Preview: A Package from Ten Roads Publishing

A recent trip to Gettysburg garnered me a couple of books from Ten Roads Publishing courtesy of co-owner Jim Glessner. Both were penned by Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide John Archer.

Ten Roads has reprinted and updated Archer’s 2002 guidebook Culp’s Hill at Gettysburg: “The Mountains Trembled…” The updates are primarily new photos and maps where necessary to show the ground as it is today – there has been a lot of tree clearing on Culp’s Hill. Also, the perspectives of some photos have been changed. So, even if you have a copy of the 2002 edition, if you’re headed out to the field you may want to pick up this updated version to further enhance the experience.

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The second book (and don’t get too used to seeing novel previews here) is Archer’s After the Rain: A Novel of War and Coming Home. It’s the story of Captain Daniel Spencer, a Pennsylvania Yankee soldier who, having served through Fredericksburg, and damaged physically and mentally, returns to his mountainside home near Gettysburg. Trouble follows, not just in his difficulties readjusting to civilian and family life, bt also in the form of an invading Rebel army. In the wake of the battle there, Daniel sets off to look for his missing sister-in-law in Gettysburg, where he’s forced to face the demons of his past in several forms. Jim told me that Archer’s book was on the shortlist for the 2011 Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. Considering the four other titles on that list were published by Knopf, Viking, HarperCollins, and Random House, I think both Mr. Archer and Ten Roads should be justifiably proud of the Director’s Mention placing of After the Rain.