Bernie Harberts Shares His Book, Too Proud to Ride a Cow
On UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 29, at 9:30 PM

After spending almost five years sailing alone around the world on a journey that began and ended in Oriental, NC, Bernie Harberts arrived home a prisoner of the very independence he’d worked so hard to cultivate. Deciding it was time to let people back in his life, Harberts set out by mule from Oriental to San Diego, California. His new book, Too Proud to Ride a Cow, is the account of Bernie's 13-month, 3,500-mile voyage.

Written to explain why and how he crossed the continent with little more than a twenty-year old mule, a tipi and a camera, Too Proud reveals the America Harberts discovered at his 8-mile per day pace. In addition to 9 maps, the 256-page book contains 93 photographs (47 in color) from Harberts’ voyage.

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin, premiering Friday, August 29, at 9:30 PM, Harberts shares how, armed only with simple curiosity and an uncooperative mule, he discovered that most Americans felt the same way he did—that they were adrift in a sea of isolation. The author and modern-day adventurer illustrates the ways he crossed the everyday divide between isolation and companionship on an American bridge of ranchers, lady poachers and ordinary citizens.

Bernie Harberts other works include Woody and Maggie Walk Across America and 65 Days Alone at Sea. Currently Bernie is traveling from Canada to Mexico in a mule wagon, exploring the fossil remains of the Western Interior Seaway, the shallow inland sea that flooded the Great Plains 75 million years ago. A dulcimer player and summa cum laude graduate of NC State University, Bernie found this of little use in his voyaging. When he's not living in a sailboat, tipi or mule wagon, Bernie resides in Southern Pines, NC.

Don’t miss D.G. Martin’s engaging interview with Bernie Harberts on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, August 29, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, August 31, at 5 PM.

During the 26-week season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests 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), 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.

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