New Bio of Smokies photog George Masa |
Shakespeare & Co's late, great, founder, Katherine Willoughby, and her hound, Rugby. Katherine owned the bookstore, but Stuart Ferguson created and owns this website. He's now very content to advise on books for The Highland Hiker.
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This relevatory new biography of the photographer called "the Ansel Adams of the East," who devoted the second half of his life to capturing the Southern Appalachians on film, is by Janet McCue (co-author with the late George Ellison of "Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography" which won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award shortly after its release in 2019) and Paul Bonesteel (whose 2002 film "The Mystery of George Masa" rekindled interest in the photographer). In 1929 Masa was hired by Highlands Inn owner Frank Cook to capture the beauty of the plateau.
"George Masa: A Life Reimagined" is an apt title. Its subject, a Japanese photographer whose work was vital to the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, created a "barrier ... between his present and his past" when he arrived in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1915, and much of his life's work has been lost. However, thanks to new research, McCue and Bonesteel have composed an engaging account of the man described as "the Ansel Adams of the Smokies."
NB: While Shakespeare & Co. is in hibernation (we hope it reopens soon), please know The Highland Hiker--in both Cashiers & Highlands--carries the largest retail selection of local and regional books in the area, including hiking guides; books on trees, wildflowers, mushrooms, bears, etc.; titles about Cashiers and Highlands history; and a fine selection on fishing. highlandhiker.com/
Below: David Wilkes points out Stu's new bookselling home
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