North Carolina’s Only Local Literary Television Series Returns with “A Year in the World”
Francis Mayes Kicks Off the 11th Season of North Carolina Bookwatch,
Friday, July 11, at 9:30 PM

Each year, North Carolina authors publish hundreds of books of all types and for the past ten seasons UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch has brought the best and brightest of these southern scribes to the small screen—shedding light on their works, their lives, and the indelible imprint that the state has left upon them.

And now, North Carolina Bookwatch books even more great writers that ever before when the popular series embarks on its first 26-episode season, premiering Friday, July 11 at 9:30 PM, when Francis Mayes, the New York Times best-selling author of the now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun, presents her latest offering A Year in the World to series host D.G. Martin.

Through A Year in the World Mayes, whose previous travel memoirs memorably captured the experience of life in Italy, expands her horizons to immerse herself in the sights, tastes, and treasures of twelve new special places. With her beloved Tuscany as a home base, Mayes travels to Spain, Portugal, France, the British Isles, and to the Mediterranean world of Turkey, Greece, the South of Italy, and North Africa.

In the premiere episode of North Carolina Bookwatch’ s latest season, Mayes, who divides her time between residences in North Carolina and Cortona, Italy, explains that her expanding worldview stems from an evolving concept of home.

“It was a mysterious process to feel so at home in a country that’s not your own,” says Mayes. “And I started thinking I’d like to go to other places and see if I could be at home there and what it would like, and have that lens to look through.”

Despite any changes in scenery, A Year in the World is vintage Frances Mayes—a celebration of the allure of travel, of serendipitous pleasures found in unlikely locales, of memory woven into the present, and of a joyous sense of quest. An ideal travel companion, the Georgia native brings to the page the curiosity of an intrepid explorer, remarkable insights into the wonder of the everyday, and a compelling narrative style that entertains as it informs.

“I think because I grew up in a small town it made me a traveler…and reading was traveling for me,” says Mayes.  “I’ve always read for the places books take me.”

Frances Mayes is the author of four books about Tuscany. Under the Tuscan Sun—which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and became a Touchstone movie starring Diane Lane—was followed by Bella Tuscany and two illustrated books, In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home. Mayes is also the author of the novel, Swan, six books of poetry, most recently Ex Voto, and The Discovery of Poetry.

Don’t miss DG Martin’s all-new interview with Francis Mayes on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 11, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, July 13, at 5 PM, only on UNC-TV!

During the 26-week season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests will also include:  Frances Mayes (A Year in the World), Rob Christensen (The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics), Robert Morgan (Boone), Eleanora Tate (Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance), Eric Wilson (Against Happiness), Wayne Caldwell (Cataloochee), Theda Perdue (The Cherokee Nation and The Trail of Tears), Bernie Harberts (Too Proud to Ride a Cow), Jean Anderson (A Love Affair with Southern Cooking), Joe Glatthaar (General Lee's Army), Tony Earley (The Blue Star), JD Rhoades (Breaking Cover), Therese Fowler (Souvenir), Cindy Ramsey (Boys of the Battleship North Carolina), Anna Rubino (Queen of the Oil Club), Nancy Peacock (A Broom of One's Own), Louise Hawes (Black Pearls), and Nortin Hadler (Worried Sick).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.