In a 40-year labor of love and scholarship, historian William Ferris's The Storied South vividly portrays 26 writers, scholars, musicians, painters, and photographers as they discuss the sense of place and the power of story in their lives, exploring questions about the meaning of art, race, region and history. Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Cleanth Brooks, Pete Seeger and Walker Evans, among others, recount the sacred love of writing and reading instilled in Southern children at a very young age, while blues musician Bobby Rush suggests that story provides the common ground on which two disparate professions stand: preacher and bluesman. Ferris's moving and eloquent book comes with a CD and DVD of his interviews with these storytellers, as well as his photos of each artist. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.