The idea was simple: See the country
he barely knew. At 58, Gussenhoven, who
was born to American parents but spent
most of his childhood in Mexico City,
bought his first Harley and traveled 8,500
miles of highways and backcountry roads,
west to east along two intersecting diagonal lines across America. He recorded his
journey in photographs and journals that
describe his encounters and the unexpected generosity he experienced.
Gussenhoven partnered with Jim Wark, an
aerial photographer, who used GPS coordinates to capture Gussenhoven’s path
across the country. The images, journals
and Gussenhoven’s perspective offer a
view of the country shaped by nature and
humans.
Give My Poor Heart Ease:
Voices of the Mississippi Blues
by William Ferris
“Blues and sacred music are joined at
the hip,” Ferris wrote of the root of blues
music. “One blues musician told me that
if a singer wants to cross over from sacred
music to the blues, he simply replaces
‘my God’ with ‘my baby’ and continues
singing the same song.” Ferris, a native
of Mississippi who is the Joel R.
Williamson Eminent Professor of history
and senior associate director of the
Center for the Study of the American
South at UNC, documents the roots of
the blues — from bottle-blowing and
banjo to hymns, spirituals and prison
work chants — in interviews, stories and
performances by African-Americans in
Mississippi.
Hard Work: A Life On
and Off the Court
by Roy Williams ’ 72
with Tim Crothers ’ 86
From Williams’ upbringing in Asheville
to winning two national championships in
five years, Hard Work (available Nov. 3)
tells the story of Williams’ life on and off
the court, from his college years and his
time before becoming a head coach to his
15 seasons as head coach at Kansas and his
years as head coach at UNC. He tells candid stories, describing himself as the most
competitive person on earth and recalling
that he once got into a game of pool with
Michael Jordan ’ 86 that nearly ended in a
fistfight. With a foreword by John
Grisham, Hard Work looks at one of college basketball’s most successful programs
through the eyes of one of its most dominant coaches.
Heart of the Game: Life, Death
and Mercy in Minor League
America
by S.L. Price ’ 83
Two minor league baseball players are
linked by tragedy when an errant foul ball,
hit by infielder Tino Sanchez, struck and
killed Mike Coolbaugh, a career minor
league baseball player and first base coach.
Price traces the two players’ lives, their
hopes and aspirations, disappointments and
their lives and families, leading to Coolbaugh’s death and, afterward, the process of
healing and forgiveness. Price reminds
readers why baseball — with its dreams,
heartaches and triumphs — remains a distinct aspect of American culture. He paints
a more hopeful view of the game amid
coverage of steroids and scandal that have
tainted America’s pastime in recent years.
The Scary Mason-Dixon Line:
African American Writers
and the South
by Trudier Harris
How does geography shape literary
imagination? Harris, who recently retired
as UNC’s J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of
English and comparative literature,
explores why black writers — whether
born in Mississippi, New York or elsewhere — have loved and hated the South
and have felt compelled to confront the
idea of the South. Black writers, Harris
explains, see the South not as a place or
culture, but as a rite of passage. Harris
guides her readers through works by 10
black writers, illustrating how their writings reflect a preoccupation with the
South that cuts across lines of genre and
gender.
