Charleston Currents

Features

HISTORY: James F. Byrnes, state and national leader

S.C. Encyclopedia | James Francis Byrnes was born in Charleston on May 2, 1882, the son of James Francis Byrnes, an Irish Catholic city clerk, and his Irish Catholic wife, Elizabeth McSweeney. Seven weeks before his birth, Byrnes’s father died of tuberculosis, leaving “Jimmy” to be reared by his widowed mother. She had gone briefly to New York to learn dressmaking in order to support him, his sister, an invalid grandmother, an aunt, and a nephew. In his early teens Byrnes left school to work in a Charleston law office to help support the family.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 11/21/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

REVIEW: Lust & Wonder

Reviewed by Jen McQueen: Even when Augusten Burroughs’s life bores him, his charm and humor tug readers along. While successfully abstaining from alcohol, his ADD flares up and he tries a medication that causes the horrifying (and hilarious) intensification of his sense of smell.

by Charleston Currents · 11/14/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews

HISTORY: “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, governor, U.S. senator

S.C. Encyclopedia | Benjamin Ryan Tillman was born in Edgefield District on August 11, 1847, to Benjamin and Sophia Tillman. The family was wealthy in land and slaves, and Ben Tillman was educated in local schoolhouses and on the family’s acres. A serious illness at the age of sixteen cost him his left eye, and his convalescence kept him out of Confederate service. In 1868 he married Sallie Starke. They had seven children.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 11/14/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

View of U.S. MIlitary Academy in West Point, N.Y., looking north up the Hudson River, 2001. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

BRACK: New “afterlife” novel by Watkins is hard to put down

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Local author Andra Watkins thrills at bringing history alive. She did it earlier this month in a talk at the Charleston County Public Library. And she does it in her new supernatural mystery thriller, Hard to Die.

On Nov. 2, about 30 people gathered at the library to hear what I thought would be a regular author talk by Watkins to help the launch of a new book, which came out the day before. Her talk was anything but regular.

by Andy Brack · 11/14/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Reviews, Views

REVIEW: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up:

Reviewed by Christine Strampp | Has your New Year’s resolution of decluttering your house not been achieved yet? Then “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” might be the book for you. Marie Kondo guides you through the decluttering and organizing of your home, but it is not your usual organizing method. Her method involves surrounding yourself with only items that you love or need. The rest of your “stuff” goes to a donation center or the garbage. It is liberating to let things go that you really did not need or love. When you are done with this process, items that “Spark Joy” will surround you.

by Andy Brack · 11/07/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

HISTORY: 241 years ago: Continental regiments for S.C.

S.C. Encyclopedia | In the aftermath of the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress passed resolutions that created the Continental army in June 1775. Accordingly, a committee addressed the need for maintaining a regular army, and Congress began the task of apportioning quotas to the states. On November 4, 1775, Congress resolved to maintain “at the continental expense” three battalions for the defense of South Carolina. Continental regiments were units authorized for use by the Continental Congress and were distinct from state militia forces.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 11/07/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

FOCUS: Love letter to Charleston

By Derek Berry, special to Charleston Currents

Charleston’s got a spine worthy of worship.
Her teeth are corner-stores, crooked
and jammed. A fluorescent light is buried in her throat
beckoning us down from second-story porches.
She wants us to hold her hand,
to slip into something less comfortable,
a cotton shawl in the sultry shudder of summer night.
There is beauty in how she undresses
us with her humid tongue, how we return
to childlike abandon in her mouth.

by Palmetto Poem · 11/07/2016 · 2 comments · Features, Focus, Palmetto Poem

REVIEW: The Risen

Reviewed by Jim McQueen | In The Risen, a grisly discovery brings back the events of the long-ago summer of 1969, and calls into question what troubled alcoholic Eugene thinks he knows about what happened between his older brother, now a successful surgeon, and Ligeia, the worldly, free-spirited beauty “from off” who captivated them both when they were teenagers.

by Charleston Currents · 10/31/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews

HISTORY: Joseph Alston, governor

Scion of one of the great rice planting families of Georgetown District, Joseph Alston was born ca. 1778, the son of William “King Billy” Alston and Mary Ashe. Educated by private tutors, Alston attended the College of Charleston from 1793 to 1794. In 1795 he entered the junior class of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), but withdrew before graduating. Alston studied law under Edward Rutledge, who predicted a brilliant future for his pupil. Admitted to the bar in 1799, Alston practiced only occasionally, devoting his career to the management of his extensive rice plantations in All Saints Parish, comprising 6,287 acres and 204 slaves.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 10/31/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

REVIEW: Leaving Time

Reviewed by Michel Hammes: If you would like to know more about elephants, but want the information wrapped in a spellbinding mystery with an unexpected plot twist…Leaving Time is a must read.

by Charleston Currents · 10/24/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Reviews