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At Dockside: Strom Thurmond's Daughter's Story; A Rollicking Caribbean Adventure

Here is where you will find what's new at St. Thomas' well-known, well-read Dockside Bookshop at Havensight Mall. Every week you will find new titles to peruse. Look for updates of our "picks" for fiction and nonfiction and, at the end of the reviews, a list of new paperback fiction.
STORE HOURS
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Tuesday and Friday: 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Phone: 340-774-4937
E-mail: dockside@islands.vi
"Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond" by Essie Mae Washington-Williams and William Stadiem.
Regan Books, biography, 240 p. $24.95
In "Dear Senator," Essie Mae Washington-Williams — daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond — breaks her lifelong silence and tells the story of her life. Hers is a story seven decades in the making, yet one whose unique historical importance has only recently been revealed. Until the age of 16, Washington-Williams assumed that the aunt and uncle who raised her in Pennsylvania were her parents. The revelation of her true parents' identities was a shock that changed the course of her life. Her father, the longtime senator from South Carolina, was once the nation's leading voice for racial segregation; he ran for president on a segregationist ticket in 1948 and once mounted a 24-hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 — in the name of saving the South from "mongrelization." Her mother was Carrie Butler, a black teenager who worked as a maid on the Thurmond family's South Carolina plantation.
Set against the explosively changing times of the civil rights movement, Washington-Williams's memoir reveals a brave young woman who struggled with the discrepancy between the father she knew — one who was financially generous, supportive of her education, even affectionate — and the old Southern politician, railing against greater racial equality, who refused to acknowledge their relationship in public. She describes what it felt like to face overt racism, especially in the slow-to-change South, despite the fact that her father was the most powerful politician in Dixie. From her richly told narrative emerges a nuanced, fascinating portrait of a father who counseled his daughter about her goals, and supported her in reaching them — but who was ultimately unwilling to break with the values of his Dixiecrat constituents.
With elegance, candor, and spirit, Essie Mae Washington-Williams gives us a chapter of American history as it has never been written before — told in a voice that will be heard and cherished by generations.
"Big Eye Bertha" by B.R. Emrick.
Llumina Press, West Indian literature, 268 pp. $17.95.
Sometimes lazy, sometimes crazy, and always ready for fun, two Caribbean Lagoonies are on the verge of becoming wealthy, but must race a monster hurricane and a band of ruthless smugglers to a tiny island where the Lost Treasure of El Morro is buried.
You'll be dodging coconuts when you set sail with the Lagoonies and experience the horrors and hardships at sea, land, and in the air when Mama Nature shakes things up with an immense hurricane. With a gang of ruthless modern-day pirates, the rage of the French Mafia, and the devil in the form of an ex-wife added to the storm's fury, you'll have a real twister of an adventure.

New Fiction Paperbacks

1. "Carrying Momma's Baggage" by Hope C. Clarke, $14.95
2. "In My Father's Image" by Robert Saunders, $13.00
3. "Illegal Affairs" by Shelia Dansby Harvey , $14.00
4. "Falling" by Natalie Dunbar (Indigo series), $9.95
5. "A Heart's Awakening" by Veronica Parker (Indigo series), $9.95
6. "A Meeting in the Ladies Room" by Anita Doreen Diggs, $15.00
7. "The Choices Men Make" by Dwayne S. Joseph, $13.95
8. "A New Leaf" by Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer (Cape Light, 4), $14.00
9. "Proverbs for the People" edited by Tracy Price-Thompson and TaRessa Stovall, $15.00
10. "Wings of Grace" by Vanessa Davis Griggs, $15.00
We will gladly order any books you want. E-mail us at dockside@islands.vi, or call 340-774-4937.
STORE HOURS
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Tuesday and Friday: 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Phone: 340-774-4937
E-mail: dockside@islands.vi

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