UNC TV's "N.C. Bookwatch" program is airing encore episodes of the program on Sundays at 5 p.m.

Sunday, Jan. 14

At the age of 90, John Hope Franklin remains one of the most admired, influential and relevant historians in the world.

"Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin" is not only a unique and invaluable historical document, but a testament to the courage and determination of one American who throughout the 20th century and in the 21st -- from the first petition he was selected to deliver to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to his appointment as chair of President Clinton's task force (to say nothing of his writing and scholarship) -- has helped redirect the social and political course of our nation.

In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," John Hope Franklin shares his personal legacy and the book that Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Severus Lewis has called "a great historian's autobiography that will serve as an indispensable history of our times."

Sunday, Jan. 21

When Cameron was 15, Sonia was her best friend -- no one could come between them. Now Cameron is a 29-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet.

When an unexpected letter arrives from Sonia 10 years after the incident that ended their friendship, Cameron doesn't reply, despite Oliver's urging. But then he passes away, and Cameron discovers that he has left her with one final task: to track down Sonia and hand-deliver a mysterious package to her. Now without a job, a home, and a purpose, Cameron decides to honor his request, setting off on the road to find this stranger who was once her inseparable other half.

Leah Stewart's "The Myth of You and Me," the story of Cameron and Sonia's friendship -- as intense as any love affair -- and its dramatic demise, captures the universal sense of loss and nostalgia that often lingers after the end of an important relationship.

In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," the Chapel Hill author shares how her searingly honest new novel is a celebration and portrait of a friendship that will appeal to anyone who still feels the absence of that first true friend.

Sunday, Jan. 28

With a mix of his own military knowledge and vivid creativity, Andrew Britton sets his new novel, "The American" in contemporary times, introducing readers to 33-year-old Ryan Kealy, a man who has achieved more in his military and CIA career than most men can dream of in a lifetime, but who has also seen the worst life has to offer and is lucky to have survived it.

Now, living on the coast of Maine, Ryan wants nothing more than to be left to his sporadic teaching and his demons. However, he is soon brought out of retirement when a complicated terrorist plot to assassinate the U.S., French, and Italian presidents by Al-Qaeda, Iranian terrorists, and even Americans out to destroy their own country, is uncovered.

In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," Britton discusses his exciting debut, written at age 21 and crafted in the tradition of the masters -- Ludlum, Forsyth, Clancy, Higgins, le Carre -- but with a completely contemporary, post-9/11 sensibility.

With his first novel published at age 24, this University of North Carolina graduate shares how he hopes to make his mark over the coming decades--shaping the future of contemporary thrillers.

Sunday, Feb. 4

In the third decade of the New Stories from the South series -- the book welcomes a new editor -- Allan Gurganus. In this latest collection, Gurganus combed through hundreds of short stories written in 2005 to assemble a muscular array of talent, 20 stories ranging from low-down, high-octane farce to dark, erotic suspense.

In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," Gurganus spotlights many of the stories from this year's volume that combines seasoned writers like Tony Earley, Wendell Berry, and George Singleton with gifted newcomers, including Keith Lee Morris, Erin Brooks Worley and J. D. Chapman.

Their stories range from a communal love poem for a hunting dog, to a tale of a newly rich retiree trying to micromanage a Hollywood movie and losing his trophy wife to each new young screenwriter, to a harrowing work about a Virginia slave-woman burned alive for witchcraft and many are shared in this special one-on-one interview.

Sunday, Feb. 11

When young Ernal Foster spent his life savings to build a juniper-hulled sportfishing boat in 1937, he gave birth to what would become the multimillion-dollar charter fishing industry on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Today, Ernal's son, Captain Ernie Foster, struggles to keep the family business alive in a time of great change on the Outer Banks. Hatteras Blues is their story -- a story of triumph and loss, of sturdy Calvinist values and pell-mell American progress, and of fate and luck as capricious as the weather.

Within the engaging saga of the rise and decline of one family's livelihood, Tom Carlson relates the high-adrenaline experience of blue-water sportfishing and the precarious early development of Hatteras Village in the heart of "Hurricane Alley."

In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," author Tom Carlson shares how, in recording this truly North Carolina story, the author unexpectedly found himself becoming part of it. Struggling to come to terms with the illness and death of his wife to a degenerative disease, Carlson learns a lesson from the Fosters -- and the townspeople -- in how to prepare for absence and loss, and then how to grieve with some measure of grace and dignity.

Sunday, Feb. 18

For more than a decade now, Bill Smith has presided over the kitchen at Crook's Corner, bringing his instinctive and creative approach to cooking to an ever-growing, always enthusiastic crowd who have come to associate dining at Crook's with good company, great food, and a belief that every meal is a reason for celebration. Bill Smith's recipes are marvelously uncomplicated.

Structured around the seasons and inspired by the abundant local produce, these recipes not only reinvent classics of Southern culinary tradition, but offer up imaginative interpretations of bistro fare.

"Seasoned in the South: captures the flavors of the freshest seasonal foods and the spirit of one of the South's liveliest and most innovative kitchens. In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," Smith shares the traditional and classic Southern fare that has marked the seasoned chef's unique style throughout his culinary career.

Sunday, Feb. 25

Perhaps not southerners in the usual sense, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson each demonstrated a political style and philosophy that helped them influence the South and unite the country in ways that few other presidents have.

Their intimate associations with the South gave these three presidents an empathy toward and acceptance in the region. In urging southerners to jettison outworn folkways,

In this episode of "North Carolina Bookwatch," author and master historian William E. Leuchtenburg combines the vivid biography and political insight of his engrossing study "The White House Looks South" to offer an engaging account of relations between these three presidents and the South, while also tracing how the region came to embrace a national perspective without losing its distinctive sense of place.

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