CONTRIBUTED

The Country Bookshop has a full slate of authors visiting the shop this week.

Jeff Bramwell, who co-wrote "Vinoburger" with Jay Murrie, will be on hand to discuss his book at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5.

The book is as much travelogue as it is culinary, and offers recipes authentic to each wine region, presented in the form of America's favorite food: the hamburger.

Bramwell lives in Raleigh.

Tim Johnston will be at The Country Bookshop at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, to sign copies of his book, "Short Story America Anthology Vol I," a book of 56 short stories that resulted from weekly submissions to a website. Johnston is the son of Bob Johnston, of Southern Pines.

A Family Tale

Justin Catanoso pays a return visit to The Country Bookshop Friday, Oct. 7, at 4 p.m. with his book "My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family and Miracles," which is out in paperback.

Perhaps it was a miracle that set two boys, cousins born 80 years apart, on different paths that would one day converge in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

One was Gaetano Catanoso, born in a small town in Calabria, Italy, who decided at age 10 to become a priest. The other was Justin Catanoso, a second-generation Italian-American born in North Wildwood, N.J., who decided to become a journalist.

One became a saint. The other told his story.

In 1902 Gaetano Catanoso began life as a parish priest in the remote mountains of southern Italy where, for almost 60 years, he hiked or rode a donkey to bring the gospel and hope to isolated people in desperate circumstances. Together with the Sisters of St. Veronica of the Holy Face, an order of nuns he founded in 1934, Padre Gaetano established schools, orphanages and homes for the elderly, and ran prison and hospital ministries. Near the end of his life, he raised funds to build a simple church in Calabria with a mother house for his nuns. Their mission has since spread to Tanzania and the Philippines.

In his book Catanoso tells the parallel story of his grandfather Carmelo Catanoso, Padre Gaetano's second cousin, who left the poverty of Calabria to make a new life in America. When he became a U.S. citizen in 1922, he turned his back on his homeland forever. None of the American Catanosos had ever heard of Padre Gaetano until word came that a priest with their last name had been beatified in 1997. Six years later, Justin and his family went to Calabria to meet the relatives lost to him for three generations.

Justin Catanoso was raised in North Wildwood, on the Jersey Shore, where he started his writing career in the late 1970s as a high school sports writer for his hometown weekly. He studied journalism at Penn State, then joined the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., in 1982.

After marrying Laurelyn Dossett two years later and moving to Tennessee, he covered "cops and courts" for the Knoxville Journal, then settled in Greensboro, where he spent 11 years as a reporter for the News & Record.

In 1992, "Burning Issues," his pioneering investigative reporting into fraud in America's tobacco industry, earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination, a Science-in-Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers, and Medical Writer-of-the-Year in North Carolina.

He left daily newspapers in 1998 to become the founding executive editor of The Business Journal, a weekly newspaper covering business and economics in the Triad region. Since 1993 he has taught reporting, writing and news editing as a visiting lecturer at Wake Forest University, where he earned a master's degree in liberal studies.

Catanoso recently accepted a position as the director of the School of Journalism at Wake Forest University.

Catanoso lives in Greensboro with his wife, Laurelyn, an award-winning songwriter and co-founder of the Americana music band Polecat Creek, and their daughters Emilia, Rosalie and Sophia.

War Memories

Col. Bill Richardson was garrison commander at Fort Bragg, but it was his time as a POW in North Korea for 34 months that is the subject of his book, "Valleys of Death," co-written with Kevin Maurer.

Richardson and Maurer will be at The County Bookshop in Southern Pines at 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8, to launch the paperback version of the book.

Richardson's memoir is a gem about the underreported Korean War and chronicles his experiences that began while heading a 57 mm. recoilless rifle unit. Richardson was promoted to master sergeant leading his underfed and undersupplied men to defend the Pusan border.

He lost 57 of his 60 men during one counterattack on Unsan. He sent his other three men to safety and was captured. Richardson became a prisoner of war for three years.

The paperback edition of the memoir will be available at The Country Bookshop on Oct. 4.

Richardson began writing his memoir scribbling on a few pages of a legal pad in 1986, one week after his retirement. He left those pages alone for 20 years before moving forward to share his story.

A master sergeant with the First Cavalry Division in Korea, Richardson was commissioned in January 1957. He spent eight years with the 82nd Airborne Division, commanded the 1st BN 325th Airborne Infantry, and served seven years with Special Forces.

Richardson was an A-Team leader during Operation White Star in Laos, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was educated at the U.S. Army War College, was the 1st and 3rd commander of Project Delta in Vietnam. He commanded the First Corps Support Command and provided the logistical support for 6,000 soldiers who invaded Grenada. A native of Philadelphia, his final command was garrison commander at Fort Bragg.

Kevin Maurer, a reporter for the Wilmington Star News, co-wrote the book with Richardson. Maurer has also co-written "Lions of Kandahar" with Major Rusty Bradley. Maurer spent four years as an embedded journalist for The Fayetteville Observer.

He was there for the first Iraq invasion in 2003 with the 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers and continued to cover those soldiers three more times, including in 2005 for Iraq's constitutional referendum.

He has been in Afghanistan with Special Forces. He was in Afghanistan with 82nd Paratroopers to cover the parliamentary elections.

For information, call The Country Bookshop at (910) 692-3211.