Library Book Club
We're highlighting older books that are listed as “must-reads” and are chosen (or resurrected) to celebrate the birthdays of their authors.
Keeping It Reel
This program aired on Nov. 29, 1988, on the PBS series "American Experience." The documentary, directed by Carol Bell, has never been released commercially. I am uploading it here for educational and historical purposes. 2016 marked the 80th anniversary of the 1936 journey that writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans made to Alabama to document the lives of cotton tenant families for Fortune magazine. And 2016 was also the 75th anniversary of the 1941 publication of "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," the book Agee greatly expanded from the material Fortune rejected. While it originally sold only 600 copies, the book found a new audience in the 1960s, during a renewed interest in the works of James Agee (who died in 1955).
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Revisited
1:00 p.m. on November 8, 2025
Location: Wilkes County Public Library, North Wilkesboro, NC
Contact:
Suzanne Manners
336-838-2818 ext 241.
Currently Reading
Join us for a conversation about
James Agee's book,
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Noon - Nov 13 - at Traphill Branch Library
Originally commissioned as a magazine article during the Great Depression, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men evolved into a powerful and unconventional book that blends journalism, poetry, ethnography, and social critique. Author James Agee and photographer Walker Evans set out in 1936 to document the daily lives of three tenant farming families in rural Alabama for Fortune magazine. Instead of producing a straightforward report, they created a deeply introspective and experimental portrait of poverty, dignity, and humanity.
Agee’s prose moves between meticulous detail—describing clothing, houses, tools, and gestures—and lyrical, almost spiritual reflection. Evans’s stark black-and-white photographs open the book, giving the families a silent, enduring presence that words alone could not achieve. Together, their work challenges readers to confront the moral responsibility of seeing and understanding the lives of the poor, not as “subjects,” but as people.
Though largely ignored upon its release, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men has since become a landmark of American documentary literature, admired for its honesty, innovation, and emotional depth.
Books are available at the library for checkout.